When you start a YouTube channel, one of the first things you think about is, "Whos going to subscribe to my channel?". Almost EVERYTHING you do on your channel is for your subscribers. Every opportunity you get, every free item, every sponsor ect, is because of your subscribers! 
 
So, the question is.... What is YOUR relationship with your subscribers?

I have been on YouTube for 9 months and already I see multiple flaws in the site and the people on it. I've made rants on my channel and discussed it with others but, I dont have the following to actually do something about it. Heres hoping one day that changes! 

At the present moment I am three subscribers away from 1600. I never thought I would EVER reach that number and it baffles me every day. Sometimes I get on YouTube just to check it a couples times a day because I still cant believe it. Every single subscriber I get means so much to me. You hear just about EVERY YouTuber say the exact same sentence. But, do they mean it?

The most common problem with YouTubers is people NOT writing back to subscribers comments. As your channel grows, it becomes increasingly hard to write back to every single comment but, we can all agree this is NOT just with popular YouTubers. This is a common problem even for channels with less subscribers than me and believe when I say, I write back to EVERY comment. If I cant write back bc sometimes there is no reply button, I will personally go on their page and write them a message explaining why I couldn't write back. I have heard almost every excuse in the book why people can't write back to their subscribers and the most common one is they are too busy with other things. If you are too busy to write back to the people that are making your channel possible, GET OFF YOUTUBE! 

In addition, NOT writing back to your subscribers causes you to NOT have a relationship with them at all. Your comments, if you leave them, are impersonal and short. The only people you know by name are fellow YouTubers that watch your channel. For most of us, 80% of our subscriber base are other beauty YouTubers. So, those few that dont have channels and watch you just because they love your channel are few and rare! Which makes having a relationship with them, that much more important. When you obtain even a slight personal relationship with your subscribers, they will stay and truly be loyal to you. You will lose less subscribers monthly and have more interaction on your videos. They are more likely to tell their friends and family about you. Your subscriber count is NOT the true number of people that actually watch your videos and interact with you. We all know this. I have close to 1600 subs but on my best day I get around 300 views on each video and im proud to say that out of the 300 people that watch and interact with me, I know almost all of them by name and where they are from AT LEAST. Its a ongoing task to get to know knew people everyday but I make time to do it! 

This is not just a personal problem for each of our channels. Not having a relationship with your subscribers hurts everyone your involved with. For example, Collaborations. The point of doing collaborations is to get your name out there to the other persons subscribers base. Which, will grow your subscriber count and maybe get you noticed by another person to do a collaboration with. Its the best and most professional way to grow your subscriber count. The problem im seeing with this though, is that people are doing collaborations and subscribers are not even watching the other persons video. Ive done a collaboration with someone with double the subscribers as me and when we did our videos together, she got at least 50 subscribers from me and I got nothing. Not a single person subscribed to me from her channel and i had 100 less views on my video than she did on hers. I've also done a collaboration with someone MANY times who had triple the subscribers than me and NEVER ONCE got even ONE subscriber from her. BUT, the people I collab with ALWAYS get subscriber from me. That is because I have a personal relationship with my subscribers and they trust my word and the people i affiliate myself with. 

NOT having a relationship with your subscribers will eventually be the death of your channel. Most of us will NOT become successful from YouTube and our channels will not blow up. But, we will always have SOME kind of subscriber count and its because of THOSE people that you will keep your channel. Take the time to get to know some of them. Have a couple conversations a day with them. When you collaborate do more than just say ONE sentence about the person your collabing with! Pull your subscribers in to WANT to check out that other person. We need to correct this flaw bc it is just another step in the doom of YouTube. 

  

    I really struggled whether or not I should post this in my beauty section or my motherhood section! Haha! It fits it both categories so well, doesn't it?! LOL

     So, to start this blog post off so it will make more sense to you I'm going to give you a little background on my weight loss story...

    My WHOLE family are very skinny people naturally. My sister and mother combined MAY weight as much as me together if not less. I have always been the biggest one in my family even when I was a size 5. I was fit my whole life until my father passed away when I was 17. The first thing I did when my dad passed was go straight to McDonalds and ate everything in site. I could eat anything I wanted (and did) and wouldn't gain weight. After my dad passed, I noticed I started gaining weight rapidly over the course of a couple months. I was still quite small though, so i didnt pay much mind to it and I was grieving as well. I gained about 20-30 pounds over a couple months. 
     About two years later, I got pregnant with my first child. I was 19 at the time and about a size 11. I had serious morning sickness throughout my WHOLE pregnancy so I only ended up gaining about 10 pounds from that which, was pretty much all baby. After I had my daughter, I actually went down to a size 9 but obtained a nice little mommy pouch that most of us all know and hate. My daughters father HATED my weight gain and mommy pouch and didnt hesitate to let me know. He urged me to work out and lose weight. He got very verbally abusive with it at times as well as forcing me to run up and down our road while he followed behind me with a bike and kept little food in the house. Mind you, this man was about 130 pounds soaking wet. 
   I eventually smartened up and left this man and moved in with my mother. I was a size 9 still but extremely stressed out. I was a nervous wreck to be honest. It was my first time being a single parent, i didnt have a home, and I had just lost my car and job at that time. I eat my emotions of course but, this was another situation where a lot of food was not readily available so it kept me from gaining weight. 
    Not long after, I met my husband, the LOVE of my life. I was still a size 9 mind you. He took me out on my first REAL date to an amazing Italian restaurant and that, my friends,is where EVERYTHING went wrong!

   The more I got comfortable with my husband, the more I ate around him (Im not the type to eat around men i just meet. Stupid, I know). I was still living at my mothers and he was living at his mothers at the time so, we would always go out to eat and splurge on big, unhealthy meals. I slowly started gaining weight. Due to both our circumstances, we ended up getting an apartment together after less than a year together. That is when my husband started cooking for me. I had no idea this man could cook the things he could and he opened me up to a world of different foods. At that time, Aldi's food was about as advanced as I was! He showed me new cheeses and breads and cooked enough for 10 people every time we ate dinner. We ate huge steaks and mashed potatoes multiple times a week. So, you guessed it, i gained weight quickly. I went from a size 9 to a size 14 quickly. I didnt mind too much bc my husband loved me and never said anything and always told me I was beautiful. Not to mention he was gaining weight as well so I dont think he wanted to go there. I just started gaining weight until I was at a size 16.


     A couple years down the I got pregnant with my second child, my son. Again, I only gained about 11 pounds and lost it right away when he was born. But my mommy pouch got a little bigger (and so did the stretch marks).I stayed at a size 16 even though it was a bit big to cover my mommy pouch. No muffin tops over here!! After my son though, I immediately started craving chocolate. Specifically, caramel nut clusters. I went through tubs and tubs of these and it was mostly the only thing i ate. You can guess what happened. I went straight to a size 18. 

    I have always struggled with my weight. My weight has always yo-yo'd. I can lose 20 pounds quickly and gain 35 back even quicker. I never worked out in any of this because my husband loved me and never made me feel different. I thought about diets but watched people i loved go on them and completely lose themselves. They would either fail, and gain more weight, which scared the shit out of me OR they would succeed and become those assholes that talk shit about people struggling with their weight or they wont SHUT UP about fitness and weight loss. I didnt want either of those so i just did my normal everyday thing. 

   I started YouTube at a size 18 and once I got into the community more and met some amazing women, I have decided to take the plunge and start a fitness and diet plan. I decided that I would NOT lose myself in this. That I would do what fits me best in the way it fits me best. I want a complete life style change, NOT personality change. Once i convinced myself of this, I took the plunge. I found that its not the weight loss that changes people. Its people that change people. I dont have to be like that but i also dont have to live unhappy about my appearance and self. So I joined a weight loss collab with a bunch of AMAZING women. We put NO pressure on ourselves, we are not all doing the same thing, and there is NO time limit. Just the day to day struggle of fitness and diet together. This was made by an amazing friend of mine Ellie. Its called the Ellko Health Team. I urge you to join, no matter who you are! It is so welcoming there and no judgment. You can be yourself and the women with success only praise you and support you. 
   I am now down 22 pounds and counting and a size 14. Im happy, Im getting healthy and most importantly...Im still me :)

Ellko Health Team- https://www.facebook.com/groups/381134438716425/

   Have you ever kept a beauty item just for the plain fact that the packaging is gorgeous?! The product itself is usually crap though, or gone but, you just cant get rid of it because it looks so pretty on your vanity?! I know I am NOT the only one RIGHT?! I wanted to share what I keep just because of the packaging and why! I thought it would be fun to see who else keeps something because of the packing! Make sure to leave me a comment let me know what you keep!! 

   Lets start off with lipsticks. The first one is the L'Oreal Privee Collection lipsticks. I only have the Julianne one, thank god! The smell of these lipsticks is horrendous! They have such a strong smell of play dough and a cabbage patch doll that I get headaches if i wear it! Its not even that great of a formula because its seriously waxy and clumps in to any cracks in your lips. But, I keep it on display because the packaging is very sleek and pretty. Almost like the NARS packaging, which I love! They are also a bit more expensive than other drug store lipsticks. They retail for $7.99 at Ulta. Is that worth just the packaging?
     Then, there is the other L'Oreal lipstick with the gold casing. This is the colour riche line. This particular one is 170 Cotton pink. Its looks like a really nice baby doll pink. Thankfully this one does NOT have a horrible smell but, the shade itself does nothing for my lips! I cant say much for any other colors from that line but, the gold looks gorgeous on my vanity. So, for $5.97 that is where it will stay, unused by me. 
      Lastly, we have Napoleon Perdis's Devine Goddess lipstick in NIKI. I orginally got this because the name of the lipstick was my name! Not many people spell their names Niki (its usually Nikki). It was also on clearance at Ulta online so I grabbed it! Big mistake on my part...or was it? I absolutely hate the color. It looked so much better online. Almost like a nude coral color. This lipstick is as sheer as it gets. You can barely see it on your lips at all. But the packing...oh lordie!! Its a clear see through packing with gold letters and a gold butterfly. Plus, it says my name!!! So im keeping it...It only cost me $13.00 to just have it for its packaging....ugh.
 
    Moving on to the palette I have here. This palette is by BH Cosmetics. That is the only product I have from their line besides a lipstick. Its retails for only $7.95 and I also did not buy this myself. Which is a good thing! The colors inside consist of 6 pink and brown toned eyeshadows, a blush, a bronzer, a highlighter, and two lip glosses. The eye shadows are crap. They have no pigmentation and are really hard to blend out (the darker shades). The highlighter is nothing more than a white powder and the bronzer doesnt show up even on my really light skin! The blush is powdery and patchy and I wont even touch the lip glosses. Plus side, it does have a REALLY big mirror and the packaging is pretty! So, it stays! 

   Next is some highlighting powders. The first is a highlighter from Sephora. This retails for $14.00. Now, I do like this highlighters formula, I just cant use it because of the insane yellowness it has. It doesnt look right at all whenever I try to use it. So, I never do. But, the packaging is sleep and has the Sephora logo on it. Im determined to find a way to use this someday so I keep it!
  Then, there is the Milana Illuminating Powder in 03 Beauty's Touch. I see this particular powder all over Instagram. It retails for $9.49. It has little roses of blush, bronzer and highlighters in it. Its crap. I hear people rave about this product but, it sucks! Its powdery and not really pigmented and chalky. It doesnt even show up on my skin. I keep it ONLY because of how pretty it looks in a bowl on my vanity!!
  Lastly with the highlighters, there is the Sonia Kashuk Chic Luminosity Glow Powder. This retails for $12.99 at Target. I had really high hopes for this product. I have recently started trying out Sonia Kashuk products and LOVE them! Plus, im a highlighter whore so I had to have it! This product is COMPLETE junk! Its chalky and splotchy. It doesnt have one single bit of "glow" to it at all. Its literally just like putting pressed chalk on your face. But, I love how its sleek looking and the powder itself looks like dinosaur skin! So, it stays in my mascara drawer of all places. Haha!
  
   Now, I want to talk about the mascara! This is the Tarte Lights, Camera, Splashes waterproof mascara. It retails, full size, for $20.00 at Sephora. I have the deluxe sample size. I absolutely HATE this mascara. The bristles are hard and spiky. The formula is runny and gets everywhere. Then, to top it off, when you want it to come off it wont! It literally hurt to apply this mascara so I never use it. But, it stays because for 1. Its Tarte and 2. Its awesome looking!! 

This nail polish is by NYC. Its a crackle top coat polish, which I love. I have a bunch from Sally Hansen, Avon, China Glaze ect. So, I thought i would pick this one up since its way cheaper. It retails for $.99. I got mine in City Treasure which is a beautiful gold and silver glitter. The formula is what sucks. Its really runny and does not crack at all. I had maybe two little slivers in each nail. So, its not the best I have for Crackle Top Coats but, it is really pretty so it stays!

The last makeup item is double eyeliner from JunJain Cosmetics. I got this off E-bay for a couple dollars. The base has a felt tip liquid liner and the top has a coal liner. The liquid liner smells like some hazardous chemical. It burns my eyes to use it. The coal liner isnt that bad but doesnt stay in the cap so it dries out easily. But, I keep it because, well, its leopard print!! You feel me right?!

The last item is this compact mirror I got from Ulta. Im not sure how much it retails for because I got it for free for donating to breast cancer awareness. I do not use compact mirrors but look at the beauty!! It is gorgeous! So, it rests on my vanity looking pretty all day with no real job to do!!