Encouraging Beauty: A Week Long Celebration

I was so busy last week, dealing with a sore throat that just won't go away and prepping for a board meeting, that I didn't have time to post! Then Angelo and I spent the weekend at his mom's without computers or internet, opting instead to go on a five hour motorcycle ride and celebrate his grandmother's birthday. That beat out posting too. So anyways, here I am on Monday and ready to share something cool with you guys.

Relaxing means stealing your boyfriend's baseball cap because you don't feel like washing your hair all weekend and not blogging. Sorry guys!

This morning, I was scrolling through my instagram feed and noticed that one of my favorite stylish ladies was talking about something pretty cool. @hilaryrushford (of Dean Street Society) is taking the week to #encouragebeauty. As she describes it, "it's a proclamation that you have power, with your words and your example, to make the world more beautiful and the women around you feel more beautiful." I immediately loved it, and signed up by heading over to weencouragebeauty.com to sign up. Once I signed up, I was sent the prompts for the week, so I figured I would post them on here, so I can talk about them  a little more.

My Monday Prompt was: #makesmefeelgirly. If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have admitted that I shied away from being "girly." I grew up in a house where we weren't allowed to wear nail polish until we were thirteen, didn't need anything more than mascara for day-to-day makeup and didn't worry much about day-to-day wear because I wore a uniform from kindergarten to senior year of high school.  Hell, I spent this weekend wearing the same tee shirt, black jeans and baseball cap – so it's not like I'm a super high-maintenance girly-girl. But in the past few years, I've realized there is something fun about being "girly." I've gotten way more into makeup, and will be the first to admit that my go-to-colors have shifted from blues and greens to pinks and reds.

Last weekend, I found myself unpacking my closet and when going through one of my purses where found a lost MAC lipstick - a shade called Love Forever. These days I tend to stick to either a neutral or bright red lip color, but when I found this missing MAC lipstick, I opened it up and was surprised to see it was a bright, magenta pink color. Pumped, I wore it every day this past week. Lightly to the office, a bit more deeply on the weekends. Paired with my monochromatic capsule wardrobe, it made me feel like a confident, cool and grown up girly-girl. So it may not be something big but my Love Forever Mac Lipstick #makesmefeelgirly. 

I tried to capture how pink it was, but the light was not on my side. Take my word for it though!

That wasn't my only Monday prompt from Dean Street Society. In encouraging beauty, they also sent out a list of prompts to tag someone else in. I think that's a great way to encourage self confidence, positivity and a sense of sisterhood. In her explanation of "Encouraging Beauty," Hilary talks about how taking risks and growing bolder with your personal sense of style encourages other women to do the same. That's one of the reasons I loved this whole week, and knew I wanted to participate. I know so many strong, wonderful women and they definitely deserve the recognition.

My "for her" prompt of the day was #bringsouthereyes and I immediately knew who to feature. One of my best friends, Lauren, who has worked through a serious of dog-centered jobs with me. If we're going to be talking about eyes, I knew that Lauren needed to be featured. I mean, she's pretty much a husky in human form. Check out those eyes!

I stalked her selfies to find this picture, but gave her a heads up that she was going to be posted - so it's okay.

Lauren is way more talented with makeup than I ever will be and can do a killer cat eye with liquid liner, but what I love about this picture is that she looks so fresh faced – and it shows that she's super naturally gorgeous. I think that her fresh faced look in this picture totally makes her eyes the focal point. It shows that she doesn't even need anything to #bringouthereyes because they're stunning all on their own!

I'm really loving this #EncourageBeauty week long celebration, and I highly encourage you to check it out. Just head on over to www.weencouragebeauty.com or check out @hilaryrushford on Instagram. It's basically a week of beautiful positivity, and that makes any stressful Monday better. I'll be listing my prompts all week on this blog, so be sure to check back regularly!