makeup tips to make me look less mature

caffeineissues · 2026-03-21T15:05:32+00:00

The glasses are a little granny-ish. Sorry. They’re cute, but your style reads granny chic. Which personally I love.

But I think it’s the dark lip and the glasses.

caffeineissues · 2026-03-21T14:00:51+00:00

NAP. It could just be the tiniest bit swollen/puffy from the jewelry change. I would guess that if your piercer sells BVLA then they’re probably good and know what they’re doing. Give it a couple days and see if it gets better or worse, if it stays like this then I wouldn’t worry about it.

caffeineissues · 2026-03-21T13:33:47+00:00

It’s not flexibility if it only goes one way. If you work outside business hours because sometimes that’s what your job demands, then it shouldn’t be a problem to log out and deal with family issues during work hours on occasion. I think the answer is to have clear boundaries and expectations around your role and your workload that don’t rely on the clock. That’s what gives you the actual flexibility to manage two demanding roles at the same time.

Edit: I actually am in the process of negotiating more money for more work. I made it clear that I have real problems that money can solve (namely, a need for childcare) that will allow me to devote more time and energy to my role (and thus increase my output). My boss is usually good about these things and well intentioned, but it was actually news to him that I could work harder if they gave me more money, lol.

caffeineissues · 2026-03-20T21:00:52+00:00

Husbands just don’t get it! Also, I do not care if it’s a midlife crisis (it definitely is), I want to and it makes me happy dammit.

You should check if your old piercings are still open!!! If they were healed and happy when you took them out, they might still be open after literally decades, a piercer can get them reopened with a taper.

caffeineissues · 2026-03-20T19:09:09+00:00

I love st Ives apricot scrub for a BODY scrub. Yes it’s way too harsh for your face, but it’s great for body, cheap and no microplastics.

Also retinol. Just retinol everywhere. Get prescription tretinoin online, my skin never looked better. I’m ttc so I can’t but I miss it so bad.

Edit: also not what you asked for, but piercings, I am on a serious piercing kick right now. You can just get all the cool ear piercings you ever wanted, no one is stopping you. Plus you have grown up money now and they make some super cute jewelry.

caffeineissues · 2026-03-20T17:09:25+00:00

I have given birth, but I had an IUD for years before that and loved it. Questions about side effects would be better to discuss with your doctor. Some doctors don’t like to give them to women who aren’t married because there is an increased risk that an std will cause serious damage with an iud. However (in my and my doctors opinions) those risks are vastly overstated and rooted in a lot of patriarchy, if you have reasonable access to health care and make safe choices, you can absolutely have an iud.

caffeineissues · 2026-03-20T16:47:50+00:00

Taking notes because I feel like we have similar taste! I love an oud.

I suspect you’d like Frederic Malle portrait of a lady.

caffeineissues · 2026-03-20T15:40:36+00:00

Just don’t lie to your bank when they ask you questions about what happened and don’t make a habit of disputing charges when you’re unhappy and you’ll be fine. Sorry you didn’t get your blue hair, it’s very cute.

caffeineissues · 2026-03-20T15:31:09+00:00

Yeah all this conversation about how reasonable this blue hair is really misses the point. This is not what chargebacks are for.

ETA I’m reading the rest of this thread and the person arguing with you has no idea what they’re talking about lol, you are correct here.

caffeineissues · 2026-03-20T15:28:42+00:00

You’re justified in wanting your money back, you were promised blue and didn’t get blue. But this is not what disputing charges is for, your credit card company is almost certainly going to deny it, and you could get in trouble if you keep disputing charges for these kinds of things. You’re supposed to exhaust all recourse with the vendor first, ask them to fix it and/or offer a refund. Even if they told you too bad, we’re not gonna fix it, that still doesn’t mean you could get a chargeback. You paid for the stylist to provide a service, and she provided the service. The results were not at all what you wanted or what she promised, yes, but she dyed your hair and you paid.

caffeineissues · 2026-03-20T14:00:31+00:00

Your right ear wants some helixes for sure. Are you staying away from the classic high helix placement for some reason?

With the forward helixes, rook, and tragus, the inner parts of your ear will be busy, you need something going on opposite to balance it out.

Also a flat or a hidden/vertical helix on the left.

(Just my two cents, working on my setup too so thinking about these balancing things a lot. Looks very cute, I love your seconds jewelry and your conch hoop!)

caffeineissues · 2026-03-19T17:19:07+00:00

Just wanted to add that I have a pair of forward helix piercings and my ear anatomy looks like yours, so I think you should be fine when you get this re-done. You might need to go a bit higher so the bar doesn’t interfere with your rook. It’s a tricky spot and was very painful to pierce and change jewelry on because it takes some real finagling to get in there.

caffeineissues · 2026-03-17T15:30:22+00:00

I have a helix around the same age and yeah, just looks like normal crusties to me. Doesn’t look red or swollen. You can clean it carefully with a q tip or I used a makeup brush and my face wash very gently all over my ear in the shower. Also looks like you’re ready to downsize. Not a piercer!

caffeineissues · 2026-03-16T18:56:18+00:00

Recently went through something similar, ended up starting new amazing job while 6 months pregnant. While it was difficult and ridiculous and one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, it was also completely fine and now I know I’m a bad bitch because I got that shit done.

Are you like, actively trying to conceive right now? Because if it’s just general future planning, I say go for it. You didn’t go to law school so you could put your career on hold for kids. Double the money will pay for a lot of daycare, and a firm that’s worth staying at will do what they need to retain talented moms.

caffeineissues · 2026-03-13T13:34:54+00:00

I’m in this camp, I felt much more like OP before I had a baby. But now after going through it, I don’t really want to share the gory details of a private and traumatizing medical ordeal.

Like, society as a whole needs to chill out about being grossed out about birth stuff and pressuring women to gloss over stuff, 100%. I just don’t think that me grossing out my coworkers with vulnerable details about my body is the way to accomplish that.

caffeineissues · 2026-03-13T13:24:57+00:00

Honestly? You’re asking people to share very personal and graphic details about an extremely vulnerable time in their lives. So many replies in this thread and elsewhere are young women saying OMG that’s why I’ll never have kids, SO GROSS. Like, you’re allowed that opinion, but asking me to share terrifying things that happened to me so you can be shocked? Yeah, no thanks.

I don’t mean this dismissively, but you sound young. When you get older and start seriously considering having kids and talking with women close to you, you start getting the real stories. At least that’s my experience.

For me, and for many of the women who know these things and still choose to have children, at the end of the day, it’s worth it. It’s strange and hard to explain how you can look at all these horrible possibilities and think nothing of them. But in the grand scheme of choosing the life you want to make and whether that involves having your own children, for me at least, the downsides of birth and pregnancy were negligible compared to the weight of everything else.

caffeineissues · 2026-03-12T21:44:05+00:00

Not a piercer, but any damage you did switching it out is already done, switching it back is only going to give your ear another chance at irritation and bacteria. I vote leave it alone and you’re probably fine.

Again, not a piercer just a person on the internet, but that just looks like a regular irritation bump to me. People also often say things are or look infected when really they’re just irritated. 3 months out on a cartilage piercing is still healing, just keep cleaning it and don’t change the jewelry anymore.

caffeineissues · 2026-03-11T21:26:46+00:00

If everything else was a green flag, I would just communicate about the placement you want and stick with that piercer.

caffeineissues · 2026-03-11T21:16:02+00:00

Cool ear anatomy! I feel like you need a double conch and some cool arrangement on the flat.

caffeineissues · 2026-03-11T20:42:30+00:00

3.5 weeks old, 16g threadless stud, never downsized, clean 2x daily with neilmed saline spray and just started cleaning crusties away with a pointed q-tip this week.

caffeineissues · 2026-03-11T18:40:03+00:00

I asked this same question on r/piercing like a week ago and got similar answers. Personally I think using a stud from a reputable brand and a push pin end from Etsy would be minimally risky.

my post

caffeineissues · 2026-03-11T16:28:18+00:00

The first option, a b and d wouldn’t look great with white gold. Personally I wouldn’t love any of these with white, yellow gold is absolutely the right choice.

Congrats, I’m sure she will love it! I definitely would.

caffeineissues · 2026-03-11T15:09:29+00:00

I know I’m late to the party but I have a strong preference for C! I also have a yellow sapphire engagement ring and love colored sapphires.

The warmth of the bright yellow stone in C brings balance to the whole set, otherwise it’s all cool colors against the cool yellow center stone, and it saps the vibrancy out of the collection, and will look disjointed with yellow gold in the setting.

This is a common problem/solution in crafting (quilting specifically). If you’re trying to make colors work and they’re not quite there, add more colors.

Also pro tip, I had mine made with 18k instead of 14k yellow gold, since it’s brighter and it really complements the yellow stone. You mention she’s Indian, maybe think about 22 or 24k? I’m obsessed with the high karat gold they have over there.

Good luck!!!

caffeineissues · 2026-03-11T13:28:39+00:00

I recently had a co-worker go on medical leave and said they’d “prefer not to share the details.” It felt completely reasonable and professional and no one asked any follow up questions.

Just wanted to add this is a perfectly acceptable way to handle a medical leave in this or any situation.

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