Friday, October 26, 2012

going "au naturel"

I've never been a big makeup or fancy hair person.  Part of the reason being that I simply don't know how to do all that fancy stuff other girls do and I never really knew where to begin.  And yes, I know that practice was something I probably needed and still need.  I didn't own makeup until grade 8, and even when I got some, I didn't get much.  I don't have a straightener or a curler or hair products and these weren't things I saw as necessities.

The other part of the reason was that I didn't want them to be important, and I still don't want them to be.  I don't want to be one of those girls who spends hours getting ready in the morning just to look a certain way.  I don't want to be a girl who hides behind a mask of powder and product.  When I went out and met with people, I wanted to be myself.  I wanted to be au naturel.  This is not to say I don't like wearing makeup.  I do.  I like looking extra nice every now and again, but I don't want to be all dolled-up everyday.

Recently, I used a semi-permanent hair dye to colour my hair for an event with my youth group.  Originally, my hair is a light brown with random blonde-like pieces in it (people have told me both dirty blonde and brown so I'm never sure) (exhibit A).  After dying it, my hair became a much darker purple-red-brown-type colour (exhibit B).  The dye washes out in a supposed 28 washes so I will pretty much have a dyed head until Christmas-ish time.

Exhibit B
Exhibit A
While I do like how the dye looks and I think that it's a nice change, I prefer my natural colour.   I like that the strange dirty-blonde-ness is my own; I like being au naturel.

After dying my hair, I received a lot of comments from my friends saying how it looks so good.  On Facebook I'm pretty sure I have never gotten so many likes for a single picture.  The grand total stands at around 73 and that still shocks me.  As I was visiting some friends last night, I got a few more compliments in person.  Now I'm not trying to brag about how many compliments I received; that's not my point.  My point is that while I'm grateful for these compliments, some of my friends also told me that the dark hair looks better than my natural hair colour.

I don't think they really thought anything of saying that and that they genuinely thought they were being nice, but to me, those comments really hurt.  Maybe I'm stupid for thinking this, but I felt like, in an indirect way, they were saying that how God made me wasn't good enough and that I had to change his design in order to look better.

I don't like that.

I want to be myself.  I do not want to be dependent on man-made products to look a certain way.  I like the way that God made me the best.  That's why I don't go all makeup crazy or do up my hair, too.  I've always been hesitant to dye my hair because of this reason.  And though I like how the darker colour looks, I'll be happy when I'm "me" again.

To me, au naturel is always best.

God Bless,
Rae

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Things people do...

Are not always intelligent.  Do you ever have moments where you see someone do something and you think to yourself, "that was really stupid."  I do.  Now I'm not talking about the stupid stupid kind of actions but more or so the ones that make you shake your head and maybe stare disbelief.  I talk about one such moment in this week's vlog:



Please check it out and let me know what you think!  If you have similar-type moments, feel free to leave a comment about that, too.

That's all for today.

Love you (sometimes) more than pie! ;-)

Rae

Things I've learned about France (or at least Normandy)

Well there we go, my second European country. In some ways, very similar to England (a lot of meat and potatoes, fancy churches, pay toilets...