Where to start? Well, if I’m perfectly honest, in 2014, when this business was created, I was searching for my why. I had worn out my drab business suits, had had way too many corporate meetings for one lifetime and I just knew that something had to change. The decision to make things different was riddled with guilt and complete uncertainty like many other people at crossroads, but I was so ready. I took a few deep breaths, prayed to the heavens that I'd be ok, sprinkled in a bit of yoga and Gloss & Co became real. However it hasn't been until just recently that the stars aligned and meaning presented itself. Someone much smarter than me once said that 'everything will reveal itself to you in time', and they were right.
To explain more, when the company began, it had been around five years since my Mum had passed and many more since my Grandmother. I also wasn't blessed with little ones to call my own, so it's just me and a whole lot of what ifs, but I digress!
Little life lessons, favourite family recipes, how to knit cables and all things from 'back in my Mums day' got me thinking about legacy and women and the amazing times we now live in. I spent some time writing about things my mother taught me and the things that had been passed on to her from her mother. Silly things like how to eat spaghetti bolognese in a fancy restaurant as well as really important safety concepts like the correct way to hold a potato peeler so you don't lose a knuckle! As it turns out that there are no silly or trivial bits of knowledge: it's all gold.
The web is a wonderful world of information and instruction videos with how to's, but it could never replace the day my mother sat with me and taught me how to apply eye shadow for the first time. There were no fancy contouring videos, just me and Mum, some brand new Yardley eye shadow and a little brush with a tiny sponge on one end that was included in the blue plastic tray. I think I was about 15 or so, armed with a small hand mirror and some pink lip gloss too. There were no selfies or winged eyeliner back then; we just sat for what seemed like hours and laughed and giggled away. We definitely weren't well off by any means when I was young, but that day, I felt like a princess. It's a day I will never ever forget and upon reflection, it was more of her gold.
Beauty Salon angels do these kinds of thing with women every day. They will massage your skin and manicure you to perfection while holding your hand laughing and sharing stories with you. They will moisturise, primp and preen you because it's what they have chosen to do with their life. To care for you. To share with you the safest, most beautiful products and to encourage you to care for yourself. Mothers and daughters too delight in these hand holding times and I've heard many beautiful stories about granddaughters painting grandmas nails with her favourite colour nail polish to make sure she feels pretty and loved in her older years. All of these experiences are true golden moments. It's not until they are few and far between that you realise how special they were.
I truly believe that its time we encourage more women and girls to learn about life and love from other women again; mothers from grandmothers, daughters from mothers and friends from their beloved friends. To consciously make the time to pass on the innate craft of being a woman; the bonding and selfless gift of caring for ourselves and each other. I cant help feeling that there is a huge part of our womanly legacy that we may lose unless we create opportunities to share our memories.
Let’s rejoice in their tales and memories and in the process, make new ones. Because someone else also smarter than me once said that we should 'enjoy the little things in life, for one day we will look back and realise they were the big things'. The Internet will always be there for re-runs of our favourite shows and I'm the first one to be rolling on the floor at hilarious cat videos, but for those heartfelt moments that create the best memories, like Mum’s make-up tips, how to bake Nannas chocolate chip cookies just the way she did or how to stay inside the lines when painting your nails (you use a toothpick, apparently), lets close our internet browsers, step away from the 'how to poach an egg' videos and ask the women in our lives to tell us some stories about the way they remember things being done. Lets just sit and take it all in.
Thanks for the opportunity to share part of me with you and I hope you love my products as much as I've enjoyed bringing them to you.
Please enjoy them, share them with your loved ones and create new memories.
