Blog Style Model Commentary

“Hi everyone,

I recently came across this question in the MichellePhan.com forum: how can I cover my freckles? According to SheKnows, a freckle is a heavy deposit of melanin in one particular spot on the skin – the cells that produce melanin are triggered by sunlight.  However, freckles are also genetic; people with light skin have less melanin, which causes them to freckle instead of tan.  As my subbies have explained here, some people have freckles year-round, while for some, freckles only emerge during sun exposure.  Some people say one DIY way to fade freckles is with lemon juice – lemons have skin-brightening properties that may be able to fade the look of freckles over time.

I personally think freckles are a unique and beautiful trait that you should be proud of! But if you insist on having a bit more coverage, try these steps…

1. Begin with a cream concealer. If you have dark freckles, dab a bit of concealer over them; use concealer 2-3 shades lighter than you skin tone for best coverage. Dab gently with your fingertips and don’t worry about blending all the way – the foundation will even it out.
2. Choose the right foundation. For an even, natural finish, I recommend using a damp sponge to apply a powder formula, then finish off with a brush of loose powder.  The key here is to remember that you are not trying to cover every single last freckle – doing so will make your make-up look caked on and unnatural.  

3. Apply make-up that highlights other features. If you’d like to draw attention away from your freckles, try exemplifying your best features—if you want your eyes to shine, try a dramatic eye shadow look; if you want a pop of color, try a bold lip.

Make sure you are always wearing SPF, whether or not you have freckles! And no matter what you do, remember that you will always look your best when you’re comfortable in your own skin. Instead of covering up your freckles, why not celebrate them? :)

Would you cover up your freckles? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

<3 Mish”

- Michelle Phan's Beauty Blog, http://michellephan.com/blog/post/ask-michelle-how-can-i-cover-freckles

Michelle Phan uses direct address in her blog to create synthetic personalisation between herself and her 'subbies', so that the audience feel comfortable reading her beauty advice and taking it into consideration. If they trust her, they will come back and keep trying out her different tips. To help build this relationship between herself and her readers, Phan also uses semi-informal language and contractions such as 'don't' and 'you're'. As well as this, she coins the word 'subbies', short for subscribers. This coining has a similar effect as celebrities naming their fan-base – it creates a feeling of identification and belonging between readers, so that they feel they are a special part of something big, like a team. This sense of inclusion is also felt when she asks readers to 'Share [their] thoughts in the comments below'.

At the beginning of this blog post, Michelle Phan addresses 'everyone'. As with the direct address and coined word, this helps to build a relationship between not only her a her readers, but also between readers. It helps to provide a sense of community within the website.

Because this is an online blog, Phan is able to use web links to endorse other pages on her site. This creates more traffic for her blog, and allows readers to navigate easily around the blog, finding the information they want quickly.

Phan's blog is centred around giving make-up and beauty advise to young girls, and for ease of reading she consistently numbers or bullet points her step by step guides. The clearly numbered steps on this particular page makes it easy for readers to dive in and out or refer back to a particular step while applying or choosing make-up.

The blog is signed off by '<3 Mish', adding yet another layer of intimacy with both the use of a nickname and non-standard punctuation in the form of an emoticon heart '<3'. This is replicated with the use of a smiling emoticon after the rhetorical question 'Why not celebrate them?' while the question is there to create discussion between her subscribers and perhaps even make them feel guilty for wanting to rid themselves of their freckles, the smiling face makes it seem warm, friendly and caring. There is a sense that Phan is asking because she cares and really does think freckles are 'beautiful'.

Within the post, Michelle uses facts to gain her readers' trust and respect. Her use of scientific vocabulary like 'melanin', 'genetic' and 'heavy deposit', make her sound knowledgeable about freckle and their cause, and so make readers more likely to read on and looked at her tips for covering them. This low-frequency vocabulary is maintained throughout the post, with words like 'exemplifying', though Phan mixes it with high-frequency, so as not to intimidate readers or alienate potential subscribers to her YouTube channel.

The use of exclamation marks within the blog go a long way in making Phan seem excited and enthusiastic about her work with make-up and make-up lovers, and make the post seem fun as well as mildly educational.

Often, Phan also uses dashes instead of colons, as with 'try exemplifying your best features – if you...' This choice of punctuation makes the post seem more casual and snappy. The use of a colon may have made the blog seem too formal for the target audience of young teenage girls interested in broadening their knowledge of make-up.

Her use of ellipses after 'try these steps...' shows her reluctance to tell her readers how to cover up freckles, which she describes with the positive adjectives 'unique and beautiful'. She also uses a variety of sentence types in order to keep the blog post flowing and sounding as though it were a spoken piece, so that readers feel they are conversing with her.