.png)
Ever since I can remember, I was obsessed with reading magazines and learning all of the latest health, beauty, and fashion trends. I would spend countless hours cutting out articles and magazine clippings and glueing them into my journals or inspirational posters. As magazines began to become a thing of the past, I instantly gravitated to online platforms (hi, remember tumblr and xanga?!) to get my creative fix. Writing was something that I had fallen in love with from the moment I learned how to hold a pencil. As a little girl, I would fill countless composition notebooks with short stories, poems, essays and random thoughts. Fast forward a few years later and I started blogging as a creative outlet where I could write about topics I was passionate about. In college, while working as a freelancer and for the college newspaper, I was writing articles and creating content for business clients but I wanted to also write about topics relevant to women my age, millennial women. After a few years of writing articles and blogs that I kept to myself, I decided to take the leap and create a public blog, milleniGAL. I wanted to share my knowledge and experience from working in the fashion/beauty industry and hopefully empower millennial women (and truly all female identifying individuals from all ages/backgrounds) to be their best version. Having worked in the beauty industry as a makeup artist and skincare expert, I wanted to share all of the beauty tips and hacks I learned to make women feel beautiful inside and out (and hopefully save them time and headaches getting ready in the mornings). After leaving the fashion/beauty world, I missed that generous discount we were graciously given. I began my obsession with finding dupes for beauty products. My goal was to find luxury quality products at drugstore prices otherwise known as my favorite phrase, #bougieonabudget. I also began to pay close attention to sales in the fashion world because again, ya girl missed that generous discount. I knew I wasn't the only millennial girl living that #bougieonabudget life and began to share my dupe and sale finds along with my beauty tips. Besides my passion for writing, fashion and beauty, my family instilled a love for traveling and exploring other cultures in me at a young age. Naturally, after graduating college, I became a flight attendant to accomplish my dream of traveling the world while freelancing and building my blog. milleniGAL evolved and grew and I began to write more about travel, culture and the flight attendant adventures. milleniGAL was my first public blog and it was a self-proclaimed light hearted place where 90's girls came to learn about beauty, fashion and talk about our love for Lisa Frank notebooks and the Backstreet Boys. After a while, I wanted more- I wanted to better connect with my audience, the millennial women I wanted to represent and empower. It only made sense to grow and step in front of the milleniGAL, 90's girl, one dimensional persona and show more of the real me. After a few years of major growth and change (hello new career, marriage and helloooooo late 20's), a blog revamp felt like the right choice. After some planning and strategizing, I rebranded my blog and milleniGAL became more me, Scarlet Leilani (my first and middle name). Shifting my blog name to my real name gave me a sense of authenticity and pride. I've always loved my name, especially my middle name as it has a special place in my heart because of my dad and using my name made me feel like my audience could connect and relate with me better.
So what is Scarlet Leilani, now?
A little bit 90's girl, a little bit travel, a little bit of beauty, a lot a bit pictures of my fur child- Lola, a little bit sale and dupe alerts, a lotta bit self love, a little bit foodie-ness and a lotta bit social justice advocacy.
&
If you're here today, THANK YOU. If you've been following since the milleniGAL days, THANK YOU. My blog has been my baby and my passion project for some time now and I'm so thankful that you made it to my about page.
NOW.... Let's connect (and listen to some 90's throwbacks)!
.png)