8 THINGS I STOPPED DOING TO BE INSTANTLY MORE STYLISH

Here are some things I stopped doing to be instantly more stylish. Here are some outfits I wore over the years. I used to struggle a lot with my wardrobe because I would buy new clothes, I would love it for a little bit, I would change my mind, change my style, and the cycle would keep on repeating. My style today is definitely not perfect, but I found some kind of satisfaction with my style. I love to repeat outfits. I love to buy things that I can wear for years and years. I no longer fall out of love with my clothes like I used to, and overall, I would say clothing in my wardrobe lasts a lot longer. So these are the habits I broke. These are the things I stopped doing to finally find the satisfaction within my wardrobe. Today's video includes a little partnership with Merit Beauty. I did my makeup today with their products, and I can't wait to share with you this little routine that I love doing for 5-minute easy makeup. I no longer wear about 90% of the clothing styles out there, and I stick to the 10, maybe the 20% of clothes that I feel like aligns better to my style. When I say this, it sounds a little bit limiting like you only wear like 10% of styles, but honestly, there is so much clothing out there. There are so many colors, styles, everything out there that even 10% is a huge range of clothes to experiment and work within. By getting rid of the 80 or 90%, by no longer wanting to have them in my wardrobe, my wardrobe now suits me a lot better. Use this tip the way that suits you. For me, this means like 90% of shirts I don't wear. There's like a 10% kind of shirt that I may wear, like smaller details, certain fabrics that are lighter, crop silhouettes. Sometimes I get along with them, but 90% of shirts don't really suit me. All white broidery blouses I kind of like, but that being said, any top like this and this and this, I don't really wear anymore. Let this tip help you. Don't let it limit you, but it's this approach that really helped me instantly become more stylish because I no longer have these distracting things in my wardrobe. I will also say that when you don't want range in your wardrobe, your wardrobe is just going to be smaller, more curated, and you'll ultimately buy less because you can see clearly which things suit you and which things don't. I'm sharing these tips with you because I've done so much experimenting. I've made so many mistakes, and I just really want to help someone maybe get to their style a little bit quicker than I did. This also applies to color, by the way. I probably only wear 10 to 20% of shades and colors out there. So I wear most colors, but within those colors, there's only kind of a few shades that I really love. 10% is still a lot of colors. So don't think it means pink and blue. It means a huge range. I've just narrowed down what I like. Something I stopped doing to be more stylish is I stopped glamorizing newness. So what I mean is I used to be obsessed with clothing I didn't have, clothing in the stores, new clothes. But what I found is that if I have a wardrobe full of new items, especially right now, you know, if everything is kind of a little trendy, it's so obvious where you bought the item. It's so obvious that everything is new. It's also what everyone else is wearing, and nothing wrong with that. But when like everything is new, I do feel like it's not as chic as when you have a mix of old and new. Things you collected last season, two years ago, five years ago, things that were passed down to you, things that are vintage. I think when there is a mix, it's more stylish. Also, maybe there are some DIY things. You made a top, you knit a sweater, you crocheted a bag, you made some jewelry. When there are some handmade elements in it, it's also so stylish to add to an outfit. This is a part of a bigger trend where I think we are craving some of this imperfection because we're always seeing perfect outfits on social media. I love this trend if you even want to call it that, but this resurgence of character in outfits. This is a work in progress for me. Like with most things I'm talking about in today's video, I, of all people, am so far from perfect in these habits. But these are the things that I have started to progress towards and I've already seen what a difference it makes. Something that's helped me feel instantly more stylish is refining my makeup so that it suits me. Within that, adding a lot more dimension to my makeup, adding more color, and not having everything be flat and matte all the time. Here's my makeup in the past. It's just a little bit flat. So I have revamped this routine to something that suits me a lot more. I'm working with Merit Beauty to bring you this tip. I have a little bag of goodies from them. And Merit Beauty is a very luxurious, minimalist beauty brand. Their products are vegan, they're cruelty-free, and the formulations are non-comedogenic. So you can feel comfortable using them as part of your simple everyday routine. I'm going to start off with one of my favorite products from Merit. This is a minimalist. This doubles as a base and a concealer. So I definitely put it over, like, any spotty areas. This product is very buildable, so I'll start something like this and then just add on coverage as I go. I like to use the Merit No. 1 Blending Brush, but you can do this with your fingers as well. I've added a bit more product and you can also use your fingers to make the item kind of adhere to the skin a little bit better. It's worth mentioning that it's winter here in Sydney. This is the driest my skin ever, ever looks. I think this product glides over my skin quite well without clinging onto dry patches, I definitely have. This is the Flush Balm in Beverly Hills. I love how natural this color is. Here is the blush done. I like my blush natural, but I also love, like, a flush look. This is a huge change in my makeup routine over the years. I'm just going from very flat skin to something a bit more dimensional. For something to go on my eyes, I'm going to use this eyeshadow. It's the Solo Shadow in Studio. Here's, like, a little swatch of it. What I love about Merit products is that it's very buildable. You can go for a very sheer wash of color and then build it up to be something more. Mascara time, but I always curl my lashes first. My lip product is one of the items that I will experiment with the most because, you know, it's so easy to switch this one up. Either I'm gonna use this tinted lip oil or I can use a signature lip in the color Classic. I will actually show you both. If you'd like to try some of these incredible formulations from Merit, you can get up to 15% off exclusive sets using my link down below. I'll link to all the products I use as well as all the color and shade names. Merit doesn't do discount codes, but if you purchase the items in a set, you can get up to $20 off. All the first orders will get this cute little makeup pouch and free shipping over $40. Thank you so much for your support. Let's get back into the video. Something else I stopped doing is hoarding things I couldn't realistically use up or couldn't realistically get around to wearing. This tip is about both beauty, skincare, and clothes. And sometimes, what it means is saving our money and that's just like a better use of our resources. Other times, it can mean buying something else on your wish list instead of buying multiples of one thing or upgrading something instead of buying three not ideal items. Let me give you more specific examples. Instead of having 10 lipsticks, each of them probably have like 200 applications in them. If I just do the math, there's no way I'm going to get through all 10. There is a balance here because I don't just want one lip shade. Maybe I want a couple to work with. But realistically, if I have more than 10, no chance in this world I will get around to using them up before they expire. I also like to think about this in things like jewelry, in things like accessories where sometimes I am impatient and I'll just get something because I really want something right now. But like a couple of years down the line, I might not wear the item anymore. Whereas if I had just spent a little bit more time saving for the item I truly wanted, I would have still been wearing that a few years later. It's no guarantee, right? But usually, if something is on my wish list and I buy it, it's a lot better than getting things because I want it now. If we can use our resources in the best way, we're just going to be more stylish, either because things have been upgraded or we just have more intention in the things we do buy. This doesn't have to be like large-scale change all the time, like you're buying a $100 t-shirt now. It can be like a $20 t-shirt that just fits well, is good quality, instead of buying the four $10 t-shirts that were cheaper but maybe not as ideal. As someone who lives a casual lifestyle, something that made me instantly more stylish is when I started to take into account form as well as function. Most importantly, like not leaving out function. I have a lot of activities in my lifestyle that is not very traditionally stylish. I like to hike. I like to go for walks. I really have not driven in years. So everywhere I go, I walk. Therefore, walking shoes. I run a lot of errands, like not so fashion-y kind of things, just everyday life things. I used to try to make my fashion pieces work for my lifestyle. Whereas now, I think I just let function be a priority and then form complement the function. Because of my lifestyle, I have a decent chunk of aphlesia wear. I genuinely get through a lot of this every week because sometimes I'll work out like up to five times. And by building a collection that I love, by making sure it's still functional, I feel like this area of my style has gotten so much more stylish compared to when I used to wear like crazy things to walk in. Desperately try to make like errand outfits chic. Sometimes just embrace the function and the look. The practical tip here. Start with the item that is a non-negotiable. Oftentimes for me, these are sneakers or these are loafers or a comfortable walking shoe. And then I'll work backwards. Other times, if I'm working out and then going to brunch, I'll start with my workout gear and then I'll add practical things over it for later. Thinking about practicality first though, over purely style. I'll play with color, I'll play with texture, I'll play with accessories sometimes, but it's always function over form. And I think that actually feels more stylish. I also have a very curator's small edit here where every piece I've chosen out carefully. I wear them all the time, but they make me feel chic without having to really style the outfit. And that helps a lot when you're trying to balance form and function. If you want to instantly be more stylish, this is something you can start doing today and it will make major changes. Instead of just scrolling, you need to bring what you see into a reality. So when you have things saved to your board, it doesn't instantly make you more stylish. You need to actually spend a little time to recreate them in your wardrobe. I used to save things all the time, had boards and boards and boards of stuff, but I actually never recreated them. So then it felt really hard to bring my dream style to life. But I find that when you start recreating outfits, your dream vision just comes to life like that. And it starts to make you feel empowered to try new things and work more creatively with what you might already have. If you want to get started with this immediately, think of one item you want to style, search it up on Pinterest, save a couple of outfits you like, and then recreate within your wardrobe that vibe. Doesn't have to be the exact pieces, has to be that kind of vibe, or at least just take one piece of inspiration from it to influence your look. When I started doing this for my wardrobe, I think I truly understood my style. Because it's really hard to describe your style, like it's feminine, it's this, it's that. But when you actually start recreating things you like, you start to understand the nuances of your style that makes it you. You know, you love these colors together. You love like this type of necklace stack. You love this type of vibe. You like these fabrics. You know the nuances of your style that you can't know otherwise. So that's why this will instantly make you more stylish. It'll give you a better grasp of the details of what you like. Not just the overarching kind of classic style, but the details. I am constantly drawn to a pop of color. I'm constantly drawn to jewelry stacks, constantly drawn to certain shades. I like color against white. I like broidery. I like lace. I like straw bags. I like a playful Parisian style, but not the minimalist kind. It taught me so much about my style. Not just what I like, but how I can actually bring this to life. Something I stopped doing is ignoring details, ignoring how things combine together within an item of clothing that makes something chic. I used to buy the wrong things all the time. I'll see a piece of inspiration, I'll go and buy something similar, but then like I wouldn't really like it, and it'll sit in my wardrobe. Here's the reason why. Sometimes it's because it looked really good on the model, and it suited her. So the detail suited her. But sometimes it was also because I like certain smaller details about that item of clothing. It wasn't that it was a white shirt or a white blouse. It was the actual like little details that made it feel really special to me. When I bought something, even though it was also a white shirt, maybe it didn't capture all of those details. Maybe it didn't have the same underlying essence or vibe. Sometimes I love the combination of things. Like I love the fabric with the style. Today, I'm wearing this top. I love the lace with this poplin material because it gives the balloon sleeve this structure that I really love. A lighter weight fabric, you know, I would also like, but would be a very different look. So the way fabric and style combines is so important. When I recreated things, if it only had like one element of it, sometimes they didn't come together in the same way. So the habit to break is to stop ignoring the details and you do this by pinpointing exactly what you like. There is often this interplay between texture, fabric, silhouette, that come together to make us love something. When we take away a few of those elements, it's a completely different essence and that is why we might have loved the original inspo, but not love the one we bought. We may have not loved the original inspo, but love the one we found. You know, these are the things at play. The final thing is that it is so easy to glamorize a big wardrobe. I have lived through this multiple times where I've had larger wardrobes. Wardrobes with a lot of options, with range. I definitely had something to wear and yet I had nothing, nothing to wear. It is so overwhelming to have a bunch of things in your wardrobe, especially when they are not 100% aligned to your style. When there's a few things in this aesthetic, when there's a few things in that aesthetic, there's too many options, there's too much choice that it almost stops us from having something to wear. When I'm traveling, I always have something to wear because I've only packed a few things and it's really obvious to me what I'm wearing today. That's the biggest sign for me that a big wardrobe is not the answer to everything. When I travel, I am so much more stylish than I am normally. Couple of good outfits and just keep wearing them. Small changes here and there. I never have a very small wardrobe. There is always some range. However, as this wardrobe gets bigger, I find it harder to get dressed. When this wardrobe stays more curated, it's always easier for me to put outfits together. It forces us to be more creative. So sometimes the outfits are even better. I've recently returned to styling a lot of my old favorites and because I've sold them so many times before, I know how to wear them and I feel like I wear them better now than I did when I first got them. My newer pieces, they're kind of still in that period where I'm trying to figure it out, trying to decide what bottom it goes best with. I don't think I've reached my full styling potential with those pieces yet. So small curated wardrobe, I really think it makes me more stylish than a large wardrobe with endless options. This one I have lived through, I've tested from my experience and it is honestly 100% true. Ultimately, I think the best wardrobe is small. You have some options to play with but it's not crazy large and you also love all the pieces and they align with your current style. This is the perfect wardrobe. That was everything for today's video. Thank you so much for watching. If you wanted to check out anything from Merit, everything is linked down below. All the colors, all the shades, as well as the discount if you would like to purchase a set. I hope you have an amazing week. I'll see you very soon. Bye.