Top 10 Bag Essentials | Beauty Queen Edition

I don't want to make it sound like I'm running a pharmacy. A red lip will bring you halfway there, and your attitude and your personality will bring you the rest of the way there. Howdy, my loves. Welcome back to the Miss NTD podcast, where beauty meets goodness. I'm your host, as always, Cynthia. Today, we'll see what's in a beauty queen's bag. I kind of feel like Mary Poppins right now. You know, where she pulls out everything except for the kitchen sink. So, the very first thing are my pageant shoes. I don't know if this is more of a survival tip or a pageant week tip, but I'd like to say that shoes are the most underestimated part of the week. You're in these babies for up to 12 hours a day, seven days for a week, and even for the grand finale, you're wearing them. So, for me, I like to keep the heel part of it really sturdy. I don't like to have the skinny heels, and I don't like to keep it tall either. This is probably about three inches, and I would keep it like that. And then for the front, this is more of a mesh material, and it's like, the bottom of it's wider. And so, I tested these shoes out for a few hours, I think, before I actually wore them on stage. And I remember there were just so many girls that ended the night with their heels bleeding, with different things going on, with their toes were all cramped. And so, I really think that if you're gonna pack your bag, I would pack my shoes first, and then figure out everything else, because you gotta protect your feet, girls. These are so important. My second item is this. It's, what do you even call this? I think it's like a fur, fur shaver? Fabric shaver. So, my second item is a fabric shaver. I know people in the Northeast probably know what this is, but if you have a sweater made of wool, cashmere, any sort of material that puffs up after you wash it, this comes in so handy. If you have a dress or anything, you basically just turn this on, and it basically cleans the surface of your clothing, and it's pretty much like brand new. And so, I use this a lot, because when we had the pageant last year, it was actually held in September, October. It was pretty chilly outside, and so I was wearing sweaters all week, all the time. The theater is always super cold, so this came in handy a bunch. And also, if you have loose threads, my hack is that you use, there's like, it looks like honeycombs in here, and it basically, once you turn it on, it basically uses, it's like a really dull blade, but it uses the blade to cut the sweater and the little fabric pieces off. And so, if you have anything, like a loose thread on your pants or something, this can cut it really easily. That's my second item. My third item is a sewing kit. It's a really tiny travel-size kit, and basically, all you have are some clothing pins and some super tiny needles, and then they give you scissors as well, super tiny ones, and then you have three colors of thread. And for any sort of performance, theatrical performance, choir, any sort of play, these come in so handy because as long as you're going on stage, as long as you have multiple dress rehearsals, multiple full recitals, you're going to catch your clothes on something. Something's gonna fall apart. Another contestant's clothes could fall apart. You just never know. And so, this was used every single day of the week. At least one girl needed to use a sewing kit. So, I would say if you have space for it, if you don't have space for it, always just bring around a travel-size for wherever you're going. You never know when you're gonna need it. So, I would take this. The next item is contacts. I am not someone with very good vision. And so, if you do have perfect vision, you can skip this part and go to the next item. During the pageant week, you really don't wanna wear glasses if you can help it because you're on call, you're running around, you're going from one place to the next, and sometimes it just feels more secure to have contacts in. I usually bring around three months of backups just in case. Whenever you're doing anything that's even slightly athletic, there's a chance that the contacts could come out. I always bring extras just in case, especially if you're traveling long distance or you're not gonna be at home for pageant week and you're staying in a hotel. It's always good to have extras because you don't wanna be left in a situation where you're standing on that grand finale stage, everyone's looking at you, and you don't have contacts in, so you can't see anything and everything's blurry. That's one of my worst nightmares. So, I definitely recommend this if you do have less than perfect vision like me. And I definitely wouldn't recommend glasses. I don't want to make it sound like I'm running a pharmacy, but the next item is a Tide pen. And like I said before, all of these are really practical. It might not seem like a beauty queen needs this, but if you don't know how this works, you basically uncap it. And if you have a food stain on your clothes or any sort of oil stain or any sort of mess, you just use this, press on the clothes until you see the wet mark come out. And when you see that, then you rub it in and the stain is gone. So, this isn't a sponsorship or an ad for Tide. I promise. But I've used this multiple times, especially when I'm traveling, because a lot of the times the hotels don't offer laundry services and that sucks. But the reality is you have to deal with things as they go and you have to be prepared no matter what. So, I definitely recommend a Tide pen or any sort of laundry detergent pen. Just bring it with you. You never know what might happen. One, two, three, four, five. I don't even know how many items I have. Okay, sixth item. So, my sixth item is also something that you would find in a pharmacy. But this is a travel kit for nails that my mom actually gave me. And I use, I don't know if you can see this. It's all worn on the side. I've only had this for a year, but I use this almost every single day. The inside looks like this. It's super plain. You have different sorts of nail clippers. You have a tweezer. You have nail filer, scissors. And this has become one of the most versatile things that I've brought around, because you have scissors, right? I just found so many different situations where I'm like, oh, I wish I had scissors. Or, you know, I wish I had something to cut my hangnail. And then I just check in my purse and here it is. So, I didn't think that I would be the type of a girl that needed this, because I always thought, you know, I'll just go home or I'll wait. But it's come in so handy. And I promise my next item isn't something from the pharmacy. This is my seventh item. It's a makeup setting spray. And I'm almost done with it. It's like right about here now. I've gone through multiple different types of setting spray. And I like all different types of brands, so I'm not, this isn't sponsored. But I think if you're going to stand on a stage for like, say, eight hours, and you only have the morning of to do makeup, then you have to do a setting spray. There's really no chance that it's gonna last through lunch, through dinner, through multiple dance rehearsals, through the catwalk practice. I think my routine for this is, I usually put on foundation and then I use this on my cushion. And sometimes even after my foundation, I'll spray another, I'll spray it again. And then after my eyeshadow, I'll spray it again. So I think sometimes I can use it up to five times before I finish my makeup. And it really keeps it on all day. So this one's Urban Decay, but I've tried different brands and I love all of them. So it's definitely your call. But I would recommend start using it in your routine to get used to it. And before you go on stage or before you start pageant week, definitely bring one or two bottles. Oops. So this is my eighth item. Super ordinary, but it's hand cream. I don't know if this is just a dry skin girly issue or if this happens to everybody, but my hands get so dry. My ankles get super dry. My knees get super dry. And so this is really like, this or Vaseline could be a really good all-in-one solution for anyone who has that issue because the last thing you want is to be standing on stage and your skin's so dry that the camera catches it or that sometimes my hands start bleeding because it cracks so badly. And like I said, the theater's super cold. Be prepared that it's gonna be dry. It's going to be cold. And you just need to have something to help you after the day is over. So that's this for me. My second to last item is a lip mask. I think a lip mask or any sort of balm for the night is an extra treat for me. I wouldn't call it necessary, but this is something that I really need and I really looked forward to at the end of the day because you have makeup pretty much like 16 hours of the day for seven days straight, right? So when you take off your makeup for the day, you do your little mask and you get ready for the night. It's just nice to end off with some sort of balm for your lips. And then the next morning, you wake up and you feel all refreshed because you've done your face mask, you've done your moisturizer, and you've also done your lip balm. So I personally still do this. This is something that I started right before the pageant and I continue to do to this day. Like I said, dry skin girly. And this is the last item. I don't know if you can guess what it is because most of the things I've brought out so far are things that you can find in a pharmacy. But my 10th item for pageant week is a classic red lipstick. This one is Dior. It's served me well, as you can see. When you start pageant week, the mindset isn't just to run towards the destination. You have grand finale night in front of hundreds of people, in front of this audience, on this stage. And so obviously you need to be dolled up and you need to be prepared. Like I feel like this is sort of our shield and armor, like we're going off to battle. But even during the week, there's a lot of social media going on. Other girls want to take photos with you, take selfies. There's cameras constantly following you around, documenting every aspect of that pageant week. So in that sense, you really have to be prepared. You can't just go into pageant week day one and expect to be just a normal day because you're being followed around by up to five cameras at a time. And this isn't to pressure anyone, but obviously you have to be prepared to know what to expect. And so my sword and shield was a red lip and that set me for the day pretty much. I remember multiple times where I was caught wearing this exact lipstick and my photos or different videos where we were eating or talking were posted on social media. And obviously there's like hundreds and thousands of views from that. So you really need to be prepared. And that's why this is my 10th and final item. So those were my 10 essential items for a beauty queen's bag. Did you expect all of these things or was there something you were surprised about? I think for me, the most unexpected was probably my little sewing kit. Like I said, it's so small and it's so versatile, but it's used so much during the pageant that I can't even tell you like the number of times that we've had to use it was just like countless. Now it's my turn to hear from you. What was your most unexpected thing? And what would you want to see in the future? Do you have any recommendations for what I should put in my bag? Let me hear in the comments below and I'll see you next time. Sayonara.