Teenage Beauty Blogging Advice & How I Started

I love finding out how other people got started blogging so I decided to steal a few of the 'Beauty Blogger Tag' questions and explain a bit more about the start of my blog as obviously a lot of you weren't following me 2 years ago, in fact, most of your blogs probably didn't exist!

Why did you start blogging and how long have you been blogging for?

I started blogging on the 2nd June 2011 after stumbling across a fashion blog (that unfortunately no longer exists) and being completely amazed by the idea of having your own personal blog to share your style on, from that I then found beauty blogs and A Is For Ayla was born very soon after!

Whose blog did you fall in love with first?

Well the original one I first found doesn't exist any more but was called 'Glam Vs Grunge'. After that it was blogs like Tiny Bow, Birds Words and Tilly Glitter. A lot of the blogs around at the time have dropped off and no longer post unfortunately, blogging can be hard to keep up.

What was the first blogosphere hyped about product that you bought and was it worth the hype?

Oh my gosh it's been such a long time I can't even remember exact bits and pieces. I remember everyone first going crazy over Boots Natural Collection products which is where the hype over their blushes came from. Then of course there was the crazy dash to buy NARS Orgasm and MAC's Trace Gold because apparently Kim Kardashian used it, I remember crying to myself at night because I was 13 with not a penny to my name (ok so I didn't actually cry but it was still pretty emosh!)

What are your favourite five things about blogging and being a beauty blogger?

Most definitely the people. Of course when I first started blogging, being just 13 I was one of very few young young bloggers (of course there are tons more now, but back then it was all uni students!) and I remember all these older uni students taking me on like their little sister and welcoming me in, I loved it! Then there's also the actual writing part of blogging, which always comes in handy when in education. I'd say blogging has helped me in such unusual ways, thanks to Chanel and YSL my French vocab has been rather impressively increased (yes maquilliage came up on my GCSE exam!), I've been persuaded to buy bits of makeup that I never knew would make me feel like such a happy, positive, changed person and of course having photos and passages written by my younger self that I can look back on to notice how much blogging has turned me in to a well rounded person.

What have you learnt from being a beauty blogger?
Organisation and dedication, both of which come in great use in everyday life! Being a blogger that posted 6/7 times a week takes great dedication and motivation to want to see an end product, I find seeing projects through until the final mark a lot easier now, before I often 'ditched' an idea as soon as I started getting bored.

Have you changed anything since being a beauty blogger?
Well other than my layout about 976837563 times, my attitude towards money has changed drastically. The days of impulse purchasing have gone completely as I know somewhere in the Bloggosphere someone can give me honest advice on the worth of products.

What advice would you give to a beauty blogger just starting out?
Be patient! We all started with 0 followers and we all move onwards. Don't spam people, it only winds them up. You don't need fancy cameras or CSS coding to make people want to follow you, just be yourself in what you write and people will naturally keep coming back.

Name your top five brands...

Maybelline, Nars, Bare Minerals, Korres and Soap & Glory.

Recommend your top five favourite beauty products... 

Real Techniques brushes

Collection 2000 lasting perfection concealer

Origins super spot remover gel

Batiste 'Blush' dry shampoo

Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb perfume

Tag other beauty bloggers to do this tag...
I tag anyone who reads this to do this tag! If you do have a go yourself, please send me the link in my comments so I can have a read :)