Beauty Bloggers

Why can’t nail­ing winged eye­liner, achiev­ing per­fect glowy skin, or dis­cuss­ing MAC’s latest and greatest cre­ations be classed as an ‘interest’?

It’s a ques­tion pondered by Wel­ling­ton friends Mor­gan Ash­worth (24) and Har­riet Pud­ney (23) — one that led them to launch beauty blog Hyacinth Girl, to prove that a love of beauty isn’t vapid.

The pair met at uni­ver­sity a couple of years ago, and Hyacinth Girl grew from dis­cuss­ing and try­ing out beauty with a wider group of friends, includ­ing makeup artists.

They’re tired of the air­head rep attached to beauty enthu­si­asts. “It’s okay to be obsessed with gui­tars, or cars, or beer, or whatever, but the minute you like makeup or some­thing girly, everyone’s like ‘that’s stu­pid’; it’s not allowed to be an interest in the same way that tra­di­tion­ally male shit is,” says Harriet.

Mor­gan adds: “We don’t put makeup on to pick up dudes. We do it because it’s an art and it’s fun, and you feel good about your­self when you’ve tried some­thing and got it right — like, the per­fect winged eye­liner or a really cool, bright lip col­our that you’re not sure you can pull off.”

Beauty fans — both loc­al and inter­na­tion­al — agree: they’ve been flock­ing to Hyacinth Girl since its launch in September.

The website’s recently had a makeover of its own, but its writers have pledged to stay hon­est about the products they love — and the ones they don’t — even if big beauty and its advert­ising dol­lars come knocking.

“We’re not writ­ing a blog so we can get cool free stuff. If I hate some­thing, I’m going to say it,” Mor­gan asserts. Har­riet adds, “We’d rather the blog grow slowly and organ­ic­ally than quickly and disingenuously.”

And while it could one day become a full-time job, the pair say that for now, they’re just enjoy­ing shar­ing their thoughts with their audi­ence, without tak­ing it too seriously.

hyacinthgirl.com

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The Hyacinth Girl girls’ beauty picks

 Morgan Ashworth

NARS Sheer Glow foundation

“It’s a full-cov­er­age found­a­tion and that’s my kind of vibe — a really pol­ished base for my skin and really simple for the rest of my makeup. It’s quite expens­ive but it’s the best found­a­tion I’ve found.”

MAC lip­stick in Heroine

“I’m a huge advoc­ate of bright lip­stick all the time. People talk about wear­ab­il­ity or work appro­pri­ate­ness; to me, if you want to wear it to work, it’s work appropriate.”

Hour­glass Ambi­ent Light­ing Palette

“It’s a major indul­gence but their powders are just amaz­ing — you’re get­ting your money’s worth in terms of the dif­fer­ence that it makes.”

 

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Harriet Pudney

MAC Prep + Prime Highlighter

“I use it in a little bit of a tri­angle under my eyes as a con­ceal­er. You barely notice it’s there, but I really like the way that it looks.”

MAC Pro Long­wear Eye­shad­ow in Uninterrupted

“It’s a little bit weird but not unwear­ably weird. I reach for this pretty much every day that I wear eye makeup.”

MAC Min­er­al­ize Skin­fin­ish in Soft and Gentle

“I wear this on my cheeks and eyes — it’s just that really nice, reflect­ive, ‘bam, here are my cheekbones!’ kind of thing.”

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