August 2016 www.womanthismonth.com 34 FEATURE | beauty READ ALL ABOUT IT The Syeda girls love fashion and beauty and make it a joint effort to tell us all about it. Sara Abdul Ghaffar has made a name for herself with readers the world over giving tips on modest style. When you love beauty as much as we do, from the latest treatments to new products and star style, it goes without saying that we simply can’t get enough of it. When we’re not checking out products in the office, we’re researching online to find out what other people are saying. We're big fans of the region’s army of beauty bloggers, here we introduce you to four of our favourites. Who are The Syeda Sisters? We're two sisters who run a beauty, fashion and lifestyle blog called The Syeda Sisters blog. Our names are Omaimah & Areesha and we're two years apart. We share the blog duties together so we can juggle our studies and work along with blogging. One of us is a dentistry student and the other a finance graduate. We were brought up in Bahrain and have roots in Karachi, Pakistan. We belong to the Syed family, hence our blog’s name. How long have you been blogging and what made you start? We began blogging in the summer of 2013. The journey so far has been remarkable and exciting, we can still remember the thrill we had when we first typed up a fresh blogpost titled ‘About us’. We've always been fans of beauty products and all things girly since a young age. We would religiously read the beauty section of magazines and online reviews of trending products on international beauty blogs. One day the idea of blogging hit us. A Bahrain-based beauty blog with a little bit of fashion and lifestyle? Nah! Who would give our blog a read? We knew zero about the technical side and had no idea where to start. It has been a purely a ‘do and learn’ experience. The blogging is the fun part: taking pictures and writing thorough, honest reviews for our awesome readers. What has been the post that’s had the single biggest response? That would be our review of the Body Shop’s Tea Tree Oil. It got a thundering 5,057 page views! It was also one of our very first reviews and got views from around the world from the USA to Singapore and Malaysia, even Russia! Who is The Modest Belle? The Modest Belle is a blog that revolves around fashion, beauty and lifestyle. I am a bubbly and positive person who enjoys life's simplest pleasures. I enjoy travel, delicious food and spending time with my family and loved ones. I began my career working in the PR industry, which exposed me to the blogosphere in Bahrain. I was motivated by the few Bahraini bloggers (at the time) to start my own blog - something I had always wanted to do. What made you start the blog, how long has it been running and how many followers do you have? I began my blog as a creative outlet to express my love of fashion and to inspire women to dress modestly. Through the blog and YouTube channel, I have unveiled my passions through writing and showcasing photos of my personal style, my favourite fashion and beauty brands, DIY projects, along with other interests related to food and lifestyle. I’ve always loved fashion and expressing my personality through my style. As a woman who wears hijab, I noticed how other women who wear hijab complain about how difficult it is to dress stylishly. I wanted to start a blog that would inspire women who dress conservatively to be fashionable, as I truly believe you can be stylish while remaining modest. The blog’s been running for around three years now and my YouTube channel has been running for a year and a half. I have approximately 3,500 Instagram followers. Since modesty is a popular subject for style-conscious Muslim women, do you find you have significant interest from outside the region? Absolutely. This came as a surprise to me in the beginning. I have numerous readers/followers/viewers based in the US, Canada, What has been your all-time favourite review product? That's a really tough question. They're many but if we could narrow it down to one it would be Benefit’s They're Real push-up eye liner. The response was over-whelming with girls applauding for our honest review. Any advice for beauty fans who want to start their own blog? Yes! You need to be 100-per-cent honest even if it's a sponsored product. If a particular company sends you a really expensive product and you genuinely didn't find it useful then let your readers know! Sisters in Style The Modest Belle Sara Abdul Ghaffar The Syeda Sisters, Omaimah & Areesha
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy Mjk0MTkxMQ==