To blog or not to blog

Read this first...

I'm sure a lot of the fellow beauty bloggers have already voiced their opinions about this controversial article posted by New York Times. However, from a new blogger point of view, I feel like NYT really is just catching the head birds of the forest, while ignoring that there are many many many beauty bloggers out there who do not get free samples and still blogs about the latest, all at their own expense. I don't know about you, but to me, those are the real bloggers.

My first encounter with beauty blogs started late 2006. I was working at my first full time job and lord knows when you just start, nobody notices you even exist and forget you all alone in your little cube. That's when I started reading Glam.com blogs. I was blown away at how fabulous these girls are! Wow, I knew I liked beauty products, but these girls are just over the top glam and girly. I loved it! allaboutthebeauty, makeupbag and themakeupgirl were my first obsessions.

I started to feel OK about my addiction to beauty products. I never knew there are people just like me out there! Then somehow I came across RougeDeluxe when someone mentioned the Inuind (sp?) brand by Dick Page and how it was the 8th wonder of the world and disappeared in the dark dark space. Then she led me to believe that I was right when I told everyone of my friend that Japanese beauty brands are the best for Asian skin. Despite the face that they are expensive and hard to get, we are Asian, therefore, we should use products geared towards Asian skin. Then I met THE MUSE. Oh my god, is she a ball of fire coming at cha. She's always armed with the newest, cutest, and the most exclusive product on the block of Tokyo. She'd tease us with all the shimmer and glitters and make us bite our bottom lips when we find out we can't buy it in the US.

THEN..... comes the Nov. of 2007. I was looking through my xanga site and how it documented my life from 2002 to 2006, then it all ended when my battle with panick disorder took over my life. I wish I could have continued with my xanga, but it wasn't worth at that time. Most people stopped writing and everybody started using The Face Book, which is not solely used for blogging.

cuttibebe.blogspot.com is only 3 months old but it's one of the best things I've ever done for myself. I could already tell that by reading blogs, writing blogs and communicate with my fellow bloggers. I am more engaged in life. I am more in sync with the world. By reading everyone's life, the ups and downs, it made me feel ok that I am blue at times too. I didn't feel lonely anymore and felt that all of my fellow bloggers are my real friends.

With that said, my knowledge of beauty products is so much in depth than before. I learned that not everyone likes sticky lipgloss and that not liking a new product is ok, even when everyone's raving about Cetaphil's lotion, it's ok that I hated it and felt betrayed by the reviews on MUA. The path to flawless skin and beautiful makeup is a long road journey filled with trials and errors. And I am glad I've got company on the road to castle filled with beauty secrets.

I don't think most of us get free samples by blogging. Maybe the ones in Beauty Blog Network, but not us average blogging -for-fun type of people. Most of us drive to 5 different CVS's in the middle of the night looking for the new H.I.P paint, go home, swatch all of MAC paint and compare it to the H.I.P ones. Most of us plow through the internet and find the hidden promo code, so we all can get a silver clutch filled with samples when spend $50 on sephora.com. Most of us just do it so that we all can be educated with the product without spending the extra dime, and simply help out the girl next to us find the best mascara that's clump free and keeps the curls, OR just for pure joy, splash our newest loot from MAC across the table and take a picture of it, so you can see the color with flash, without flash, in day light and indirect lighting.

DO WE GET PAID FOR THIS? NO. DO WE GET PARIS TRIPS FOR THIS? NO. DO WE CARE? HELLS TO THE NO. All we care is that our readers are thankful for our effort and look to us for answers when they can't get the Angel on Bare Skin scrub to mix (MUSE know this one). As a reader of beauty blogs, I am more thankful than ever to have finally find the real blog without the pefect promo pic of the newest product by Lancome. As a blogger, I am grateful for my readers to just stop by and say hi and that they like my blog. These, to me, are the greatest joy in the world.

Thank you for reading.. my fingers are so tired.. I need to go get my lunch now..

Ciao~