Beauty 101: Class Syllabus
Welcome to Beauty 101: A Repository Of Everything I found Valuable In Beauty School, And A Lot Of Shit I Was Never Taught, But I’m Reading The Peer Reviewed Studies So You Don’t Have To.
As a licensed esthetician, cosmetologist, and a baccalaureate, I’ve been around the educational block a time or two and have earned myself a fairly well rounded beauty education. If I’ve done the math right (I probably haven’t,) I’ve spent over 4,120 hours in various classrooms learning about beauty. That doesn’t include time spent outside of the classroom, real life experience, ongoing education, or the nights I’ve laid awake trying to figure out why Jennifer Anniston’s hair is so much nicer than, like, everyone else’s. 4,120 classroom hours. I’m not willing to do any more math today, but that number feels like a lot.
Given my approximate 100,000 years of education, I’ve had the pleasure of memorizing, forgetting, and relearning an ungodly amount of information. From the cellular composition of a single strand of hair, to what ingredients will help you counteract the lost years of 2-buck chuck and clove cigarettes (no? just me?), to why you actually do want a chemical compound of animal pee (called “urea”) in your moisturizer, to why 90% of you should throw away that tube of Carmex… the list goes on. I’m really excited to share this information, and I hope you find something useful here. I’m always so honored when people bring me their beauty conundrums, and I’m always so satisfied when I get to put my 168 degrees to use. But to be honest, I get a lot of questions and requests that require a brief cellular anatomy/chemistry/color theory lesson or send me in to a research black hole in order to answer, and a lot of time the people asking those questions are not interested in paying a consultation fee. Which is fine! No one is required to give me money, and I’m not required to answer their questions… but I want to. I just do. I’m a huge fucking nerd and I love school and I love research and I love projects and I love sharing what I know.
However, it isn’t a sustainable business model. So, full disclosure, you’re gonna see some affiliate links peppered throughout this series (when I get savvy enough to figure out how to do that). But I swear on Beyoncé and my Caudalie Vinosource SOS Deep Hydration Serum, I will never recommend a product that I wouldn’t use myself. Obtaining all of this knowledge was a labor of love, and I while I want to share it with you all, if I had a dollar for every time someone asked me “what moisturizer should I use?” I wouldn’t need to use affiliate links.
In Beauty 101: A Repository Of Everything I found Valuable In Beauty School, And A Lot Of Shit I Was Never Taught, But I’m Reading The Peer Reviewed Studies So You Don’t Have To, we’re going to go on a journey that will hopefully empower you to make skincare, makeup, and haircare decisions that are appropriate for your own perception of beauty and the unique needs of your unique body.
I firmly believe that well cared for skin is the foundation of beautiful makeup, and I am a makeup artist, so we will be focusing on skin in Beauty 101. We’re going to start with some of the basics—questions everyone asks me, and that I have answered over, and over, and over, and over again. But you, whoever you are, you sweet baby angel, have probably not asked me these questions, and you’re probably using the wrong moisturizer, so I’m going to answer them again. I hope I can help you feel like a more informed beauty consumer, and a bablier babe.
In Beauty 101 we’re going to cover the fundamentals of skin care. And because I just left Costa Rica, we’re going to start with SPF.
Over the next few weeks we will explore:
Normal vs Combo vs Dry vs Oily skin types
Vitamin C
Vitamin A
The Basic Skincare Trifecta
WTF is Collagen
Why you should, really, seriously, truly, drink more water
AHA vs BHA
and more!
Are there any topics you want me to cover? Burning questions? Things you aren’t willing to pay me for a consultation over? Perfect! This is your opportunity for free advice. Drop ‘em in the comments below.