Rubbing the product onto dry skin to cleanse any dirt from the day, before adding water.
Happy Friday to you all. I don’t know about you all, but I have been breaking out like crazy. At first I thought it must be what I have been eating, then I realized the only difference in my diet now vs pre-quarantine is I don’t eat out half as much and I haven’t been to Starbucks in 10 weeks. Before I would enjoy meals out all weekend, starting with dinner and happy hour drinks with the girls on Friday to catch up on life. Then I would go explore various parts of Atlanta or the latest exhibition at the High and grab a Schlotskys sandwich. Now I’ve been cooking breakfast lunch and dinner like everyone else. A mixture of hard-boiled egg whites, vegan protein powered in my spinach smoothie. Then a vegan patty from Trader Joe’s or mushroom ravioli. My snacks have been tomatoes and avocado so my skin should be glowing from the inside out. That’s when I realized my forehead is the only area I’m breaking out in and that (according to Chinese face mapping) is stress. As much as I have been trying to be zen, I find I have a delayed reaction to stress. While all of my friends and family have panicked from the beginning I have been calm. Keeping my scheduling busy with various activities like Zoom workouts with friends, open casting self-tapes, updating my acting sites, making Youtube videos, reading all the articles I have saved but never had time to thumb through.
The Honest Beauty Magic Gel-to Milk when you add water.
Instead of ordering my usual cleanser from Sephora I looked through Target’s beauty section. I debated between Honest Beauty and Aveeno. Ultimately I am a sucker for anything rose and liked that this had pink clay Kaolin in it, which is safe for sensitive skin. You can purchase Honest Beauty Magic Gel-to-Milk Cleanser with Pink Kaolin Clay & Rose water here* or at Target. This product is amazing! It has a mild fresh scent, goes on smooth like micellar water/ rose oil. Then when you add water it transforms into a milky consistency. After your skin feels hydrated and cashmere soft. The bumps I had on my forehead were reduced to pretty much nothing after the first use. I was able to literally wipe away my dead skin and break outs with my konjac sponge.
Are there any skincare products you’ve fallen in love with?
*This is an affiliate link and may earn a commission based on your purchase. It will not change the price of your purchase but will give me a small percentage.
For some reason this past week felt a little hard than the rest, so I thought it would be the perfect time to look up inspirational quotes. There is something so empowering about reading new quotes. So I made a short video on 10 inspirational quotes to stay positive during this quarantine.
Are there any quotes you want to share have that inspire you?
Happy Friday ya’ll! I hope you all are well, here are some movies to check out on Netflix this weekend. I’ve thrown in some 80s and 90s films along with new ones.
18 Presents– It’s in Italian, but hear me out. A woman with cancer leaves behind 18 presents for her unborn daughter. All I can say is grab your tissues.
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective – a 90s classic, Jim Carey plays a pet detective out to figure out who kidnapped the Miami Dolphin’s mascot.
Back to the Future – An 80’s classic that has flying cars (even though we still don’t), sci-fi, time travel, and the fun premise of getting to go to high school with your parents and seeing what they were really like as teens.
Back to the Future II– Talks about free will vs. determinism which is great for all my philosophy lovers out there!
The Social Network– a dramatic twist on the creation of one of the largest social networks of all time.
Becoming – Michelle Obama’s documentary that reminds you to own the woman you are becoming. She reminds us that even in hard times there are kind people in the world and to always hold onto out hope.
Brain on Fire – Is based on a true story of Susanna Cahalan a New York Post journalist with a rare auto-immune disease called anti-NMDA.
Despicable Me – Steve Carell voices a supervillain hell-bent on destroying the world with hundreds of minions to “help” do his bidding. If you need a laugh this is the film for you.
Fire in the Blood– Documentary on the African AIDS crisis and the fight to make the lifesaving drugs more affordable.
Girl– A 15-year-old ballerina prepares for her gender confirmation surgery. This film was at Cannes film festival in 2018.
Lady Driver – A great coming of age film. A teen girl with a passion for cars begins racing and discovers racing was always a part of her destiny.
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before – This film is the perfect coming of age romantic comedy. It will remind you of a simpler time, where your biggest problem was how to tell your crush you like them.
P.S. I Still Love you – is the sequel to To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. Lara Jean continues to talk to one of her old crushes from her love letters.
Perks of Being a Wallflower– Based on the 2012 novel. A teen who struggles with depression after losing a friend to suicide rediscovers the joy in life through music friendship and his crush.
The Laundromat– Based on the Panama Papers, a woman investigates a fake insurance scam. That woman is Meryl Streep.
Do you have any films you recommend for my next list?
I hope you are staying safe. Have you finally finished that 1000 piece puzzle and gained back 4 of your 6 pack abs? No, me either. I decided to through together a quick week in my life pre-quarantine vs now vlog on my Youtube channel. I thought it would be a fun juxtaposition from the standard at-home content. So if you have eight minutes to spare, I would love if you would spend them with me.
What are your favorite videos to watch? Do you have any channel recommendations for me?
Yesterday I was feeling a little down, overwhelmed, and frankly concerned. I tried to focus on some tv shows I’d been meaning to watch (Bluff City Law and Games People Play) but found myself overwhelmed with thoughts of everything I hadn’t done and other ways to supplement my income. Many ideas I had set into motion are on hold, for obvious reasons. While I was trying to pivot and clean out my iCloud (since when will I have the time to do so) I found a video from the Post Malone concert I went to back in March. Austin Richard Post took the time to tell us we could be anything we wanted to. Not to let fear hold us back, that he was sleeping in a friend’s walk-in closet before he was discovered. I got inspired to look up some of his music videos on YouTube. I then ended up going down a YouTube rabbit hole of great music.
I don’t know about you, but I’d forgotten the days of using YouTube to play music videos and dance around in my house instead of watching another makeup tutorial, clothing haul, or Amazon round up. I sat and listened to my classics from my iPod via YouTube, Wonderwall by Oasis, Mr. Brightside by the Killers, I Miss You by Blink 182. This moment of nostalgia reminded me that this too shall pass. So often we get stuck in a loop thinking we are always going to be exactly where we are or feeling hopeless but it’s all temporary. Hearing these songs reminded me of sitting in 2nd hour A.P. English Literature after finding out I did not get a role in the play after two rounds of callbacks. At the time I tried not to feel sad about it but after the first round of callbacks, I could taste that role. I put my heart into the performance, only to find that it was not enough. However later that same day a classmate I was not particularly fond of told me, “I just want you to know you killed it yesterday. I told two other people at callbacks that the role should have been yours, but it’s politics.” In the strangest way, this made me feel better. After all, art is subjective. Sometimes you don’t get the role because they already picked out the kids or the husband and you don’t look enough like the two of them to fit the story.
For some reason listening to some of my favorites reminded me how we are constantly moving and changing. How one moment can feel sad and devastating the next you are moving on to other bigger opportunities and making or meeting lifelong friends. I say all of this to remind you, if you are feeling low, don’t be afraid to pop on some of your old music. There is nothing better than music to distract, inspire, underscore a story, or shift your mindset. You are loved. You are badass! You will get through this.
What are some of your favorite songs to listen to when you need a pick me up?
Hello beautiful people and happy Monday! During this quarantine, I decided to hop on Hinge since I figured hey I have nothing better to do. I thought maybe since people can’t see each other in person we’ll be more apt to go back to the way it was of when people courted and actually got to know each other before trying to seduce you into their bedroom. It’s been about three weeks now and I can say it’s honestly been a wild ride. I’ve known people who met their fiancés, boyfriends, husbands, etc. off of Tinder and Bumble however my experiences on Tinder have never been positive.
For the sake of this experiment, because that’s what it’s beginning to feel like I decided to post pictures that show off my personality but we’re not in any way sexual. Meaning no bikini pictures even though I’m often traveling to tropical places or around the pool. No club attire and no headshots. In the past, I’ve listed my job as an actor in my profile. From the get-go instead of mentioning my finance day job. This often-brought men who set out to play 21 questions about my job. “Are you really an actor? Well, what would I have seen you in? You seem too fat to be an actor. Well, how much do you make? You can’t be doing well since you are not based in Los Angeles. Oh, I’m an actor too I’ve been an extra for 3 years.”
While I don’t mind questions, asking some of these right off the bat without trying to get to know me outside of my career seems a bit like a fact-finding interview instead of getting to know a person you potentially want to build a life with. I can’t tell you how many times I have asked a finance bro, engineer, or consultant to explain their job only for them to give me the most basic one-line synopsis. This makes me laugh because I know many people working their exact job, and the descriptions the guys have given me don’t even cover 10 percent of the position. I’ve never felt a need to ask an architect to build a house in front of me to prove that they are in fact who they say they are. So I don’t know why people want comedians and actors to personally preform for them to prove their talent. It feels strange to me. Especially since I am looking for a partner to uplift, laugh, and work through problems that pop up in life, not a competitor or someone insecure.
So why do artists need to justify their success by telling you what shows or exhibitions their work has been featured in that YOU would know. I don’t know you yet, so I don’t know what type of shows you watch and frankly, I don’t know if I care to get to know you if you act this aggressively with strangers.
On Hinge, I listed myself as a finance admin since that is the position I have been working in for the past four years. So far, I’ve met five types of guys. Let’s start with the positive.
1. One of the genuinely nice guys who message you every day and just wanting to get to know you on a human level. They take interest in what you like to read, watch, and what you do when you’re not in a quarantine. I found that these guys are very close to their families and make it a point to call their families at least a couple times a week.
2. The second is the fuck boi. These are the guys that start out saying things like hey beautiful or hey sexy! Which is always a oh no red flag in my book. I say that because usually if someone starts out the conversation based on your looks on a dating app it rapidly progresses to them only asking for nudes literally no conversation just ok sexy so do you have a Snapchat? What’s your number? I would rather text your number than on here. You give them your number and then literally all they will text you is hey it’s fuck boi such and such why don’t you send me a sexy picture of yourself? Come on just do it. Just one of your boobs just for me. Like you are supposed to be flatter than a literal stranger feels entitled to viewing your body before they even know your last name. My response why would I do that I don’t know you? For all I know you could be some 50-year-old fat man sitting in a chair or my friends’ dad.
3. The guy who’s not over his ex. He usually will mention his ex in his profile. Something along the lines of as long as you’re nothing like my ex-girlfriend we will get along fine. Red flag if he’s mentioning his ex in his dating profile he clearly is not over her. These guys usually make comments like as long as you don’t complain about me playing video games or going to the sports bar-like my ex did. Why are you bringing up your ex when you’re on a dating app? If you still are carrying a torch for her shouldn’t you reach out to her for closure or go to therapy. These guys are often kind of misogynistic too and sometimes have expectations in general. Like women should be seen and not heard or speak when spoken to. Women should not complain when I come home late reeking of beer in another woman’s perfume just previous experiences trust me.
4. The people who lie in their profiles. There are a lot of people that have a habit of not fully filling out their profile. For example omitting that they have kids. Then posting a picture of a young child and I’m talking an 8-month-old infant in their photos with some kind of weird caption saying oh ask me about this photo. When you do they say oh this is my son he’s 8 months. All you could think is why don’t you try to work it out with the mother of your child? Instead of bringing another third party into an already potentially chaotic situation? I’m totally fine with the concept of dating someone who has children but you need to be honest from the get-go not hide the fact that you have children from this potential stepmom. There are a lot of factors that come in with dating someone with a child. You have to deal with scheduling babysitters swapping weekends being very flexible to last-minute changes . You also have to make it a point to speak to the baby’s mom and establish rules. Ask what she feels comfortable with, obviously you wouldn’t discipline her child but just knowing like is he allergic to anything? Who should I call in case of emergency? Is there a specific pediatrician I should have the number to? When you’re just starting to get to know someone the last thing you really want is to add in a new relationship with their ex and current child. Other guys will lie about smaller things. In their profile that they do not drink or smoke but then post multiple pictures of themselves drinking and smoking. Which then makes you wonder if they just mean they only drink and smoke socially or are those the only pictures they had of themselves? Or are they just not telling the truth.
Me, when thirsty dudes want me to meet them in the middle of a Public health crisis. #6feet
As I’ve gotten to know various guys I’ve made it a point to tell them that I am an actor usually by day two of our conversations. They’ll ask what I’ve been up to and I’ll tell them I’ve sent out my self- tapes. I have since there have been so many great open casting calls with casting directors and certain network television shows. Some have taken it well. Others I could tell were immediately annoyed because to them that means I will not permanently live In Georgia. Personally, I don’t think I want to live in Georgia long term, and I’ve made a point to say that in a couple years I would probably want to move. I’ve also had some guys make comments about how actors do sex scenes and not understanding that we have a protocol for staging them and that actors do not actually have literal pornographic sex with each other contrary to popular belief. If you’re confused about this see my or a blog post on intimacy here. I think part of this is also just because Georgia is notoriously conservative even though there are tons of guys here on the down-low if you know what I mean. Who is not being completely honest with themselves their partners or their families.
5. The insecure one is the guy that when you don’t message him back within 30 minutes will send you 3 heys. He’s also the type that will mention family problems two lines into a conversation. When you send back your empathy and mentioning how you know therapy is really great and helpful to work through things. They get defensive and say they don’t need therapy. When therapy is great! Everyone should go to therapy. It is a great way to talk through situations and have learned how to cope with the different things that happened to us in life. They will then backtrack and say oh I’ve been in therapy before that was really helpful.
The main thing I’ve noticed from all the different dudes I’ve met on Hinge is that they’re all are very quick to want to meet you. Everyone wants to meet you in person even though we’re literally in the middle of a public health crisis. I cannot tell you how many times I have said no we can talk on soon Zoom or the phone. In response, the guy will whine about how this could go on for months. How are we ever going to meet? We might as well just do it now. I respond with the fact that I’m not willing to risk my health for the sake of meeting someone that I could meet over FaceTime until it’s safe. If we truly are meant to be then our personalities should click through FaceTime. I really don’t see what the big deal would be about waiting another month and a half just see each other in person. The blatant disregard for health tells me that most of those guys just want sex. The ones that I have Zoomed with I’ve noticed we don’t really talk after. I think we could both tell that there wasn’t really a connection. In one case the guy picked the time for us to do the call then was two hours late to do it. He had decided to go to the grocery store instead but didn’t text me to give me a heads up. I didn’t even mention that he was late to the call I just asked if he was okay since he usually texted me pretty frequently. He then spent the entire Zoom call putting up his dishes and looking so pissed off. It was very obvious from the call that our personalities are not compatible. I’m definitely more extroverted but can handle being alone since I am an only child. He on the other hand clearly needs to be around his friends 24/7, because he mentioned doing multiple virtual happy hours and walks with them throughout the day. Even though he is an introvert and describes himself as stoic.
Overall dating during the quarantine has taught me that there are some decent guys out there. It is a lot easier to weed out all the bad guys, without having to sit through a 2-hour dinner wondering if you should ask the waiter for the bill. Debating if you should text him later that you don’t see this going anywhere or saying it to his face at dinner. This has been a much quicker way to immediately say no to the people that shouldn’t be in your life and say yes to getting to know the people who are meant to be there. Have any of you tried dating during the quarantine? What has your experience been like?
Hello beautiful people!Captain’s log day 397 in quarantine. Just kidding. I thought I’d share some makeup tips with you all I know a lot of us have zoom calls now. Personally, I have used Zoom more in the last month than I have in the last 6 months and I thought it would be helpful to share some makeup tips for a look that’s natural yet polished.
Dim lightingBox lighting
In the age of the Internet, we often want to look decent around our coworkers even though we’re bound to look better on our Zoom screens than we are under the fluorescent lighting of our usual office setting. As an actor, I have been taking advantage of all the monologue and scene self-tape submissions casting agents have been posting on Actors Access. If you want more information about Actor’s Access you can check on that here. I’ve definitely been enjoying the makeup-free day’s, but the few I need to look more awake I do the following:
Here are some of the products I used when getting ready for my no-makeup makeup look for my self-tape submissions.
To all my fellow actors out there you know how it is making sure your lighting is good and ready for all of our home self-tape setups. The makeup I used for this is very similar to the makeup I use for my zoom meetings for work as well. Which is usually a great foundation base, a peachy blush, a dark brown pencil to fill in my eyebrows, and brush them out because mine are very thin. Blessed are those who have thick eyebrows! Thank your lucky stars you don’t have to draw yours on :). Then I usually finish the look with a little black liner to define my eyes on the top and mascara on my top and bottom lashes to make my eyes look wide awake and pop. The final touch is a warm pinky nude color lipstick that goes with your own skin tone. This one has a warm undertone like my skin tone if you’re a cool tone I would suggest trying to find a pink with a blue undertone. You can find out if you are warm or cool-toned based on the color of your veins on your wrist. If they are green you are warm toned if they are blue you are cool-toned. Have you had an increase in virtual meetings?
I don’t know about you, but last week felt exhausting. I’ve been catching up on work, submitting to various webinars, and even took two voice-over classes. So I apologize for not having a blog post up as consistently as possible. I did put up a Miami/Delray Beach vlog on my Youtube channel from back in February. I’m so thankful I got this trip in before all the chaos started.
If you’re like me, I’m sure you are tired of watching the news and sick of Youtubers trying to get you to buy crap. People have been losing their jobs, loved ones lives and essential workers should not have to risk their life so you can get another outfit. I hope this video can offer you a little tranquil escapism in a chaotic time. The video is below and linked here.
Lord what a week! I know we all are antsy right now. The grocery stores are finally restocking more, the stimulus checks are out in the U.S., some of us are unemployed others are waiting to have the last of their hours cut down. I know we could all use a distraction. I noticed some of my friends were making comedic skits in their apartment so I thought there was no time like to present to make one about being single during the quarantine. Feel free to check that out here. I also will upload it on the side panel of this page so you can click that for your viewing pleasure. My skit is under two minutes and if you enjoy it please share it with a friend.
Hang in there, friends. Be strong we are going to get through this! If you need someone to chat with feel free to contact me through the contact tab on my site and we can email back and forth.
Hello everyone! I hope you are doing okay. Happy belated Easter! He has risen! I hope you all were able to enjoy a virtual service and get out for a walk.
I know this has been incredibly strange for everyone. I will say I think the positive thing is we will all appreciate human contact so much more. Maybe when we go out to dinner with friends and family we will actually look everyone in the eye and appreciate the time we are with them. Instead of checking for that next email, text or social media like.
The one major positive I’ve seen from the acting standpoint is the playing field has opened up. Allow me to explain, in this industry we use 3 major casting sites that our agents submit our headshots and demos to casting agents on. Most of the time I am seen by a decent amount of casting agents, but there are some that work in NY, Chicago, New Orleans or even a few Los Angeles agents I have not had the opportunity to submit to. Why? Sometimes they do not have a part I fit or they already have actors that fit the same type. Which I completely understand since its often who you know. During the quarantine, we have all seen a major trend on Instagram and two of the three casting sites, where you can submit for virtual open calls with these agents. Many are letting you submit two contrasting pieces of your choosing; others have material for you to choose from and are letting you pick one piece.
This is huge! This has never happened in the age of online submissions and will give so many unknowns the chance to make a great first impression on a casting agent they never would have met. I know personally, I am beyond grateful for any chance to perform so this is such a beautiful gift in an otherwise disjointing time.
What does this mean? It means you are given the opportunity to perform in front of talent agents that cast for major network television, feature films and miniseries (a predetermined limited number of episodes). In the words of Lizzie McGuire, this is what dreams are made of. Are there any other unique opportunities you’ve found in your industry?
Captain’s log day 397 in quarantine. Just kidding. I thought I’d share some makeup tips with you all I know a lot of us have zoom calls now. Personally, I have used Zoom more in the last month than I have in the last 6 months and I thought it would be helpful to share some makeup tips for a look that’s natural yet polished.
