Category: beauty
Casual Sequins: Oxymoron?
Pink Polka Dots
Something We Can All Agree On: Beauty with a Purpose
The country is bitterly divided, as we just saw on Election Day. But let me share something we can all agree on: ending human trafficking. While I was further researching the dark world of human trafficking, tears of frustration, pain, and empathy were streaming from my eyes. This happens in our own country, friends. People are being bought and sold. People with families; people with futures, with big eyes and beautiful faces that deserve to smile. But I was also filled with tears of compassion as I read the stories of beautiful children, teenagers, women, and men who were rescued. Whose lives were taken back and whose spirits are being rejuvenated. Beautiful stories of hope. Stories of beauty with a purpose. Radiant Cosmetics is a company striving to create more of those stories. As they like to say, “Fighting human trafficking one lipstick at a time.”
What is Human Trafficking?
Human trafficking is a crime of modern-day slavery. Men, women, and children are bought and sold into various forms of human exploitation, including sex slavery and being sold for organs.This is a violent trade of human beings; it is a dehumanizing crime against men, women and children the world over, including the United States. Human trade generates $32 billion (did you catch that? billion) worldwide each year from the approximately 2 million people sold. That’s 2 children every minute.
Radiant Cosmetics
The cosmetics industry generates $170 billion worldwide each year, and Radiant Cosmetics founder Nicole is passionate about getting some of those funds on the front-lines of fighting human trafficking. Radiant Cosmetics is a company founded on the belief that we can make a difference. Indeed, we must make a difference, because our brothers and sisters are depending on us.
While travelling for missions work in Thailand, Nicole formed friendships with women who had been trafficked or worked in the commercial sex trade industry. Their stories cried out to her. Their faces awoke within her spirit a cry to help and a call to action. And that call to action included, you guessed it: lipstick.
Fighting for Change and Creating Hope
Now, she partners with other organizations such as Love146, fighting the tide of slavery, and her company donates a minimum of 20% of the profits from every product sold. Nicole and her team create amazing, gorgeous cosmetics. They are showing the world that a cosmetics company can be a generous force for good. That a lipstick purchase can mean something. That beautiful redemption is possible amidst the horrific scene of human trafficking.
I love it when God gives people a passion. I love it when He gives people a purpose in an otherwise ‘normal’ profession or situation. Selling lipsticks? No one used to think it could change the world. But Nicole? When Nicole looked at a tube of lipstick, she saw hope and the beauty of smiling faces freed from slavery.
***I am so excited to partner with Radiant Cosmetics. Tomorrow I’ll be sharing the products Nicole so graciously shared with me. Stay tuned!*** Edit: You can now read my review and see the products HERE in Part 2!
Life is Beautiful
Wednesday Mid Day
‘Cause I felt like sharing extra this week.
FINALLY: A tested list of the best antiperspirants and deodorants, including some awesome-sounding natural ones. I’ve tried lots of natural ones (some working better than others) but always keep a Dove handy, too. Can’t wait to try some of these 🙂
COOL NEW RESOURCE: The Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood fills a critical need in our society. They started in an effort to combat feminism in our society, and have many good things to say on gender roles and marriage. My fave two articles so far as food for thought: Loving Your Husband Before You Get Married (a great point about loving your husband all the days of your life–before and after marriage), and Female Beauty Matters (which I will be deconstructing in a later post that I’ve been chewing over for awhile…dissecting WHY I chose fashion blogging…) {Please note that I do my best to discern the Biblical strength of resources I post, but I’m not perfect and I don’t know the ins & outs of every organization/denomination/etc. I do the best I can, but please let me know if you think a resource does not stand up to Biblical truths.}
A GREAT DEBATE: Facebook “PDA”? Love it/hate it? The boyfriend and I were discussing this a few weeks ago, actually. Seems like a pretty personal decision–but where do you fall on the issue? Share with everyone you know {potentially including single friends, bosses, ex-boy/girlfriends, etc}? Or do you feel, as the article says, “some things are meant to be shared behind walls, not on them.”?
THE MOST UNIQUE THING I’VE SEEN ON THE INTERNET IN A LONGTIME: This recipe video. So stunning and inspiring:
beet cake from tiger in a jar on Vimeo.
That’s all for now. But I am keeping the “for now” vague. Cause I’m in a share-y mood.
Blossoming Beauty
The boy bought me these perfectly pink gerbera daisies (that he picked out all by himself!)…they make my heart sing 🙂 I posted the picture and a friend and mentor commented, “What a special man that gives you such beauty.”
A man that gives me beauty, as in beautiful physical objects…what a blessing! To have someone that I love, bring me things that I love, things that he knows will make me happy, just fills me. He wants to make me happy and to bring me beauty. He wants to make my heart sing and to see my face light up. Such a small thing that can make me happy all week!
A man that gives me beauty, as in, makes me a more beautiful person…what a blessing! Someone who makes me shine from the inside-out. A man who sees my femininity and works hard to make me feel like a beautiful woman…and tells me every day that I am beautiful and worthy. That makes me long to be more beautiful for him…more beautiful physically, emotionally, and spiritually, as a woman of God. He makes me long to be closer to God!That is the way it should be.
Girls, our men should absolutely make us feel that we are God’s feminine and beautiful women. We are our man’s feminine and beautiful woman too….inside and out. He spurs me on for the Lord! Don’t settle for any less in a man.