A look forward to the year ahead...

We want to wish all our readers a big
Happy New Year!
Hopefully you saw 2012 in in style, doing whatever makes you happy.

I love the New Year. Taking down the Christmas decorations means a chance to really clean up and sort things out, starting the new year in a positive way, writing in your new (mine is Cath Kidston this year) diary is like starting a blank page, looking forward to the year ahead. The time off for Christmas makes us reflect on our lifes, appreciate our loved ones, and make 'resolutions' for the New Year ahead. I say 'resolutions' in inverted commas, because I do not believe January to be the best time to make strict resolutions. I for one still have a lot of food left from Christmas, so a big diet will be out of the question (not to mention miserable!) and with the January weather being quite depressing, any mention of giving up red wine, cutting down on spending money on beauty products, or getting outside to train for a marathon will be the furthest thing from my mind. Instead, I like to think about what I hope the year ahead will bring, and specifically some resolutions I have for this blog.

Mags and I started 'Beautiful You' in 2009 as an outlet for our favourite subject, beauty products. Rather than bore fellow work mates, we decided to make our own space on the web for whatever we wanted to talk about. It wasn't until last year when we started to actively promote the blog on Twitter we realised how big and how wonderful the beauty blogging community is, and we have been overwhelmed by the kind advice and support we have received, as well as the encouragement and most importantly, you, the people who read our blog. So, what do we want to do in 2012 with Beautiful You?

• Beauty reviews will still be our main subject- this is what we love, buying new products, trying them out, and then sharing what we thought before you spend your money.
• We will feature more guest bloggers- my sister Sam reviewed for us on Dove and Nivea products in 2011. We love it when people come and share their thoughts on our blog as it is great to get different perspectives, we hope to do more of this in 2012!
• Improving our photos- Mags has a great camera which takes brilliant photos, I recently got a lightbox for Christmas, making product photos easier to take, and lighting better to control.
• Blog design- we love the look of our blog, but it was designed a few years ago, and there are things we want to change to make it easier for you to navigate around - watch this space!
• Blogging community- we want to get more involved with all the wonderful bloggers in this great community, sharing ideas, attending blogger meet ups etc.

And now a few personal goals for 2012:

• Find the perfect eye cream - I turn 30 this year (eeek, I mean it when I say I don't want to talk about it!!) and I am on the hunt for the perfect eye cream.
• Budget buys- I used to be a high end cosmetic gal, but the beauty blogging world has taught me that sometimes some of the best products don't have to cost the earth, I want to continue reviewing high street cosmetic brands.
• Face of the day - I have done a couple of these now and love them, so will definitely want to bring you more of these! 
• Banish the bad hair day- I would like to rid these from my life...but failing that, find some products that keep my locks under control.

I hope you enjoyed this post, please share with us what your resolutions, aims, hopes, ambitions and goals for 2012 are as we would love to know.

Here's to a great year in the beauty blogging world!

Stay Beautiful!

Stace x

2nd January 2012