Interview: A Tea Party with Hayley

Owner and Editor of teapartybeauty.com, Hayley is a blogger with a passion for gin, lipstick, cats and (surprise, surprise) cats serving gin. Her informative voice and in-depth knowledge of the topics she covers help her stand out in the industry, stemming from an extensive previous life working in the beauty industry, lots of hard work, and bags of passion. She recently used her connections and influence in the industry to run the #BloggersBlogAwards – a way of rewarding the hottest and best-written content creators around.

We chat beauty, blogging and being yourself with Hayley to find out what her advice on maintaining a successful blog is and how she’d describe herself…through a lipstick, of course.

If you could keep only three beauty essentials, what would you keep?

Only 3?! But, I have so much it’s hard to choose favourites. Well there has to be some skincare in there and I feel like a facial oil will cover most skincare bases – cleanser, moisturiser and can also be used on the body. Oh and a mascara for sure as I look like an extra from The Walking Dead without something to open my eyes up a little. I feel like I should say something sensible for my last product, like an SPF, but where is the fun in that? It has to be a brow pomade so I can still post selfies without looking like an egg.

Any limited edition beauty products you’ve tried you wish you could bring back?

So many, but mainly the Urban Decay Alice in Wonderland palette. Alice is my all-time favourite story, and even inspired my blog name a little, so I was very sad that I couldn’t afford it at the time, but I did use my friends and fell in love with it, I even considered taking it from her on many an occasion (don’t tell on me).

What lipstick colour would you be and why?

This one is a difficult one to answer as my favourite lippie is a NARS one that has quite a rude name, so I am going to choose my 2nd favourite to save everyone blushing. It’s a beautiful dark long wearing lipstick by NARS called Liv, and I think it perfectly sums me up – dark, mysterious and not easy to wear/cope with… And I wonder why I am single.

Hayley’s beautiful vanity setup, including one of our very own Hollywood mirrors.

How did you first get into blogging?

I was studying for my TEFL (Teach English as a Foreign Language) and needed a way to practice my writing and grammar for the tests, so I decided blogging would be it. I never dreamed that it would go so well for me, and really only ever saw it as a way to help with my spelling. Turns out I kinda fell in love with it and 3 years later I am still here pretending to know what I am doing.

What would your advice be for any newbies to the blogging world?

There are so many advice posts out there now that I feel like it would easier for new bloggers just starting out. However, the most valuable piece of advice I have is to be yourself – blogging is hard work and if you’re pretending to be someone else or writing in someone else’s style it will become tiresome very quickly. People come back to blogs because they love the personal aspect of it, so give your readers you.

Top blogging tips?

Gin. Patience – There are so many times it will all go wrong, whether it’s site design, posts deleting themselves or a 2 hour photo session where all the images are blurry. There are so many times you just want to scream, shout and kick your laptop, so patience is a bigger.

We were lucky enough to have Hayley write about one of our Hollywood mirrors recently. Find out how she used it to create her dream vanity here.