OFF TOPIC

I'm going to use this blog to write this up, since my old one is kinda defunct, and Facebook seems like a dumb place to post it.  My makeup blog people, I got you.  I'll be back on here soon, posting and all that.  I've just been working on some stuff, reorganizing, blah blah blah.  I'll be back.  I had originally planned to fire this site back up at the beginning of the year, but we got all that snow, and my kid ended up having school cancelled more often than not, so a lot of things are behind schedule because of that.

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My main gig for the past 11 or 12 years has been nataliedee.com.  It started out as something I did for fun, and eventually people decided they wanted to look at it, and then it snowballed and turned into what it is now.  It was something I did because I liked it, and it was something I continued to do because I continued to like it.

Anyway, what I am getting at is that I'm not going to be making nataliedee.com anymore.

I've made 4000 comics on my site.  There are a ton of mainstream comics that are way better and more popular and more lucrative that stopped way before 12 years and 4000 comics.  I don't feel bad about stopping now.  I feel like I'm done.  I started because I liked it, and I am stopping because I don't like it as much.  I'm 12 years older than I was when I started, and my life is unrecognizable from what it was like when I started.  I have a lot of other things I work on now, and it got to a point where it felt regressive to have to stop what I am doing to make comics from the perspective of a 22 year old.

I stopped back at the beginning of December.  I wanted to duck out the back door and not make a thing out of it, but I've been getting bombarded with emails from people who think that my comic hasn't been updating because I somehow forgot how to run my website and am too dumb to figure out how to post right.  After 4000 updates.

When I was a little kid, I went to some Easter egg hunt.  When everyone got there, the organizers explained that there were all kinds of egg with candy in them, but there was one giant egg with a twenty dollar bill in it.  I walked around the building, looking for eggs, and looked behind a folding table propped against the wall, and there was the giant egg with the $20.  I just left it there, because I didn't want the attention of being the kid who found the egg.  I would rather not have the egg than have everyone looking at me.  A lot of people saw me find it and leave it, and hassled me about it, but I just didn't want the attention.  Anyway, the reason for the anecdote is to kind of give a window into how my personality is...  I am sure I could have made announcements beforehand about the site stopping, or even said something about it when it happened two months ago, but I just didn't want to make a big deal out of it.  I didn't start making my comics expecting a ton of attention, and I didn't want it to be a big thing when I stopped.

So, that's that!  I appreciate everyone who has looked at my site over the years, or shared comics with their friends, or commissioned art or bought shirts.  It is very uncommon to have an opportunity to make a living off a creative project, let alone a creative project with no editors or oversight.  I really do appreciate being given the opportunity, and I wanted to honor that opportunity by not putting it on life support forever for the sake of squeezing every drop of life out of it.  The archives are going to stay online, I suppose until I'm dead and GoDaddy pulls the plug because my corpse didn't pay for hosting.

I'm still going to be around, working on my other projects.  I make stuff, that's my main bag.  I am just going to be making different stuff.  This blog is going to be back on a regular schedule in the next month or so, and I am going to be working on my polish business, Super Black Lacquers.

As a final gesture, I've chopped up the entire archive of images and text from nataliedee.com and created nataliedeemachine.com.  If you feel like you want more comics than I've already made, visit the Natalie Dee Machine, and it will generate a new random comic for you.  If you don't like it, hit the button and it will make you a new one.  Hit the button 1000 times, and get another 3 or 4 years worth of comics.  Hit the button a million times, and maybe it will write Shakespeare or something.

Thanks again, y'all!  I'll see you around!
ND

Totally Gullible

HELLO, EVERYBODY.

I know I haven't been around here for a little while.  I'm not gonna apologize about it or craft some kind of drama to excuse it.  I've just been swamped with work and my childcare poofed into the atmosphere and this is my hobby that I make a hot $30 a month off, so it got pushed to the bottom of my priority list.  

So, let's get back to talking about this makeup shit....

The Post Where I Find Out I'm a Pervert

HELLOOOOOOOO, PARTY PEOPLE.  What's up with you?

I've been working a metric fuckton.  It happens.  When I get swamped, I usually refer to it as "in the hole," like where'd they'd put you in prison for being an asshole++.  I've been in the hole for about 6 weeks now.  Usually when I'm in the hole, I will just put whatever music on my iTunes that I have the most of, so I don't have to stop and change the music as much, and I've been on a Dinosaur Jr binge for this particular time in the hole.  I've listened to every single Dinosaur Jr album, from 'Dinosaur' to 'I Bet on Sky,' plus all the b-side albums and imports and live albums and J Mascis solo albums.  According to my iTunes, I've listened to all of them 31 times, which works out to about 385 hours that I've been in my office by myself.  GOOD TIMES.  At least I know that when I am on my deathbed, I won't have regrets that I didn't spend enough time alone in my office.

Hello Hello Open Thread

I've had a generally shitty week or two in terms of doing anything I enjoy, like blogging or whatever.  First my kid got impetigo, then she got an upper respiratory infection that promptly turned into an ear infection, then she got gastroenteritis, which was the shitty cherry on the shitty sundae.  I'm not sure if you've been around 4 year olds with snotty colds or stomach flus, but they basically put mucus everywhere and then puke all over everything you love, and then also spray diarrhea on everything.  IT'S AWESOME!  

Mascara/Photoshop

I've been having a pretty homely time lately!!

Usually I like, you know, putting clothes on and doing my face and all that, but I've had my hands full with some very dirty projects, and I just can't bring myself to get my clothing filthy and put makeup on and immediately smearing it off when I get shit on my face.  Honestly, though, I think it would be dumb to try to look fly while taking dust baths in filth.  I like looking nice, but I really don't think I am fooling everybody when I put makeup on, and I don't really care much if people see my regular human face.  I get pink and I got some red spots from old zits.  Oh, well!

Hair Removal/A Few Contest Follow-Ups

Hello, people!  

I always I want to say HELLO, LADIES, but I know there are dudes who read this, too, so I don't want to be non-inclusive or whatever.  YOU DUDES MATTER.  EVERYTHING IS GONNA BE OK.

Do y'all wanna talk about hair removal?  I SURE DO... kinda.  Actually, I wanted to write about something that wasn't makeup or nails to break things up a little.

THE CONTEST

So, today is the day!  I slapped together all the pics I got, clicked the random number generator a few times, and put this bitch out to pasture.  I am sure y'all want me to get down to it without too much chit-chat.

Let's talk Contest + Primers + Pricy vs. Not Pricy

How are y'all doing today?  I'm doing fucking horrible.  I got some kind of upper respiratory thing going on, and then I started getting all crampy on top of it, then I woke up this morning with a giant stye.  The stye was really the cherry on the sundae, though, because there is nothing better than having looking at stuff suck when all you want to do is lay around all day.  OH!  And I had planned to do a mascara post today, too, which I can't very much do with a honking stye and an eye-load of greasy eyedrops.  So, today, I am just gonna pull up a few emails I got and write about a few different things.

The first order of business...  THE CONTEST.  I'm sure y'all remember that the deadline is the 14th, which is a few days away.   I've received a lot of entries!!  The question I want to pose to you is this...  My original plan was to post everybody's picture, and I have no problem posting everyone's picture, but I thought I would ask y'all if that is what you want.  Do you think it would be boring/overkill to look at 150-200 different pictures of people and you'll glaze over and not look at the whole post?  Or do you want to see all of the entries?  I don't have a preference either way, I just don't want to spend a long time setting up the contest post and have nobody look at it because it is too long.  LET'S VOTE!

Gel Manicures/Love Letter/Contest Reminder

Let's talk about gel manicures, since y'all seem to be curious or want to talk about them or whatever.

GEL MANICURES!!

Okay, so I started doing gel manicures on myself, like, 2 years ago or something.  I heard people chattering about them, and was intrigued/skeptical.  The snag for me, initially, was that it seemed to be a salon service, and I just really don't like people touching me.  I will get haircuts, but I don't want to go get a manicure or pedicure or a massage or any of those things where someone is touching on my body parts.

At the time, there seemed to be 2 options in terms of gel polish: Shellac and Gelish.  I chose to get a setup to do Gelish because they had way more colors, and way better colors (at least at that time.)  At first I got a big old school UV light, in case I hated it, because the little LED lights were way more expensive.  Once I decided I liked gel polish, I got the LED light, and it actually was a good move on my part because by time I was ready to get the LED, it was way cheaper than it was initially.

Foundation/Contest/Other Stuff

A recurring theme here seems to be that I bear a striking resemblance to a corpse they fish out of the Olentangy, and I seem to attract the attention of other ladies who also have a deathly pallor.  

I don't mind being pale.  In fact, it is pretty intentional.  I tan if I go in the sun without sunscreen, and when I was a kid, I was blonde and toasty-colored.  I stopped sunning myself when I started coloring my hair dark, because I thought it would look weird.  Now I just avoid the sun and use sunscreen because I want to get the most of my face before I start looking like a raisin.  

HELLO PEOPLE/Drugstore Lip Stuff/Gel Strips

I trust y'all had a decent holiday...  Mine was alright.  I tell you what, though, the transition from the laying-on-the-couch-style holiday break and the my-kid-has-no-school-and-is-bored-in-my-face-while-I-am-trying-to-secretly-make-her-dreams-come-true-style is a bit much.  That shit is over the top.

The elephant in the room is obviously the month long hiatus on this blog...  I was set to post in mid-December, but then there was that shooting and it seemed gauche/callous/yucky to post that day about vain stuff, then the holidays popped up with the combo of extreme busy-ness and no school/childcare, and now here we are!  I'm back on the regular weekly/sometimes more often than weekly schedule now, though.  I got some posts planned and some videos, and I am going to have a contest but I need to think more about how I am going to run it, since there aren't any cosmetic company people telling me what to do and how to run it and what the prize is gonna be.  Actually, I already know what the prize is gonna be, cause I already bought it, but I need to plan the contest itself.  If anyone has any great ideas, feel free to share them, otherwise I am just going to pull something out of my ass.

SO!  I'm just gonna do a quick-n-dirty post about STUFF!!

Dear Satan

Sorry, misspelling "Santa" as "Satan" just tickles me.

Last week we talked about what to get for other people, and this week I am gonna talk about what I want, and y'all can talk about what you want.  I get fatigued during the holiday season, shopping for everyone, then I get to the point where I just want to buy stuff for myself and say fuck everybody.  I don't actually do that, though, I just fantasize about it.  Actually, not only do I not buy myself stuff, I don't even really get presents from the people who live in my house.  Everybody's birthday is in October, and mine is at the very end of October, so we usually just get Nona presents so her childhood isn't destroyed, and buy something for the house instead of Drew and me getting something in particular, since we all just got presents a month ago.  Not very fun.  Last year we got a chest freezer.  This year I think we are replacing our chipped up dishes.  Whoop-dee-dooooo!

So, this is my fantasy Christmas list, if I actually got Christmas presents and also was rich haha.

Let's Go Not Shopping!

Have you ever been walking down the stairs, and you slip and fall down a couple steps on your ass?  Then you whack your tailbone in just the right way that you knock the wind out of yourself and you can't breathe?  That's how I feel when I go shopping during the holiday season.  All the people all over the place, ugh.  I can't handle it.  It is doubly distressing because I enjoy going to the mall quite a bit, in an 80s mallrat kind of way.  I like going and chilling out and watching people, it's soothing.  Also, you can take a long walk in the AC.  Anyway, I just don't go to the mall during the holiday shopping season.  I just do all my shopping online, and even put some milage on my soap.com account so I don't even have to fuck around with people to get toilet paper.

SOOOOOOOO...

I've been laying low on here for a minute since I've been working on a new project.  Maybe you've seen it already the couple times I've linked it from Facebook, but I haven't linked it officially on any of my real-life websites.  BUT HERE WE ARE!!

Under-eye Business

I have some skin issues.  I mean, everyone has some kind of skin issue, or something they are not real crazy about that they like to cover up a little bit.

My skin was never that bad when I was younger, but then when I had a kid, my face flipped the fuck out and I turned into the Elephant Man or something.  I was always into doing eye makeup and lipstick, but when my skin got really bad was probably when I started taking make up very seriously.  Not being pregnant for a while and getting my hormones back in line and getting religious about using glycolic acid sorted my acne out, so now I only get a zit every couple months or something, but I have some red marks and scars left over that I use concealer on.  

Welp

I was going to post today about doing a french manicure with navy blue polish and black tips, since navy and black is my favorite color combo, but it didn't go as well as I hoped.  There wasn't enough difference between the two polishes.  Not only could you not tell in the pics I took, but you can't even tell looking up close in real life.

I'm not afraid to admit when shit goes bowl-shaped.  This post was dead in the water, but I can now tell you with authority that Chanel Blue Satin and Rimmel Black Satin are not different enough to do any kind of good combo with.  Learn from my wasted morning!

So, I'm gonna improvise here, and just talk about something else that doesn't require a bunch of set up like doing a special manicure.  

Let's talk about what we smell like!

Beauty Boxes or: That Time I Got Free Stuff

I've been hearing scuttlebutt about all these monthly subscription beauty sample things that have been popping up lately, and I've got a lot of emails from people asking what the deal is/are they worth it/is the stuff good/blah blah blah...

The thing is, I am cheap.  I don't really like spending money on stuff I don't 1000% want. I've heard that a lot of the box subscription things, like Birchbox or Glossybox or whatever, sometimes send crap like designer bandaids and hair ties and stuff that is not exciting, not makeup, and seems like filler.  Also, I've heard shipping is slow... basically, all I've heard is people complaining, and I just didn't want to spend my money on something I heard was sucky, when I could save my money, or spend it on something awesome that I want.

Then, I got an email offering me free stuff.

Oh no! Who Put 'Sad' and 'Guilt' In My Lotion?

Hello, everybody!!!

Sorry I've been scarce!  October is always my craziest, busiest month.  There's my husband's birthday, my birthday, my daughter's birthday, two of my sisters' birthdays, my brother-in-law's birthday, and family always visiting for all the birthdays, and the getting ready for Halloween, and trying to get out and enjoy October since it's the best month in Ohio, weather-wise, and and and...  I can't breathe.  Phew.  Luckily, it's just a month and I will be back to being a depressed, hermit shut-in before you can say Dia de los Muertos.

Anyway, I thought I would take this opportunity to talk to y'all about something y'all super-wanna talk about...

A Love Letter

I'm gonna go off the chain here.

I know that I am pretty skeptical.  I am SUPER good at finding flaws in stuff, and I never believe that any product is going to save the world and make everybody happy forever.  

BUT!  BUT!  Like, what if I found something and, like, completely fell in love?  What then?  Well, I would write a post like this where I spit a bunch of poems and flowers about it.  

BB Creams: They're OK

BB CREAM, RIGHT?

This is the new crud on the scene.  Kinda.  I mean, it's been around for awhile, but the pedestrian makeup brands have recently started cranking them out, and people write me about them all the time.  I mentioned them once before, then wrote a little mini thing about them, but still people wanted me to talk about them, so I thought I would do a post about them today.