Happy hump day, folks!
I’ve been talking about increasing engagement on your blog and social media lately so instead of going on and on about it again today, I thought I’d write on a more light-hearted and easier-to-read topic (engagement bit will come again next week. Booyah!) given that the weather was quite miserable here in Melbourne.
Last week, I met up with a PR I worked with and she asked if I blogged about perfumes and if I reviewed them. Now if you’ve been a long time follower of Beautyholics Anonymous, you’ll find that I rarely mention perfumes here. Even when I do write about fragrances, it will not be a review.
That question got me thinking. Is there a particular topic or two that you will not blog about?
For me, that’s easy and I’ve already answered that question. It’s not that I don’t want to review fragrances; I just don’t know how to. I can tell you what a lipstick looks like. I can tell you how it feels on the lips. I can give you a somewhat accurate colour description. But when it comes to fragrances, I can’t tell you what it smells like.
Sure, I can Google the top, middle and base notes for the fragrance but overall, I can only tell you whether it’s nice or not. Like taste, smell is incredibly subjective. My version of floral may not be your version of floral. What I love may be what you really dislike. After reading a lot of reviews on perfumes, I concluded that I dislike most of what’s out there and like what’s generally disliked. Weird, right? Plus, you won’t enjoy me reviewing fragrances. “Nice”. “Not nice”. “Stinko de mayo”. “Pffft”. Yeah, not bloody likely. 😛
Having said that, I do like writing about fragrances on the whole and the experiences I have with them. I’m saving a story to tell you about my childhood with perfumes for another day. 🙂
I know of bloggers who wouldn’t write about their children. I know of bloggers who would only show you the bottom half of their faces. There’s nothing wrong about that. After all, if all the blogs in the world are the same and follow just one format, how boring would that be, eh?
I guess I wouldn’t blog about health issues (unless it would help someone) or relationship stuff .. and I like to keep my political opinions to myself .. lol.
I don’t enjoy reading blogs about people’s children .. unless those children are dogs 🙂
Oddly enough .. I haven’t written a blog post about perfume either .. I like perfume, but .. I don’t buy a lot of it and I tend to stick with the low end fragrance lines or body spritz. I despise when I get into an elevator and some ladies perfume is choking me. 😛
Monica
MonicaP recently posted..White pants for Easter
Hahahaha I love reading about other people’s furkids too! Have you checked out that fashion blog, Love Maegan (I think that’s what it is)? She recently had 2 Frenchie pups join her family of pug. SO CUTE!!!
Oh yeah, I agree. Topics like politics and religion are best not blogged. Such big cans of worms!
Hehe, I can’t write about perfume either! I’m terrible at identifying scents – even to the point where I can’t tell if something smells good or bad unless it’s at either extreme. All the nail polish fumes must have screwed up my smelling sense!
Rose recently posted..Glam Polish Heart of Darkness Collection – Swatches & Review
Hahahaha! You’ll need to keep lots of coffee beans with you then! 😉
I don’t blog about perfumes in the sense of a review but if I like a perfume (or if I don’t) I like telling a story about it. I think that suits me more because I don’t have much of a nose for perfumes. From a beauty standpoint, I don’t generally do nails or hair stuff or a lot of mascara (I’ve stopped wearing it) I don’t like blogging about personal matters although I won’t slag anyone for blogging it and I don’t otherwise indulge in TMI topics unless absolutely necessary from a health point. Didn’t realise I was this picky LOL
Paris B recently posted..By Terry Cellularose Blush Glace is like a whisper of luxurious Rose Melba on your skin
Hahaha hmm don’t think I’ve ever read any TMI blog posts from you before. Darn. Would have made really good reading! 😛
I’m currently struggling with this one myself – our blog is all about migrating to Australia and was primarily for our families to keep up with what we were doing as well as help out anyone else moving here from the UK, and now we have settled down (we spent our first 18 moths here traveling, hence our second blog, Sharkaroo) we are getting to know lots of ‘boring’ bits of everyday life you really have no idea about when you first move to a country.
We just went through a pretty big learning experience of the medical system, and I’m trying to think if I should share it or not – not because I mind people knowing about what was wrong with me (I had a miscarriage at 10 weeks, after we finally managed to get pregnant with our first), but because I know other people feel weird and uncomfortable about the issue. I think ultimately I will post about it though, because a) one of the most upsetting things about it was the fact that no-one talks about it, so if I don’t, I’m just sort of perpetuating that and b) it was really interesting to see Medicare medical systems and how things work here, and as a reader if I knew about that it would have been helpful, no matter what the specific reason.
But perfume? Other than some pretty pictures of the bottle and talking about that, unless they invent smelly internet, I totally agree its massively hard to blog about. I guess you could get a selection of other people’s reactions to it on you, but tbh, seeing as perfume smells differently on different people, not even that would be much help – what it smells like on you might be *completely* different than on me. But you can still talk about the pretty (or not!) bottle 😛 lol
Hilary recently posted..Life got busy…..Work update
Thanks for sharing your story, Hilary, and I’m so sorry to hear about your miscarriage. I know what you mean; not many people are okay with reading topics like that. I guess that’s why I’m finding it hard to share my health issues on the blog too. Maybe one day but not now. If you want to write about it, I say you go ahead and write about it. There will be people who’d want to read it, this I can be certain of. 🙂 x
Funny that you should bring up perfume! I was sent 4 natural fragrance samples to review about 6 weeks ago, along with a soap and body butter sample. I will have no trouble with the soap and body butter, but I am just stuck on those darn scents. They are not “famous” manufactured scents so I can’t figure out the top, bottom and mid notes. For most of them, I can’t even come up with what they smell like. I am stumped and I feel terrible about it. I think I must make myself do it and write about the benefits of natural ingredients (even tho’ the downside is that the scents do not last at all, not even an hour). There, you got me started, ha ha! Other than that, I don’t write about serious health issues, relationships or politics. Just the fun stuff!
Allison recently posted..Travalo Refillable Travel Perfume Spray
Gah, how difficult it is to write about fragrances, especially when you don’t even know what the top, middle and base notes are! I’d be completely stumped, that’s for sure. “Erm, it smells like coconut but not really coconut, maybe a bit nutty?” Who on earth would want to read a post like that, which I’m sure is how I would describe a fragrance? 😛
I think unless you’re a personal or political blogger, best to stay away from topics like politics and religion. Blogs, I say, are like dinner conversation. You wouldn’t want to talk about politics and religion during dinner, so why talk about it in a blog?
Hmm…I guess politics and some of my real thoughts…let’s just say my blog is a more P.C version of the real me. It’s still me but the me I’d rather show. Oh and I KNOW I won’t be showing my body – naked – even if it’s done in a “tasteful” way on my blog. No thanks. I’ve got kids, they’ve got friends and well, I’m about to go into an industry where I need to show some decency and be VERY professional so naturally no full frontal bikini shot either.
Norlin recently posted..Health & Lifestyle: Quantity Vs Quality Exercise
Hahahaha why do I have a feeling I know what you’re talking about when you mentioned not showing your naked body on your blog? 😛 😛 😛
I recently faced my fears and posted all about my struggle with problem skin (photo and all, agh!). Never in a million years did I think I would do it, but I felt it was relevant to the beauty theme.
As for my kids though, I’ve decided writing all about them is just not the way to go. For me, that is. Family travel photos and little snippets here and there, sure, but that’s probably it. I’m not personally interesting in following families/kids on the internet, and my biggest fear is that something shared will backfire. I’ve seen it happen on GOMI (Get Off My Internets). I’m actually a fan of GOMI, but sure would hate to end up on there!
Kaye recently posted..MY ACNE STORY – THE 14 YEAR TRUTH ABOUT MY SKIN
Had to reply to this (didn’t know whether to do it here or on your blog, but thought you might be more likely to see it here? Don’t know, sorry!) – a) you are STUNNING, with or without acne – seriously, you look so ‘put together’ (its the brows) and you have great unlined skin – something which is the tiny bit of silver lining with our skin type and b) have you tried Paula’s Choice skin stuff?
I’m 34 (35 in a couple of weeks) and have terrible skin still – my mother still has terrible skin at 65 (but has the unwrinkled skin of a 30/40 year old despite not believing in SPF and living in Spain) so I am guessing I always will, and have spent literally thousands upon thousands of dollars/pounds on my skin trying to find the miracle cure. The best I’ve found so far is Paula’s Choice. I have tried pretty much everything other than Roaccutane (as I heard of too many people committing suicide on it, and just didn’t want to go there) from supermarket stuff to seriously invasive medical and surgical procedures, and nothing worked, including the pill unfortunately for me, but this has had the best effect.
If you were helped by the pill though, its massively likely its more hormonal than anything else, and taking Vitex can help massively with that too (something I started taking in a desperate attempt to get pregnant, but had the happy happy side effect of massively improved skin instantly!).
So basically, try out the Paula’s Choice stuff (its very different from 99.9% of the stuff on the market as its so gentle without alcohol in it, but with the acids and stuff that will clear out the muck), and try Vitex for a bit and see if it helps at all.
I know how low my skin has made me feel as an adult, literally sobbing for hours on end (stupid I know, but you probably also know how crippling it is, more so as supposedly a fully grown adult) so if I can help anyone else out with acne at all, I’ll try.
Anyway, good luck! 🙂
Hilary recently posted..Life got busy…..Work update
You looked pretty damn good for someone who struggled with skin problems. You sure you weren’t pulling our leg there? 😛 Seriously though, that was a fantastic post and I thank you for sharing your story with us. 🙂
My blog once ended up on a site like GOMI once. Well, not this blog but my old now-defunct personal blog. They tore my blog to shreds. I almost stopped blogging altogether back then because of it. Sigh.
Hmmm.. Interesting one. I would say it would be personal matters, because I don’t believe in putting your whole life out there on the blog. I know many bloggers who do so, and it takes a whole lot of courage and thick skin to do it I guess. Eg: Xia Xue? 😛 Although I do talk about personal matters once in a while, its a rarity in itself.
Beauty wise, perfumes are something subjective, but if I like a perfume, I’ll make it a point to tell my readers about it. I dont do and hair much either, it doesnt attract me as much, haha… Also cant blog about food,they end in my stomach faster than I can take a picture of em! Fashion posts? I love clothes as much as the next girl, but I’m far from being a fashionista. I blog in sweatpants, so that tells you alot about me =P
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Hahahaha Xiaxue is a whole different kettle of fish, that one. Takes personal into a new level. 😛
PS: High five for blogging in sweatpants. Seriously, why blog in tight uncomfortable clothes when you can be free and easy? Kekekeke!
Probably illness or surgery or that kind of stuff- too Debbie Downer! While I blog about healthy eating, keeping fit etc I’d never blog about weight loss/weight/etc can of worms I don’t want to open plus I’m so afraid if it didn’t translate as positive message re weight/health etc.
Perfumes are tough………
I think the issue about weight loss has become so PC that we often forget that some level of weight loss is good for our health, within acceptable levels, of course. I’d love to lose at least 5kg, not only because I want to look and feel better (will be lying if that isn’t a part of the reason) but I have a family history of diabetes. I need to keep my weight and sugar levels in check. When I’m lighter, I’d be able to move quicker without huffing and puffing. But yeah I know what you mean. It can definitely open a can of worms there.