Hey friends! I hope you all are thoroughly enjoying your weekends. So far mine has had a pretty nice balance of work and play. I've been doing a lot of filming and editing, with plenty of relaxation and lazy goodness thrown into the mix. Today looks like it'll be much of the same, with a couple of blog posts to work on and movie night with my friends to look forward to. And as I was sitting here, drinking my coffee and working on my January Birchbox post (which I'm terribly late at getting up), I had a bit of a realization. I know I've mentioned here and there in my posts that I've revived my YouTube channel, but I never made a formal announcement about it. So there is a good possibility that some of you may not even know that I've been posting other content elsewhere on the interwebs.
*dramatic gasp!*
I know what you're thinking. "Why have you been holding out on us, Lauren!?" Quite frankly, I have no idea. I certainly don't want you guys to miss out on any of the other reviews and tutorials I've been posting. So, before too many months go on without my officially saying so, I wanted to announce to you all,
I HAVE A YOUTUBE CHANNEL!
As much as I love writing blog posts, filming videos is something I've been wanting to experiment with for a long time now. Given the nature of beauty products, I think there's something valuable about being able to show you guys exactly how a product looks and applies in action, versus what I can capture in a small series of photographs. When I first started this blog in 2013 I tried filming a couple of videos, but had neither the expertise nor the proper equipment to create something of quality. I honestly cringe just looking at the thumbnails from those first couple of posts because they are just spectacularly terrible. I've thought many a time to myself that I should take them down, but I haven't had the heart to do it yet. We all need to start somewhere, as embarrassing as the evidence of our inexperience may be.
Recently, though, I bought myself a brand new laptop (a purchase that was long overdue) and with it FINALLY acquired some decent video editing software. Of course, technology is only one part of the equation. From trying to find the perfect backdrop, to dealing with uncooperative lighting, to having the temptation to constantly look in my viewfinder instead of at the camera, I'm learning there are lots of little things that can make or break a video. And of course, I'm still relatively new to the process, and know that I have many improvements to make. But I generally feel like I've already gotten way more comfortable behind the camera and am really happy to share what I've filmed so far with you all.
My plan going forward is to try and find a solid balance between uploading posts here and videos on my channel. I still think that I prefer a traditional written review for specific products or groups of products, but I really like filming videos for tutorials, hauls and other more chatty topics. Sometimes I'll do a hybrid post with a video embed inside of it (like this LUSH haul), but more often than not I think it'll end up being one or the other. That being said, the best way to get notified when I publish new YouTube content will be to subscribe to my channel. And of course, I'll also be sharing links on my social media accounts as I always do.
I really hope you guys enjoy the new video format and find my tutorials and such to be that much more helpful than the written posts I usually share. If you have any requests for any specific videos you'd like to see, I'd love to hear your feedback! Thank you all for being awesome and for supporting me on my beauty blogging journey, and now I've got to get back to writing that Birchbox post ;-)
