This week I was a guest on the Rebel Mama Hotline podcast where I talked about Instagram filters. I love these ladies, their group is the one for ‘mom group’ dropouts, the badass, rebellious women out there like us. They’ve also got two books The Rebel Mama’s Handbook for (Cool) Moms and Get Your $hit Together: The Rebel Mama’s Handbook for Financially Empowered Moms. I started creating IG filters about 2 years ago using a free program from Facebook called Spark AR. I made a beauty filter called LoLo Lash, inspired by my bff, Lauren O’Neil. I drew the lashes in Procreate with Apple pencil using a face mesh rentering then created the filter in Spark AR and added skin smoothing. This filter has 2.2M impressions, 99% of them are women aged 25-35. I understand this is (prob?) the biggest demo on IG but it also goes to show who is using beauty filters the most. In this ep of The Rebel Mama Hotline, we talk about how filters can create unrealistic beauty standards especially when the filter drastically changes your face shape. People are now going to beauty clinics with a filtered image of themselves saying ‘can you make me look more like this?’. I have a filter on this post from Day 341 and deff thought about how botox or filler could enhance my face to make it more like this ‘pretty’ filter. One of my filters that is just the smoothing effect bumped way up (Smooth AF) has almost 400K impressions. I often use filters and other beauty filters, I like the way they look, the creativeness of them, and a lot of them hide when you look tired…or feel old. Tap the play button below to listen to a snippet of the podcast or hit play…

I was thinking that something needed to change and hey, when in stressful times, why not change your hair?! ? Change is good my friends! Added some pink to my hair with a temp colour from L’Oreal I got on Amazon. I tried this one once before but it was too pink so I decided to add some conditioner before applying and it turned out a nice, light, strawberry blonde. I don’t remember ever having roots this long but adding a temp colour was always my go-to for between colourings. I like how this makes the roots less noticeable. I reckon it will rinse out in 2-3 washes but given the certain situation, it’s gonna be much longer before I get my hair done. Today’s Covid update is that the Greater Toronto Area will remain in lockdown until the 22nd of February. I know I look tired, I am tired! I’ve been trying to get 8hrs sleep every night but it doesn’t matter how much I get, I can’t escape this tired feeling. I miss doing things and going places, seeing people, having plans. Things are getting better but it’s going to be weeks before we’re out of lockdown and months before things resemble the ‘normal’ we used to know. Feeling a bit better today but could also have a breakdown at any minute. In other news, only 38 days until the first day of spring. Things do not change; we change. Henry David Thoreau