Friday, August 9, 2013

Behind the Scenes of a Beauty Blog

Being a beauty blogger - no matter how popular your blog is or how regularly you post - isn't easy. The time and effort that it takes to make a post is actually a considerable amount more than people tend to realise. In addition to that are the comments, emails (if you are lucky enough to be approached by PR), social media sites, coming up with potential post ideas, and trialling products. It's incredibly enjoyable, but it's not easy.

This is what my Saturdays tend to look like.

As I have been at school all week, Saturday is when I can bust out with the nail polish and the makeup I have been unable to wear all week. I'll be sitting there in my trackies and slippers, my hair in a messy bun but with a perfectly applied, full face of makeup. Well when else do you think I get the opportunity to trial products for reviews?!

I tend to write about 3-6 posts on the weekend to be spread out over the week, because it is the only time I get to do so. I sit in my little room at my little desk drinking hot chocolate and stalking other people's blogs, commenting, emailing bloggers for my Behind the Blog series and thinking up creative post ideas.

And then, you are sitting there typing away at about 6 blog posts at any given time, and you are temporarily blinded by a ray of sunshine powering through your window. And then the mad dash begins.

You leap up from your chair and proceed to accidentally clear your desk of about ten nail polishes, one half opened that catapults across the room and splashes all over the floor. You don't have time for this! You fling open your wardrobe and madly propell shoes behind you, most of which land on the bed, until you find a suitable pair to keep you dry as you traipse across the overgrown, soaking wet lawn that hasn't been tended to for approximately six months.

Next step is to load your arms with beauty products, as many as you can carry and as many as you can remember you are supposed to photograph. You balance your loot as you rifle for your simcard which is plugged into your computer, expertly shoving it in without even mucking up your still-wet nail polish.

You race out the back door and into the garden, only to find that the sun has moved behind a cloud, it is drizzling and the conditions are much too poor to photograph products.

So you wait.

You allow your products to fall to the table with a crash, and you sit there huddled under the verandah freezing to death in the dark with a soaking wet dog that is adamant on licking you to death. You wait, and you wait, and you wait, and then finally...the sun comes out again.

And so it begins again, the mad dash to collect all your products and race out to take photographs amongst the greenery of your Dad's vegetable patch. Everything is soaking wet and you take extra caution to avoid filling your lipsticks with dirt and your blushes with small insects intent on getting in the way.

You take 1000 photos at varying angles, all of which are causing problems due to light reflection, the light being too dark, the product being too white and contrasting or the product being a ridiculous shape. Your camera decides it won't focus and struggles to take close ups. And then the inevitable happens. Your camera battery dies.

After an explosion of words unsuitable for this blog, you madly run into the house flailing around for charged batteries. Naturally there are none, and a midst your chaos your family questions your hurrying. "The sun is going soon!" you yell, as if that explains everything.

Two charged batteries later and a clock and remote control that no longer works, you find yourself out in the garden just as the last rays of light move behind a cloud and the rain starts to bucket down.

Cold, wet and angry you gather your beloved products and make your way inside to the computer, shove your SD card in and start the tedious process of filtering through the millions of unsuitable photos, cropping, rotating and uploading them to the corresponding blog posts.

The worst bit is, you haven't even started any of the writing yet.

I hope you enjoyed this post, I had a lot of fun writing it and I promise you it is 100% true to life (at least for a winter's day, in the summer it is not at all a problem).

I would love to know the 'behind-the-scenes' of your blog and the difficulties you encounter. I think it is easier to appreciate blog posts once you know all the trouble and effort that has gone in to making them!

20 comments:

  1. Haha oh wow I can so relate to this! It sure is frustrating, especially now that it's Winter and rainy all the time, to take photos!

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  2. Haha, I can so relate - though I don't take my photos outside, it's still a struggle for sunlight, that isn't too bright or dim! Ugh, and I get so annoyed when my camera spasms to focus (on the wrong thing mostly) and then my arm gets sore from trying to take pictures, haha. The perils of being a beauty blogger, amiright?

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  3. Such a great read Candice! Love how you wrote it :)
    HATE WINTER TIME


    Sarah | More Than Adored

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    1. Thanks lovely! Little bit of insight into my winter struggles! :)
      x

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  4. Haha! You're hilarious! Aww but everything you wrote about here is what makes it so fun!!

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    1. That's exactly right - all the craziness is what makes it so good!
      x

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  5. everything is so true!!hahaha and absolutely hilarious for bbloggers!!!

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  6. What a great post - you're hilarious! But the photos are so worth the craziness. I'm in a shoebox of an apartment with limited sunlight, so my photos are indoors (and I'm still figuring out the light!). Thanks for the laugh :)

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    1. Haha, thank you! I'm really lucky we have a nice garden I can take advantage of!
      x

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  7. Love this post! I don't take many pictures outside but it is always a struggle to find the perfect diffused daylight around my house. im moving window to window, door to door hoping to catch the best light. then when ive finally taken half a million pictures I will sit for hours editing them until I get one or two that are suitable. then by that time I am so exhausted that I don't even want to write the post. blogging isn't as easy as people think it is.
    :) Chelsey
    industrialdimestoremagic.blogspot.ca

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    1. My goodness, the hunt for good lighting is ridiculous! I also take sooooo many pictures and then have to fix them all up afterwards! It's hard, time consuming work, but so worth it!
      z

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  8. The perks of being a beauty blogger, hey? hahaha this post made me laugh. I do the exact same thing and often do that mad dash into the backyard to find that my simcard isn't in my camera :p Can't wait for summer!

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    1. Oh my gosh - nothing more frustrating than finding that you've left your simcard inside! Argh! :)
      x

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  9. This is one of my favourite posts from you! GREAT POST!!
    Being a new beauty blogger, I've finally learnt that it isn't easy at all!
    However, it is so enjoyable and the final outcome is rewarding.
    My room is pretty bright but the sun only hits one side of my room so my desk is left in the shade.
    I find it hard to take pictures where I need proper lighting so I always take pictures in random spots to accommodate the lack of brightness. Sometimes I get stumped on what to write on. I don't like repeating myself and I try to make my posts as engaging and informative as possible. Oh the effort! haha :)

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    1. Aw thank you Melissa! That means a lot! :) Thinking up new and creative ideas is actually one of the hardest things about blogging!
      x

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  10. Hahaha I had a good laugh at this post, love the story telling! The Australian sun is very stubborn, it loves to hide behind clouds then re-emerge, then disappear again! Lighting is so crucial to taking photos :( It's amazing how you can write 6 posts up in one sitting, I can never last that long!

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    1. Thank you :) I don't always write up 6 in one sitting, but most often 4 or 5 :)
      x

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