drift away on blue waves: #motd

Currently, it’s raining outside. A soft, pitter-pattery kind of rain that is immensely conducive to sleeping and snuggling puppies.. but alas, I’m doing neither. Instead, I wanted to share this look that I created last Wednesday using one of my favorite “quick and dirty yet abstract AF” techniques. 

Last Wednesday, Mr. Chaos and I were gifted tickets to the BalletX Spring 2019 Premiere. It was a marvelous three-piece performance, and I am always so happy when we can go. If you happen to live around Philly and enjoy modern dance, I highly recommend trying to catch a show because it’s terrific. 

I wanted to fancy up my face a little bit… at least more so than my usual “going out and looking professional” face. The only downside to doing something fancy was that I was pressed for time… GO GO GADGET ABSTRACT GOODNESS!

The only downside to this look is that my eyes were fatigued that day and a little on the dry side. With that, they look a bit textured – part of that is my eyes, and the other is that I didn’t thin out the AquaXL paints enough before applying them. 

I am planning on doing a green version of this look for you – tutorial included – later this week, in anticipation of St. Patrick’s Day. I love how organic these eyes came out looking. Aside from a few color blobs that I added and a vein of silver here and there – these eyes did their own thing, and I am here for it. 

They say that folks with brown eyes should wear blue more often because it will bring out the warmer tones in those chocolaty brown eye holes. Personally, unless I’m doing something artsy or dramatic, I am not drawn to using blues. I have some green rings in my eyes, and when I wear blue on my eyelids, I feel like it tones everything down. Now, give me a purple, orange, or yellow and I’m all for it… but blues are a little meh to me. 

What do you think about blue eyeshadow/tones on brown eyes?

In a continuing attempt to be more open with you guys, below is a rant. If you don’t like rants – then feel free to skip the rest of this blog post – but if you don’t mind reading a little chaos rant about being a social media content creator and the tireless struggles that come along with it – mainly on Instagram… then continue at your peril. 

—–RANDOM (frustrated) RANT—–

When coming out of a not-so-great mental rut like I was in February, one thing that I’ve been struggling with is my engagement across social media. I’ve been posting – consistently – for the last week or so and it seems like nothing I do is getting seen or anything. It’s a bummer, especially when you’re trying to be the best little beauty blogger that you can be.

If I post, my numbers go down.
If I don’t post, my numbers go down.
If I upload to my IG Stories, either nobody sees it – or folks unfollow me.
And across the board, there is no consistency as far as engagement goes.
I post at consistent times … and non-consistent times.
I look at my metrics to see when the best time to engage with folks is…AND NOTHING CHANGES.
Instagram must hate small creators something awful.
… it is maddening. Truly.

I’ve been doing this whole “social media thing” for almost the last five years. FIVE YEARS. In that time, I haven’t even made it to five thousand followers on Instagram, and now I have fewer followers and engagement than I did back in late 2016. I’m posting better content, more consistent material, CONTENT THAT I AM PROUD OF – and yet I can’t seem to find my footing.

I am a spoonie. I’m disabled. My health is something that I have to deal with daily and the stupid side-effects of being someone with multiple chronic illnesses is that I can not have a typical job. For the time being, being a content creator is the only thing that I can do that will keep me focused and busy. I like the flexible schedule and interacting with you guys.

But it’s tough to stay motivated when I feel like (aside from a small few of you) NOBODY likes the stuff I’m putting out there. I feel like I’m being overlooked by brands because there are just so many (and much more talented) creators out there. I’m trying to come up with unique looks – because I HATE copying already done things. I can’t crank out makeup looks and tutorials every day because my health won’t allow it. To be an adequate beauty blogger, it’s expected of you to buy the newest hottest makeup and skincare items – and review them. That’s straight up ridiculous, and I don’t have the millions of dollars needed to do that since I’m not on more than one or two PR lists.

One of the more frustrating things is that when I look to my peers and their content, I see the same looks, the same cut creases or smokey eyes going on and they’re getting THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of likes or better engagement than I am getting.

I’m trying my damnedest, but it’s times like these where I feel like it’s not enough. I feel like I’m just treading water barely keeping my head above the waves. I keep thinking, “HEY! Maybe I’ll catch a break, and somebody will share my work, and then things will be all better…” or “maybe this brand will finally notice me…” or even “maybe folks will see the stuff I put out there.”

I hate bitching about metrics and numbers. I know in my heart of hearts that numbers don’t matter — and yet, in the realm of content creation – they kinda do. I feel like every time I start to think about numbers or even when I post on IG – it gets me down because most of the time, the numbers are SHITE. For example, just now (well as of 6 am when I’m writing this) I got a notification that “my post is doing 80% better than my other posts.” Wanna know what 80% better means? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. That photo had (as of that moment) 48 likes, four comments (2 of which were spambot), only 276 accounts reached – and of those 276, only 5% were from folks that followed me.

Those “your post is doing X% better than your previous posts” is just a way to trick you into paying Instagram (visa-vi Facebook) to promote your posts.

If you are a fellow content creator, have you found anything that helps? Leave your suggestions and helpful bits in the comments or message me via DM. I’m open to suggestions as long as it’s not selling my soul to Barbara Streisand in exchange for higher engagement. 

Now, with all this ranting – I will say that I am slowly gaining things over on YouTube – but I’m nowhere near where I thought I would be two years ago. I still can’t monetize my videos; folks rarely see my videos – even if they’re subscribed… and unless I do something clickbaity (which, I’m not going to do), folks don’t want to see my videos. But hopefully, slowly and surely, I’ll make it to one-thousand subscribers this year. Hopefully. /sigh. 

I appreciate those of you who do take the time to check out my work, leave a comment, and share it with your friends. I also am so thankful for my lovely Patreon patrons who remind me that my content is somewhat interesting. One of the reasons why I started my Patreon is so I could give a little something more to those folks out there who like my work enough to support me – financially. I hope I can continue to make it worth their time. 

Whelp, you made it to the end of the rant AND the end of this post! I am going to hop off of here, now that I’ve kinda put my brain into a funk with all that ranting. Time for some meditation while listening to the rain. /deep breath.

I hope you have an amazing Sunday and keep an eye out for some SUPER GREEN looks coming your way this week.

-j.