I didn't start wearing mascara until I was 14 years old and even then it was only when I felt like putting it on in the morning. Growing up going to Catholic school mostly, girls weren't allowed to wear makeup and I would watch my friends as they got sent down to the bathroom by our teachers to wash off their makeup that wasn't subtle at all.

To me, it seemed like a lot of hassle. I eventually added loose powder foundation to my daily routine, some blush and maybe some light neutral eye shadow if I was feeling risky but never much more than that. Then my junior prom came along and I wanted to look nice that day but I didn't want to spend a lot of money on it (and neither did my dad) so I began researching. I watched tutorial after tutorial on YouTube about how to do your own prom makeup. Scrounging up the make up we had in the house between my mom and me, I managed to do my own makeup for prom.

So yes, this whole experience started because I didn't want to pay for my makeup to be done for one night out of my junior year. After that night, I kept watching those tutorials. I began looking into products and asking for Urban Decay pallets for Christmas. That's when the real addiction started.

I began to be more adventurous. I started doing winged eyeliner with liquid pens. Miserably at first (and still sometimes). I picked up beauty blenders, contour pallets, learned how to bake my face (yes that is a real thing) and began to care immensely about how my eyebrows looked.

I fell in love with doing makeup and it makes me feel great to do it. While yes I can make my eyelids different colors, or make it look like I have visible cheekbones on my very round face that aren't the best part for me.

I'm actually pretty good at applying makeup and knowing what will look good on my face and on others. My friends have started to ask me to do their makeup for special nights out and it's a really cool experience to help the people close to me feel more confident in any way I can.

Finding out a talent about yourself is an awarding experience and being kind of obsessed with makeup is like being a part of a club. I can walk down the street or around my campus and get stopped about my eyeliner or my lipstick and have a conversation with a stranger about wanting to try Kylie's new lip kit but never being able to order it in time.

While many beauty gurus on YouTube get bashed for being "cake face" or shallow. They are accused of false advertising because some people don't seem to understand that a girl having gold shimmery eyelids isn't natural.

makeup is hard. It takes a steady hand and patience. I don't know how many times I made my eyeliner to thick or too heavy to start over again and redo my entire eye look. Getting a routine down pat takes a very long time and even then you are always trying to improve the products you use and try new makeup techniques and trends that surface.

Learning to do and love to make up has made me a much more confident person. As a person who has dealt with a lot of self-image issues dating back to as young as 8 years old, I can look in the mirror and love my face both with and without makeup. Through my love of makeup, I have learned to love myself and I have come to know that everyone has features they wish they could change but those are usually the features that other people admire the most. Through makeup, I have begun to take better care of myself both physically and emotionally. I finally feel good about myself on the outside and that itself has begun to repair some of the damage on the inside.

So if you're reading this and you're like me and have found yourself absolutely obsessed with powders, brushes, liners, and swatches then cheers to us. If anyone out there is thinking about going out and trying something new with their make up my advice is to go for it. It might take awhile to master it but I promise you will thank yourself for it