On Beauty Standards & Hamlet Inspired Self Portraits...

To sleep,
perchance to dream --

Sometimes, I have a hard time feeling like I need to be all these things - youthful, pretty, soft, small. While taking photos the other day, I was trying to project all of that: but after looking at the photos I wanted to cry. I began hyper focusing on the lines under my eyes, how tired I looked, how my body looked.

So I decided to hell with it - I put my hair up, smoked out my cried off eye makeup, and started taking portraits - only this time, instead of worrying about looking pretty, I decided to try to look annoyed, confident, bored, smug… Slowly, I realized I was trying to emulate a bit of a Shakespearean hero - think Romeo’s bravado or Hamlet’s weariness.

Looking at these photos, I definitely didn’t want to cry. I still saw the eye bags, all the flaws I hyper fixate on - but I also saw somebody who was confident not in spite of, but because of - and it made all the difference ♥️

Makeup Used:
For deeper shadows under the eye: grey eyeshadow
Too Faced Baby Love Blush
MAC Boldly Bare Lip Liner *
Sephora Always Red Liquid Lipstick (for the lip print)

Refreshing My Pink Hair with evo

So excited to share my hair transformation using evo Hair with you all! Wanting to try something new, I went for a rich, cool toned pink using a custom mix of their Staino professional customizable direct dyes in Fuchsia, Flame, and Clear (my friend Dori says it looks like raspberry sorbet)! I also wanted to get you guys involved in the fun, so I’m giving away evo Hair’s Fabuloso, their color boosting treatment over on my instagram! Have you ever colored your hair a bright color before?

This post is made in collaboration with evo Hair. All opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that make Mermaidens possible!