FAQ

I thought I would clear up some questions that I get regularly asked on twitter and in the comment section of my blog and just help you all learn a little bit more at me and the idea's behind 'The Beauty Diaries', I think it's always nice to know a bit more about the person behind the blog post's in order to be able to relate to them.

What is 'The Beauty Diaries'?
The Beauty Diaries is a blog inspired by pretty much all things that us girls love and all things beautiful. I'm a typical girly girl in the respect that I love clothes, I love make up, I love hair care and perfume and all that good stuff and The Beauty Diaries reflects all of that. I mainly review the things I love on here, but I show you my favourite products and favourite things. I have always believed that beauty is one of the most important things in this world however, I don't believe this is the conventicle sense of the word I believe that every person has the ability to be a beautiful person both inside and out and that we are surrounded by lots of incredible things. This blog tries to capture that all.

Why did you start the Beauty Diaries?
I first started my blog in August of 2012 when it was originally called 'Gem's Beauty', I'd spent a huge amount of time following other blogs and watching loads of you tube channels and I would never go and buy any products without thoroughly researching them on the internet first. I really enjoyed reading blogs and thought I'd give it ago, I would read them and think 'I could do that', so one day I booted up blogger and signed up and gave it ago and I've never really looked back.

I have recently re-launched my blog after a two year gap, I had a huge amount of change in my life in 2013 and took a break from blogging but I am back with a real passion and dedication to my blog now. It left a massive whole in my life when I took a break and I now feel ready to give it a go again.

What interests do you have outside of beauty?
I have quite a lot of interests outside beauty, I studied Business, ICT, Geography and History at A-level and I actually really enjoyed them all, I love learning about new things.  I think my favourite was Business, I loved learning how businesses operate and go around and it's an area I would like to pursue in the future. ICT was really cool too because it gave me a lot of the knowledge I needed to work out blogger half the time! I also love watching TV and watching movies, I'm a massive fan of the box and am always watching loads of American series and Reality TV (don't judge me!). I also love to read, give me a good girly romance and I'm gone for hours. I also really like photography which is good because it really fits in with my blog. I also work in a hospital as a personal assistant to some of the directors of the company and find I have a real passionate for helping people and for working in high pressure and intense environments.

Who are some of your favourite bloggers/inspirations?
I have a huge amount of bloggers who inspire me, there are some of the bigger and most successful bloggers that I love, for example I adore Zoe from Zoella (http://www.zoella.co.uk/) she's just an inspiration to everyone, I love watching her You Tube Channel and watching her hauls and her talking about beauty and I love her blog too, but she's also just a really nice girl that pretty much everyone can relate with. She's very open about her anxiety problems as well and I've just really liked her since the start. I would say that the two people that inspired me to write my blog the most would have been Kayleigh from Couture Girl (http://x-couturegirl-x.blogspot.co.uk/) and Hannah from Hannah's Bow (http://www.hannahsbow.co.uk/) they were the first two blog's I ever started reading and still firm favourites of mine today, it's lovely too see how far both of their blogs have come and I still get excited when I see that they have posted again. Couture Girl is a beauty, fashion and lifestyle blogger and I just adore every single one of her posts, it doesn't matter what she's talking about and she's become so successful over the last few years. Hannah's Blog is a lifestyle blog, she talks about problems, fitness, diets and throws in beauty and fashion posts too so a really great all rounder. Another blogger that I've been reading for a fair few months and absolutely loving is Birds Words (http://birdle.blogspot.co.uk/) by Beth, she is such a sweetheart, she is so down to earth and she replies to every comment and every tweet and her blog is amazing too! So go and check out all the blogger's I've mentioned! you'll fall in love too I'm sure.

Which camera do you use for your blog photo's?
I get asked this question a lot, I think a lot of bloggers make you feel like you need a DSLR camera to blog and get really good photo's and when you see the outcome of their photo's you can see that it's a really good choice but if, like me you don't have that kind of money then you can just pretty much use any digital camera. The one I use is the Lumix DMC-F2 and you can pick it up on Amazon here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-Lumix-DMC-F2EG-K-DMC-F2-black/dp/B003US91A4
But in all fairness you don't need to go out and splash your cash on a really expensive camera to take good photo's. Lighting is your best friend, try to take photo's in natural day light and if you can't use a lot of artificial lighting to create as much fake lighting as possible, sometimes I'll have 3 or 4 lamps plugged in around the area i'm trying to take photo's in, it really does make all the difference. Also if you are an I-phone user than that's a really good way to take photo's, I sometimes use mine for blog photo's and find for some products my phone actually does a much better job. Ooh and in order to edit my blog photo's I use ipiccy or pic monkey, which are both free and available on the internet!

Advice for new beauty bloggers
I'm going to put this all in one category because I get quite a few questions from people who are new to the Blogging world and want a bit of advice. I don't really know why and I don't think I'm that qualified to give an answer but I have been doing this for a little while so I guess I can shed a bit of light. Firstly just be yourself and enjoy blogging, even if you think no one is reading it they probably are and if they're not then people will read it eventually, so keep on blogging, it might take a year for people to recognise you or it might take a few weeks either way carry on, be yourself, blog about things you enjoy and interact with other bloggers too!

Who designed your blog?
I get so many questions on twitter recently about who I got to design my blog header and pages and stuff. I just designed it myself, there is a lot of help out their on the internet if you go and find it. I know HTML codes and stuff can really stress people out but there are so many easy tutorials on the internet that literally help you too go through each bit step by step! Google is your best friend and if you give yourself enough time and patience you can create a pretty good blog design yourself.