Category Archive

Life

We launched as Offbeat Home in 2011, but it has become clear that the site is about much more. In 2013, we relaunched as Offbeat Home & Life, with an expanded focus on Relationships, Budget & Career, Travel, and Style. This is the category for the non-home/rest of life stuff!

Try not to be empowered by this stunning boudoir session

Just try not to be empowered by this stunning 60th birthday boudoir session

Mrs. MC wanted to do a 60th birthday boudoir session to celebrate the beginning of another decade and to give her husband of six years an exciting anniversary gift. And she surely wowed him as much as she wowed us. This session is classy, striking, timeless, and hot. Girl looks seriously GOOD.

Sustainability isn’t always sustainable: Environmental thoughts from an eco poser

I wake up one day feeling like Captain Planet, and the next I’m considering buying paper plates for dinner. I know I’m not alone. It’s the same mechanism by which any serious yet non-immediate threat gets pulverized in the gears of our everyday lives.

There will always be a sizable part of our psyche that we just can’t convince to give a shit about something until it’s pounding on our door. And I think there’s an especially large, entirely intersectional number of us doing this with the environment.

Tips from a makeup artist: The 5 best face moisturizers

Good face moisturizers are everything. Everything. What I look for in a moisturizer depends on the skin I am applying it to, BUT as a makeup artist I am also looking for moisturizers that will not disrupt the makeup I intend to put over it.

Fear not! Even for the driest skin, there is a moisturizer out there that will soothe, heal and nourish the skin without disrupting your final makeup application…

Why are female politicians STILL getting looks-shamed?

Why are female politicians STILL getting looks-shamed?

When Hillary Clinton was running for president, there was a troubling amount of talk about her “stamina” and her “look.” Now Theresa May was called out for looking “heavily made up, as if she’s been crying.” So what’s the deal — why are we still having to dodge distraction headlines about the looks of female politicians?

Panic attack chronicles: Don’t let your mental illness bully you

My husband drove us home in my car, sans groceries. I sobbed the whole way, shaking and panicking, and thinking “I’m such a weak fucking loser. I wonder if he’ll leave me. I hope he does — he’d be better off.”

But having panic attacks/mental illness doesn’t make you unlovable, or a bad partner, as long as you are being proactive about caring for your mental health…

Defying gender binaries with Alok Vaid-Menon — a gender non-conforming writer, performer, & fashion icon

Alok feels that the concepts of masculinity and femininity shouldn’t have relevance in this day and age. “We need to be much more colorful, expansive, and precise about what we mean rather than defaulting into ideological catchalls that do more harm than good,” he tells me.

Being that Alok is a person of color, I wonder if they feel that ethnicity/race ties into the equation in a meaningful way. Their reply is so profound that I’m still sort of reeling from it…

Behold the most absurdly cute purses that you can actually buy

I have had the same large wallet since college and it finally broke. So sheeet, I needed to know buy a new purse. I still haven’t found The One yet, but I sure did find about a million that I wanted to buy. The world of absurdly cute purses is vast and eye-popping. I figured I’d share a few of my favorites in case you too are in search of a statement clutch, purse, or wallet to let everyone know that you too are a 12-year-old at heart.

Dealing with vacation anxiety (yes, it's a thing!)

Guilt, comfort zones, and buffer days: Dealing with vacation anxiety (yes, it’s a thing!)

I’m going on vacation! I booked a real, non-weekend-only trip where I’ll fly outside of the United States for the first time in 16 years. I’m so excited and grateful. But on top of that gratefulness and excitement is a bit of anxiety. I know, I know, get over myself and embrace the vacay. I plan to, but I still need to deal with a few latent fears and anxieties that I know some of y’all are also feeling about vacation.

Here’s how I’ll be handling vacation anxiety…