Singapore Blog Awards 2014 Best Beauty Blog: I'm a Finalist, and You Can Vote For Me (And Win Something For Yourself)!

Source: OMG SBA Facebook

I've been blogging for nearly 5 years now, and after so long, I sometimes feel like as far as my blogging goes, I've probably been there and done that. But sometimes life still has surprises up its sleeve! Turns out, yours truly is a finalist for Best Beauty Blog at Singapore Blog Awards 2014! The final part is actually voting, and you can actually vote for me (hopefully?) here, at this site.

Now this is totally 101% unexpected, because simply put - I've never viewed my own blog as that great, and I'm not really the "pretty/popular/pictorial" type of beauty blogger (you know, my posts are full of text and boring ingredients geekery and other boring TL;DR stuff). So although I knew I was nominated, I didn't expect to go anywhere given that I was just one 1 of over 50 nominations. Honestly. So when I found out that I was one of the finalists, I was basically like all of these faces put together:

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First, the "OMG I'm so shocked!"

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Then the "OMG I'm can't believe it! Squeeee!"

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Then the "OMG I'm so happy! Yay!"

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And finally the "OMG this can't be real!"

So basically that's what it feels like on this end right now. The next stage is voting - and this part is open to everyone, including you! Yay! If you can click here and vote for me, that would be the bee's knees. There's also a Lucky Voters’ Contest going on, so everytime you vote (you get to vote once per day!) you get an extra entry into the lucky draw. So yes, you could win something for yourself too!

But with that excitement aside, I have to say, I'm always ambivalent about voting as a means of winning contests. While democracy is one of the better forms of governance out there, and while certainly decision-making should incorporate the views of everyone as far as is practical, sometimes, voting tends to degenerate into a case of pandering to the lowest common denominator, which in turn tends to result in things like the Kardashians, Snooki, and Justin Bieber. And, personally, I don't really like shilling: "PLEASE GO VOTE FOR ME, EVERYONE, OKAY?" I mean, on a personal level it's not really my style, and that's not why I blog in the first place. I blog for a variety of reasons - as an outlet for my love of writing, and my interest in beauty products and the science behind them - but not for self-promotion or to seek celebrity fame. So it just doesn't sit well with me to do any sort of "PLZ VOTE PLZ PLZ PLZ" thing. But yet, it is a popular method to determine the outcome of contests over here, so here we are. If you've been a longtime but silent reader (I know there are those of you!), or if my blog is a newly-discovered one to you, or if you've liked my ingredients geekery, or any of my posts on Asian undertones, makeup, or skincare, and if you feel like it, then please know that your vote means a lot to me. At the end of the day, beyond indulging my own interests in writing and beauty, I also blog because I love interacting with my readers and other beauty bloggers, and I'm fortunate that I've been able to do this for nearly 5 years now!