Hello everyone and happy Saturday!!!!

It’s been about 2 weeks now since I’ve launched Beyond the Swatch and I wanted to take a step back and reflect on everything that’s happened so far!

First off, if you’re reading this right now, THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for being here!!  I’ve received so many encouraging and kind words from friends, family and new bloggers that I’ve met!  Please know that I take every suggestion or request for a blog post to heart and will do my absolute best to incorporate all of your feedback! This blog is just as much about all of you fellow make up enthusiasts as it is about me! Thank you so much for all of your support <3

The last couple weeks have been extremely hectic for me between work and balancing some tough family situations, but I’ve been able to sneak in some makeup swatching in between it all. 

I will do my best to write blog posts on a more frequent basis-I promise! When I’m not posting, please know that ideas for new blog posts and ways to improve Beyond the Swatch for all of you is on my mind literally 24 hours a day!

So if you see me posting something on Instagram or Facebook or responding to any of your comments, chances are I’m utilizing the 2 minute walk from my car to my desk at work or while my coffee is brewing in the morning or while I’m pumping gas, or in line to buy food, or literally any little gap of time that I have to myself 😉 

If you would like daily updates of my makeup and blogging journey, please follow my Instagram account!  @Beyondtheswatch

You’ll find previews for upcoming posts, my new makeup finds, recommendations, swatches and re-posts from other bloggers and makeup artists!

I’ll leave you today with a little preview of my Instagram posts for far! Until next time…

Love,

Aly Mae

In the early stages of my blog, when I was going around telling all my close friends and family about my idea, my friend sent me this picture that she found on Twitter.  This picture completely encompasses my motivation behind wanting to start this blog and the reason why I’ve become obsessed with playing around with makeup shades on different skin tones and all the different ways that affect how a shade looks!

This overall need for cosmetics companies to embrace the diversity of their customers (such as providing swatches to be shown in all different types of skin tones) will be a huge topic of discussion throughout my blog.

There’s still a lot of progress to be made on this topic but here are some examples of the ways cosmetics companies are embracing the diversity of their customers!

Here are some examples of the ways cosmetics companies are embracing the diversity of their customers:

1. Cosmetics companies such as Color Pop and Lime Crime are showing their makeup shades swatched on different skin tones:

Picture credit: colourpop.com and @limcrime instagram

2) Sephora developed an app where the user can upload a selfie of themselves and virtually try on different Sephora lipstick shades to see how they look on their face and skin tone.

http://www.sephoravirtualartist.com/

3) L’Oreal is using technology and science to embrace diversity and create foundation shades for all skin tones

L’Oreal also used technology to develop the app “Makeup Genius” that allows the users to try on makeup shades in realtime

4) Cosmetic companies like IMAN create cosmetics and skincare products designed for women with darker skin tones

www.imancosmetics.com/

These are only a few examples of how cosmetic companies are working on fulfilling a need for us, the consumers, to show how the color of a make up shade changes depending on the skin tone of the person wearing it!

Now I want to hear from you!

What you do wish companies would do to embrace the diversity of their customers?

Do you know of any companies that are doing a great job in catering to their diverse clientele?

Let me know by commenting below!

I wanted to dedicate this post to my mom! Here she is, isn’t she beautiful?? —->

I’m dedicating this post to her for a few different reasons:

1- Not only was it mother’s day this past weekend, but it was also my mom’s 27th mom-iversary!  It’s been 27 years since she became a mom after having her first child, (yours truly).

2- She is the reason I have a makeup obsession.  I still remember when I was 5 years old and I chose a plastic pretend makeup kit from the toy store to give fake makeovers. My mom beamed with pride and told my dad “anak siya talaga ni mommy” which is loosely translated as “she really is her mother’s daughter”. 

3-She’s been a HUGE part of this blog- from my being my inspiration, listening to all my ideas, and simply just being a source of motivation and encouragement whenever I needed it. There’s not an aspect to this blog that I didn’t get run by her first!

For these reasons, and many more, it only seems fitting to have one of my first blog posts be about her!

While I’m a self proclaimed make up enthusiast… my mom is the the makeup CONNOISSEUR. She’s my absolute go to person whenever I need advice on makeup. Her collection is extensive and her knowledge is endless.

Here are some pictures of my mom’s make up collection!—–>

Complete with a planned out make up schedule, lined up according to what makeup she’s going to wear to match her planned outfits for the week, and a list of her inventory to keep track of what she buys and a notebook filled with lists of makeup she wants to try.

Someday when I’ve matured past storing all my make up in my Olaf backpack and in colored buckets I bought from the dollar section at Target, I hope to have my collection organized like she does.

My mom very generously hands down a lot of her makeup to me and because of our different skin tones, the makeup shades look a little different on me than on her.  My mom is shade NC35 in Mac foundations and I am NC42.

I’ve received a lot, I mean, A LOT of make up from my mom. One of the biggest reasons she ends up donating her make up to me is because the shade she chose wasn’t what she expected or she didn’t like how it looked on her skin tone.

Here is a perfect example!  My mom bought these gorgeous lipstick queen lipsticks in shades Trance and Saint Nude because she saw one of her favorite celebrities wearing them.  When she finally tried on the shades, she found that the colors didn’t look like the same on her skin tone. She said that these shades blended in with her natural lip color and therefore looked like she wasn’t wearing any lipstick at all.

Here is how these lipsticks looked swatched on me and my mom!

Saint Nude (top) looked orangey brown in the package and light rosy pink on swatched on our arms. It took a few swatches to get the color to show up.

In the package, Trance (bottom) looked like a glittery mauvey red and when swatched on our arms, it looked orangey brownish.

Surprisingly, our arms looked like pretty close in shade when we put them next to each other, even though I have a noticeably darker complexion.  This made the lipsticks look like pretty similar shades when swatched on our arms but looked different when applied on our lips.

Saint Nude

Once applied on our lips, Saint Nude had a slightly pink tint on my lips and looked very natural on my mom. But overall, this lipstick shade looked pretty similar on both of our skin tones.

Trance

Trance had a much more drastic difference when applied on both of us.

This lipstick still looked pretty natural on my mom just like Saint Nude did but it looked like a brighter sparkly pink when applied on my lips.

This is the first of many blog posts where I’ll be featuring a friend, family member, and swatching makeup on the both of us to compare how different they look on our skintones! Stayed tuned for more!

Love,

Aly Mae!