Make Me Blush

Alright, listen up, because I'm doing a thing!

If you've been around my corner of Vocal long enough, you might remember my Sharing The Spotlight series. It was a piece I was inspired to write in hopes of shining a light on other creators works because I feel like so many stories often get lost in the void and don't get the attention they deserve.

It's been a minute since I did that because in one of the comments on a previous piece, someone accused me of trying to harvest money by stealing others work. That was never my plan. I truly just wanted to lift creators up and make them feel seen.

We all know that yes, we get paid for reads. So yeah, I will make a few cents off of someone clicking on my work and reading mine. That's nice, yeah... but it's not my ultimate goal with these pieces. I really just want to share stories from creators I've enjoyed. If it ever upsets you that I feature your work, ask me and I will delete it. It's that simple.

If I didn't feature your work and you're mad at me for sharing someone else's, please see yourself out. This is one of the ways I like to attempt to uplift and give back to our Vocal community. That's it. I have no evil agenda.

This time around I decided to do it just a little different. I won't be going through multiple communities in one piece. I've been reading through one community in particular and will be sharing a few from that one community.

Blush has entered the chat. Why Blush you ask? First of all, I love makeup and beauty. In theory, that's supposed to be what the entire community revolves around. Second, despite the chaos that usually come with online beauty spaces, there are tons of kind and talented writers tucked away there with stories that deserve your eyeballs staring at them for a few minutes.

So, I'm putting together a piece dedicated entirely to highlighting some of the work happening in that space. I'll be sharing a few stories, (not sure how many yet... I guess I'll figure it out as I go) reflecting on why I thought it was enjoyable or informative and hopefully throwing some well-deserved traffic and appreciation their way.

I believe good work should get noticed and I thoroughly enjoy hyping up others. Is this going to turn into a full-blown recurring series? I have no idea... I just felt compelled to write this, so here we are.

Starting off strong with a skin care review by Kaitlin Shanks.

I'd never heard of this specific line until reading her piece. I was immediately ready to read on when she said it was not sponsored. I don't trust any influencers with anything these days.. give me a good unbiased review any day. The way she described the benefits her own skin saw made me go to the website and look at a few products. I haven't purchased anything yet.. but I did add a few to my cart and will be purchasing them when my own current skin care supplies run low!

Suffering from acne? Struggling to find products that work with combo skin? Syd'je has got you covered.

She specifically mentions this may not work for everyone... but she also mentions that she uses a brand of skin care I know and love as well. It works. No harm in giving this a try! I will also be sharing her article with my niece who has been trying so many things to help her own skin. I think she wrote a wonderful article with lots of helpful tips!

I never used Proactiv myself, but I did notice I wasn't seeing a billion commercials for it at one point. Wondering where it went? Gladys W. Muturi can fill you in! She even included her resources and a bit about where Proactiv originated. I didn't know most of the stuff in this article. It was very informative!

I dug through over 30 pages of stories in Blush and unfortunately, there was a whole mess of AI generated stories or stories that did not belong within that community at all. That's what I meant when I said stories are being buried and writers are not getting the reads they deserve. I hope y'all go give these three stories some reads and hearts. I would love to see more creators recognized and not buried.

so... whether you're here to discover some writers you may have missed or just to marvel at the fact that I spent hours wading through AI generated content so you didn't have to, I appreciate you stopping by.

Please give these stories some well-deserved hearts and let's try and acknowledge the "more human vocal" we were recently promised.