Halloween was crazy.

There is something incredibly special about getting to pretend to be someone else, even just temporarily, and the added bonus of getting to play with dramatic makeup and hair cannot be ignored! Kimberly gave us some great tips last week for how to achieve various excellent makeup-based costume-looks, and pulled one off herself as a Viking. I went a little more basic this year with a Catwoman getup and some very dramatic contouring/highlighting/(obligatory) cat-eye goodness. It was fun.

The craziness wasn’t limited to costumes and makeup, though, but spread to the weather. Our little hometown of Austin flooded, again, making national news and bringing an extra element of chaos to Travis and Hays counties. Wimberley, the scene of the massive Memorial Day floods, was hit hard again, even as recovery continues from those May high-waters. We were lucky at beautystoredepot. Sure, a number of us had to call in because of impassable roads, but each of our staff members were safe, and we are thankful for that.

Speaking of being thankful, this has all been an interesting start to the season of Giving Thanks, however you celebrate it. This is the time of year when holiday shopping takes off, where the insanity of finding the perfect gift for all of the wonderful people in our lives starts to take on monumental importance, where we look at our bank accounts and calculate how much each person is worth, exactly. Despite everything going on here, even I found myself asking family members which of the samples I have sent them they liked. For me, it’s not just about finding the right products for their skin types or concerns, it’s about finding a combination of things I can send them that they’ll open and LOVE.

Acneic skin is a common issue, and it's something you can shop for easily. You can truly change someone’s life with the right products, but a back spray may not make your girlfriend feel sexy, even if she’ll use it. Replacing her Clarisonic brush heads with some for acneic skin, putting them in a cute travel bag with a cleanser might address the same problems, but in a way that makes it feel more like a gift. Giving my mom anti-aging products could possibly have some ill-conceived connotations, but a beautifully packaged serum, that is the very height of elegance (and aids in reducing wrinkles and enhancing radiance!) is a different story. Combine that with her favorite lip balm and a mask we can do together later on Christmas night? That’s a gift that not only says, “I know what concerns you,” but also, “let’s spend time together!” Similarly, my impossible-to-shop-for brother has specific skin concerns. He and I don’t have to talk about those concerns at length, but if maybe he’s a little happier with his skin after using a few targeted products, I’m willing to invest in them.

In order to be able to spoil my people the way I truly believe they deserve to be spoiled, I’m trying to feel out what they want and need now, early in this holiday season though we may be. Halloween has just passed, and Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching, but it is the winter holidays that loom ever closer. It is especially now that I want to curate presents that aren’t about vanity, but are about confidence, that aren’t about reason and are, a bit, about madness. After all, as Nietzsche assures us, “there is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.” For the people I love, I need this opportunity to express my appreciation for having them in my life.

If you have a hard to shop for family member or great ideas of what you’d like to receive, let us know! You can contact us at customerservice@beautystoredepot.com or give us a call at 1-800-926-5219.