Established beauty bloggers like myself have many incentives to blog. The passion for the niche is a given already because it's difficult to go far as a blogger without it; I mean, imagine all the time, money, and research that have gone into building a website worth reading and coming back to! We may have started our blogs casually, as a hobby, but maintaining it takes dedication.

I wouldn't call it an investment because when we started we expected very little from this (ad)venture. Nonetheless, our efforts are - whether we like to be coy about it or not - being rewarded handsomely.

We get freebies and invitations to fun parties. More importantly, I think, we're part of a close-knit community that you would be surprised to know isn't competitive. These are some of the things that motivate us to blog regularly, to come up with interesting free content for our readers. But. How about new beauty bloggers who are largely ignored by brands and the community? Being just one of hundreds of new bloggers in the niche, how could they hope to keep their blog going?

And why should we care?

Someone on Twitter, I forget who, said that you can only feel truly burnt-out about something you love. If you don't love it then you'll simply be tired of it, but to be burnt-out requires a mixture of infinite exhaustion, double-guessing, and regret. Thankfully it's something most people recover from. Those who don't move on and the rest of the world continues, nonchalant. 

Am I feeling a rash of blogger burnout? Oh dear, no. I do sometimes find it difficult to start a post, nay, to even choose what to write about, but I get over it. I read a book. Watch a TV show. Do my other work. Then get back to writing a post and before I know it I'm all set! It's easier now since I've been doing this for a few years - I know the vocabulary, how to plan the content, basically the whole process starting from the point I decide which products to use down to that "Save & Close" publish button. It's easier but that doesn't mean it's not difficult, which is why there are still days when I don't feel inspired at all.

There are a few common reasons why beauty and fashion bloggers stop blogging, or at least take a "hiatus".

The other day, some random troll on Twitter said that beauty bloggers like Shen, Sophie, Nikki, and I shouldn't be beauty blogging because we're not pretty. I forget the exact wording since I immediately blocked the account. I'm not even irritated or anything - I just rolled my eyes. That particular Twitter account was set up solely to troll celebrities like Solen Heussaf and the Magalona sisters. 

Anyway. The comment reminded me of a conversation I had with other people over on Twitter some months back. A well-known fashion blogger commented that most beauty bloggers don't have the looks to be actually doing it. Again, I'm not offended, but the comment did hit a chord since it misunderstood the essence of what I do.

I replied to her and said that the point of beauty blogging is to demonstrate how average women can look better than they already do.