Do you guys know why I’m so focused on pens and other stationery in addition to DIY recipes recently? I create a lot of DIY haircare and skincare recipes to test and for inclusion at the curlytea.com recipe vault. Sometimes as I’m creating the actual product from a recipe I wrote earlier, I’ll want to change the amount (measurements) of certain ingredients.

To make sure I don’t forget what I used, I write it down right then and there. But that can get very messy when your hands are greasy or if there’s water nearby. Because my hands/gloves are messy, it becomes a chore to make sure they’re clean enough to touch my laptop keys (or the screen on my phone) to make on-the-spot revisions to the recipe quickly.

Often times I’ve dripped water or aloe vera juice accidentally on a great recipe only to see the ink run all over the page or smudge terribly. I accidentally knocked over a cup of water onto a recipe page. Most of the information about what I actually used to make that recipe was lost.

It was a freestyle recipe where I wrote out a basic outline of what I want to use and simply grabbed ingredients, eyeballed how much I want to use, got the measurements and wrote them down. Needless to say, I was ticked off because I didn’t quite remember everything and here I was giving the side-eye is a blue-stained piece of paper I could hardly read. This happened one time too often.

I know what you’re probably saying. You’re saying ‘Girl stop being so clumsy!’ LOL! I promise I’m not! You don’t have to be clumsy in order for oils/butters and other liquids to accidentally drip onto sheets of paper lying next to them, or for you to accidentally transfer water from your hands to the paper.

So, this year in particular, I began focusing heavily on finding the best waterproof and alcohol-proof pens to help prevent things like this from happening again.

I think it’s a good habit to keep hard copies of some of your best recipes just in case there are hardware issues related to your electronic devices. At least you’ll be able to have that information somewhere secured. If you use archival quality ink (like what’s used in the Sakura Pigma Microns or the Kuretake Zig Millennium pens), even if those hard copies get wet, you’ll still be able to see what the recipe is.

But what about simply printing the recipes? I thought that too….only to find out the hard way that basic inkjet printer ink isn’t waterproof either. So when it gets wet, it smudges as well. In addition, there’s just something about physically writing down your thoughts, notes, instructions by hand. Writing helps keep your handwriting legible (to a certain extent) too!

To bottom line this post, that’s why you’ll see me posting so much about pens and stationery (in addition to other hobbies) on my social media accounts. I focus on pens, making your own notebooks, stationery, studying, writing, planning, journaling heavily on instagram: curlyteaconsult
(somebody else was using ‘curlytea’)

I’ve already done two pen test videos so far:
Le Pen Technical Drawing pens

Copic Multiliner pens

In addition, if you love DIYing your own journals and study notebooks — not just haircare and skincare products — please follow

curlyteaconsult

at instagram or on tumblr. Followers on instagram have increased from like 30-something to over 100 in a few weeks when I started posting about stationery/pens/study/etc. That sounds really lame to you (haha!) but I’m not a big instagram-poster at all. I’m most active on twitter, and even then, I don’t post everyday. 😛

Anyway, I wanted to let you guys know why you’re seeing more pen/stationery related information lately. I will be posting more recipes too, so don’t worry about that. It’s as if I’ve combined two things I’m incredibly interested in!

So keep DIYing and I hope I’ve given you guys something to think about as you’re creating your awesome recipes!

twitter: curlyteaconsult
instagram: curlyteaconsult
pinterest: curlytea
facebook: facebook.com/curlytea
tumblr: curlytea.tumblr.com