Hello. I’ve been meaning to make a comeback on this little slice of the Internet for a while now, but I think I kept getting stuck on the why. It made little sense to resurrect a space that was dedicated to makeup and beauty when I had slowly been, in a way, weaning myself off of it over the last couple of years. Which isn’t to say that I’ve stopped consuming or using beauty-adjacent products… I’ve just reined in the monster, so to speak.

I moved to London to pursue a masters degree in late 2017, bringing along some key items, with full intention on moving back home once the programme finished in 2019. Well, I’m still here, and the collection I’ve amassed is back home in Manila. At some point, I did a “big” clear out, and I intended to bring some more of them back here, but I haven’t been able to leave the U.K. since late 2019.

Anyway, my point is, I have so much crap and I can’t use them. Which is sad, but probably inevitable, given the amount that I’ve amassed. A big part of why I’d dropped off the face of the beauty blogging world is because I just kept buying shit and eventually, it made me feel gross. Even if COVID—19 didn’t happen, I wouldn’t have been able to work through most of that stuff anyway.

But, I sat down on my desk this morning — fully procrastinating on another project I should be working on — and thought that surely there is a place in the beauty blogging world that didn’t entail doing five million product reviews a week. And it should have been obvious to me, because they’re the kinds of blogs I like reading anyway. Big duh.

So, here I am, crawling back into your lives (if anybody else is still tuned in). To be honest, I’ve been keeping it pretty boring with neutrals because I have a pretty labour-intensive 9-to-6 (!) job, and I just can’t be bothered most days. It’s partly a comfort thing, too, I guess. I know now what looks best on me (after 32 years alive, and 9 years of trying!) but I think I’d like to have fun again.

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My friend Gabbie looked into how the pandemic changed our beauty routines, and ultimately, our attitude towards it. I was one of the people she asked (which ? omg!) and it led me to think about what I actually stopped doing and missed. Anyway, I missed having fun with makeup. I missed playing. It’s obviously the least of my (our?) worries, and it shows, as it’s fallen by the wayside and just laid there for five years. But, you know, it’s nice to find pockets of joy where you can.

I remember how diving into beauty helped me cope with an overwhelming anxiety and sadness I had. It sounds made up, I know, but setting up this blog gave me something to do and focus on, and I think that for the time I was most active on here, that was when it was helping me not lose it all entirely.

So, again, hello. I hope I stick around for longer now. I hope you do it with me, too.