Speaking Up: Why I Hate Disclaimers and Why You Should Speak Your Mind

You know what has shot to the top of the 'Grinds my gears' list as a content creator? Disclaimers 😭

I hate disclaimers. I don't want to have to preface every single thing I say with a list of caveats and exceptions. Yet, I feel compelled to use them in some kind of way every time I show up online. Today, it's likely that we all fling in a quick disclaimer because no one is trying to f*ck around and find out what the helm of cancel culture feels like. 

I'm a Black woman, and I know that my words can be used against me in a way that white people's words can't. I'm constantly aware of the fact that whether I like it or not, I can't just speak for me and in wider society I'm representing an entire race, and I don't want to say anything that could be misconstrued or misinterpreted. 

I think, to most people, I'm headstrong and can quite easily; say what's on my mind. Whilst, that might appear to be true, deep down I am honestly someone that has always very carefully picked my words. A couple of weeks ago, I sat at my computer and I asked myself, why do I always hesitate to express myself verbally?

I arrived at the conclusion that part of it is because I want to be liked and accepted and the other part is not wanting to hurt those I love, because little girl Rose still believes that all the unkind words she heard were accidental and not intentional. Lol, let's side step that last part and save it for when I can afford therapy yea? The meat of the issue is that, a near constant fear of saying the wrong thing spread to all areas of my life, so in many ways, I stopped speaking up all together.

Thankfully, Kwame is extremely persistent in encouraging me to open my mouth and say what's on my mind. The blessing is those that genuinely love me are not fickle, and so even if I happen to unintentionally hurt them; They know my heart, so door is open to understanding, forgiveness and reconciliation.

Outside of the relationship front, the reason why I feel it's so important for me to understand why I have difficulty in speaking freely, is I want to push past my fear of asking for what I want and need. Whether that's me speaking to loved ones, at my job, even when praying to Source. When I look at my life and the things I have had to stretch my faith for, I am very aware that for every single thing, I had to boldly open up my mouth to get them. 

So let's think about this, I'm here doing up humble, humble - quaking like a quaking somebody, doing the mental equivalent of dropping a few likes on the universe's TL and hoping that's enough and they should just knowww that's what I want. Laugh at me as if you don't do it too! 👀

Not speaking up is a very useless trade off, when the losers prize is seeing the life you want, relationships you want, career advancement you want and joy that you want pass you by. 

Abeg, speak up, not just for you today, but for you tomorrow.

xoxo

Quarantine Glow - Kate Somerville ExfoliKate

The Exfolikate Introductory Kit - £33

So being the self confessed skincare addict that I am, I'm always trying new products to find the magical combo that will have my glow competing with the sun itself. That being said, it's been quite a while since a product has blown my socks off after the first use. Enter stage left: Kate Somerville's ExfoliKate Intensive Exfoliating Treatment.

I had heard lots about it, it's had cult status amongst the skincare powers that be for over a decade, but the £70+ price tag put me off trying it for myself. Whenever it comes to trying out new skincare I am the travel size/mini queen! It's my failsafe for my wallet, because the way my account is set up, I cannot be flinging hundreds of pounds at products that might not agree with me. This is an expensive hobby as it is! So I found a set of mini's, known as the Introductory kit on cult beauty's website for £33. It contained 2 other products; the ExfoliKate Cleanser and the ExfoliKate Glow Moisturiser, bargain!

ExfoliKate Glow Moisturiser

Let's start with the moisturiser: It's got glycolic and lactic acids for resurfacing as well as fruit enzymes plus some fruit extracts to boot. It's got a nice light texture and mild pleasant smell. I have reached for it several times for the lightweight texture rather than feeling a massive difference, a nice to have, but 'meh' in my opinion. 

The cleanser is where it starts getting good, I am in LOVE! Again featuring the same AHA's and the fruit enzymes (pineapple, papaya and pumpkin). A little goes a long way, and you get a generous 50ml sample. Its a gorgeous cleanser, the skin feels smoother after use, but with zero irritation and it doesn't feel stripping at all. You know the holy grail of using a cleanser that feels like you haven't cleansed afterwards, but rather moisturised? Not moisturised in the sense of there being any residue or film left on the skin, rather my skin was left feeling soft and like I had just rinsed off a cute hydrating mask. Knocked it out of the park! I have used this almost every single day for the last 3 weeks and the full size is already on my wishlist for repurchase, once this starts to run low.

Now the star of the show, the exfoliating treatment: it's a very small 15ml (same size as the Moisturiser) tube, the texture is thick, grey and has tiny grains of silica in it. I stopped using physical exfoliation a long time ago, but don't let that put you off, this stuff BANGSSS! The key here is that this is an intensive treatment, and they mean intensive. I used it in the morning, applied it to my wet face, massaged for 30 seconds and left it on for the full 2 minutes as per the instructions. I was very gentle with the massage as the product doesn't have much slip and I was weary of the silica grains. 

When I rinsed the mask off, my face felt 'ok' clean, refreshed. So I finished off my routine with my toner, hydrating serum, a super hydrating moisturiser and followed with a generous helping of sunscreen. That evening when it was time to cleanse again, I was flabbergasted. As I was massaging in my cleansing balm, I kept thinking 'My face feels ridiculously smooth, what's going on? Maybe I used too much balm!' when I rinsed that sucker off and touched my naked face, I almost fell over, not even exaggerating. It was like touching a baby's bum! Smooth AF! This was after one use! A single, 2 minute use! Wow! In the days that followed my skin was glowing like God had adjusted the ring light in heaven to shine on my face! 🤣

Although the sample size is small, I'm very sure I could get 5+ uses out of it easily. Which would give me a month's use as I have been using it once a week since then. The directions say it can be used once or twice a week, AM or PM. I prefer AM and make sure my sunscreen is slathered on all day, but this is so powerful that I would worry that using it more than once a week would damage my skin barrier as I also use a retinol treatment on other days. One thing to note from my use is that I wouldn't use the cleanser and treatment together, the second time I used it, I washed my face with the cleanser and when I applied the treatment straight after my face was tingling a lot! It wasn't burning, but it did become pretty uncomfortable and so I rinsed it off my face after about 45 seconds. That's the only time I've experienced that reaction and so every other time I've used it, I have cleansed with my favourite 'do nothing' cleanser, Simple's refreshing facial wash.

Even if the price tag was £100+ I wouldn't hesitate to repurchase, because this works! Instant results and it's not often that I come across that! 

Rose

xoxo

Good Vibes Only - Why staying positive online can be so damn hard!

Positivi-Tea!

For me mentally it comes from a place of lack, I focus all my attention on what I don't have, what I have yet to achieve and where/how many times I've messed up. We welcome Auntie 'Comparison-is thief-of-joy' with big open arms to help us tally it all up and it equals a big fat fail. Meanwhile, in the back of our minds we are well aware that it's not an accurate score of our real lives, so whyyy do we do it?

First things first, we're not crazy y'all, there's a name for this *laughs hysterically* - It's been identified as the social media comparison trap. We're grown, we know the lines about social media, with all its pretty pictures are highlights and blahhhdy, blah blah, and yet here we are. Trapped. Perhaps you've moved to a new home and fixed it up to a standard that's comfortable for you, you finish and take a step back. You could think to yourself "Wow a few months ago I was dreaming of a new place to live, now here I am this is amazing!" Instead, of following this our good friend sense, you finish all of your hard work, take a step back, pull out your favourite tool of comparison (looking at you Instagram and Pinterest...) and say "Look at this rubbish, I've worked so hard and it's not good enough! Look at X,Y, Z their's is so much better than mine. Mine will never be good enough!"

I did this for a very long time, and to be perfectly honest it's something I have to mentally fight all the time to stay away from. It's why I've been so inconsistent with my YouTube channel in the past, it's why I shut up shop with Bowë back in 2014 even through things had been going well. I took my eyes off my own lane, went to shine my eye on everyone else's and decided mine was below par. Closed the online store, stopped selling at markets and pop up shops. Just stopped everything. Seriously, like seriously!

There's absolutely nothing wrong with swooning over aspirational content on any platform, aspiration is a big part of what pushes us forward. Gives us the nudge to keep going, keep trying and give life our best. The problem comes in when that energy moves from positive encouragement to negative comparison. And the switch can happen almost seamlessly, especially now where we're consuming more content than ever with #StayAtHome. We can spend hours on end mindlessly scrolling through content that has been curated and edited to perfection, when we look away from the screen real life doesn't have the pretty preset and featured music for every moment. 

I have to make a conscious effort to stay on the side of positive encouragement, some days are harder than others, but these days it's a battle that I'm on the winning side of *fist pump* - A big realisation for me is that having big, lofty goals and leaving it as that is a big no-no. It's like having a glorious vision board on your wall and doing nothing with it. Imagine looking at that board day after day, yet taking no action towards making those visions a reality. It's like a neon sign screaming at you "This is what you don't have bih!" I look at the big goals and then work backwards, break them down into smaller and smaller chunks, all the way down to little monthly, weekly or even daily activities I can complete. This way, at the end of each period I can look back and see, I started at A year ago and now I'm at G or D or even A.5, progress is progress.

It means that when you look at your big dream, you can see how you're moving towards it, rather than knocking yourself down and thinking you'll never get there. You know what else is great about making an action plan for achieving your goals? You'll be too damn busy to have time to belittle yourself in comparison to someone else. You'll be so proud of what you've been able to achieve, you'll see others that are where you want to be or also on their journey and think "I'm right there with you!" 

Take it from me, being on the side of negative comparison taints everything, even the goal itself. When you find yourself slipping, stop scrolling. Walk away for a while. Like most things in this life, staying positive is all in the mind, it's a choice in perspective. It doesn't mean it's always easy mind you, but absolutely possible!

Rose 

xoxo

On furlough and choosing to flourish

Yep, ya girl has been furloughed. Let me start by saying, i know it could be worse, but I'm allowed to feel my feelings ok! 

I suspected it would happen, the way I'm sure many people in the same situation saw it coming and I'm sure they share the same worries as me; wondering if they will still have a job and the end of all this. For the next 6 weeks at least I'll be what my mum and dad would call "on beans," a free agent. 

When I got the news on Friday, I was devastated to put it lightly. All the feelings of dread from my previous experience of unemployment had been bubbling underneath the surface waiting to erupt and when I got the news - Boom. I was walking around my house in zombie mode repeating in my mind "Not again.  Not again. Not again."

Back then, my value and worth was all tied up in my ability to earn a living wage, this time my fear was for my family and how I would contribute maintaining a comfortable standard of living. I also naively assumed this would put me a group of employees being first in line for redundancy, should it come to that.

Saturday I had to remind myself that I couldn't allow myself to go back to the person that fell into a deep depression because of unemployment. It had taken so much to pull myself out of that hole back in 2014, there was no way I could allow myself to go back there. Way too much at stake now.

So what I'm doing, is switching my mindset and choosing to see this time as a golden opportunity. At the end of last year I had hoped to have brought Bowë Skincare to Market by the end of March 2020, but with 'Rona doing the rounds it would never have been possible. Over the coming weeks I can take my time to get done all the things that I had panicked about not completing prior. I can enjoy having the time to experiment freely with new formulations, learn about revolutionary ingredients and how my brand can better serve future customers.

I've downloaded Duolingo and I'm learning Spanish as well as learning web development on Code Academy. Not necessarily because I fancy a change in career, but also because it's been a while since I've had the time to learn something new. I've got more time to create the content I enjoy making on social media platforms like YouTube, uninterrupted and of course, I can love on my family without outside pressure or interference.

I'm not trying to replace one hectic schedule with another, but I am making room for me to expand and indulge in the things I told myself I didn't have space for previously. Obviously, no one knows what will happen in the next 6 weeks or what my financial situation will be 3 months down the line, but I've survived every hardship I've faced in my life up to this point, so I'm secure in knowing that this one is highly unlikely to take me out either.

I'm silencing the worry with gratitude and counting myself as very lucky to have this free time for myself. I have been secretly desiring time to really make a go of the goals I set for myself and whenever I had tried to force it, burn the candle at both ends so to speak, God was looking at me with Ray J's glasses like "Really girl?" The way I see it; NOW He's made room for me and said "Ok, go!" So I'm going, and making sure I enjoy whilst doing it.

Rose 

xoxo 

5 Year Loc Update

My 5 Year loc update on my DIY Microlocs

So these babies turned 5 back in February - whew what a ride! I've now been through the baby loc stage, the 'ugly' stage, I've gone through a whole pregnancy and brutal postpartum shedding stage and my hair colour has gone from black, red, back to black and now back to red lmao!

So as of mid February 2020, my locs are now definitely just past bra strap length, which finally puts me at a length that's longer than when I first loc'd my hair back in 2015. Talk about shrinkage!

4 months before I loc'd my hair (October 2014)

The biggest change you can see right off the bat since my 4 year loc update is that I am back to being a red head! I changed to black after giving birth because honestly, red is high maintenance. That being said, I got bored of it really quickly and missed how the vibrant red matches my personality. The red is back to stay for the foreseeable future!

When it comes to growth, my locs are now firmly in camp bra strap length, which is the longest my hair has ever been, as you can see from the above picture, the longest my hair had gotten to was a smidgen past arm pit length, so I am cheffed with that. My long term goal is to reach tail bone length, just to know I can, I think I'd probably then cut it back to waist length, but let's wait and see. I don't anticipate that happening for another 3-4 years anyhow.

A hill that I am very glad to be getting over is the postpartum shedding. Good gawd almighty, I had it bad! I knew it was going to happen judging by my mother and sisters, but I still wasn't prepared to see it happen in reality. I lost sooooo many locs, I would look in the mirror and cry. Ninety percent of the locs I lost came from my hairline, which is something I've always been super self conscious about. I have 2 very sparse areas on my temples that I refer to as my semi-circles of baldness and those morphed into my entire front row of locs. Horrific, I tell you, but I'm now very happy to report that those started to fill back in after my son turned one and now I have lots of baby locs along my hairline that are filling in beautifully. It will never be perfect, and God help me when I give birth again at some point in the future, but I'm very happy with what I've got.

Some of you may know that I've had an undercut for close to two years now and the primary reason for doing so was because of the sheer abundance of lint and build up I had in the first two rows of my nape area. I didn't want to have to resort to chopping all my lovely locs off, so that was an apt solution. However, I was starting to get buildup in the locs after the undercut as well, so I realised I had to be doing something really wrong to cause it. After some frantic googling and YouTubing, I came to the realisation that I wasn't washing my locs properly! Can you imagine? So now I am very thorough when it's wash day, particularly on the days when I'm going to retighten my microlocs. I describe it as washing my locs like they are a stiff pair of jeans. That is the necessary level of vim I need to keep my microlocs build-up free.

Speaking of the undercut, I have a new barber (queue harmonious angels singing lol) now my undercut styles are fire and I am proud to show them off, where I was living before there was ONE option for a black barber and he wasn't very good when it came to design. Now I have options and my barber of choice is amazing when it comes to design and very creative! So I'm extremely happy about that, I suffered for over a year with baaaaaasic looks. 

The red is just so much more me right?!?

So that's it, 5 years and loving it! You can catch my full 5 year microbic update on YouTube below, enjoy!

Rose

xoxo