A day in the life of a beauty writer
Who dabbles in a variety of other topics, too.
I’ve never really known the normal day-to-day operations of a “normal” 9-5 job. Since graduating college in 2019, I knew I wanted to work for myself in some capacity.
I immediately started freelancing—doing social media marketing, email marketing, copywriting for any brand that would hire me. I worked with some pretty great companies — Angela Caglia Skincare, Blender Bombs, Carlucce, Cleo & Coco, JetSweat Fitness, Beauty and the Broth, Kat Burki Skincare, and others.
This eventually led me to where I am today—a full-time freelance writer who’s had positions with and written for publications like Marie Claire, Women’s Health, Martha Stewart, The Cut, HuffPost, PEOPLE, InStyle, and others.
While I’ve accomplished a great deal in my career so far, the one question I always get is what my work day looks like. So, I decided to roughly take you through a day in the life of a freelance beauty (also lifestyle, sports, home, and whatever else I’m assigned) writer.
Have any questions about living a freelance life? Leave them below! Enjoy👩🏽💻
9:00am
After feeding the dogs (hi, Chelsea and Scout), possibly going on a walk, or trying to fully wake myself up after a minuscule amount of sleep after deadlines for two larger assignments—I open my email and see if there’s anything I need to address right away. Did I mention I’m chugging coffee at this point?
I then check on my newsletters and see how they’re doing and if they performed overnight. I usually like to get these up and scheduled to go live around this time, but I’m trying out afternoon times to see what works best.
This is the time where I do my skincare, of course. I usually have a few products I need to try—potentially for an article or to possibly pitch to an editor. If I have a confirmed article about a product, I snap a few pictures of it to include in the story.
The types of stories I write regarding products are single product reviews or roundups. I’ve tried numerous makeup products, hair dye, hair straighteners, and even items geared towards the wellness side like this sauna blanket.
Here are some product review examples:
9:30-noon
This slot of time is always dedicated to my newsletters. I read a ton of articles for research and to get inspiration on what I want to write about. This involves taking a look at new brand campaigns, reading press releases, and seeing the various takes other writers take on whatever subjects I’m interested in covering.
I read this one for my newsletter The Swing (focusing on women’s sports)
I also read these ones for Skin Reset research (analyzing beauty campaigns and industry news):
Some Substack newsletters I read daily (or whenever they post) for inspiration and research:
Feed Me by
After School by
(I like their IG content too)
Good Thinking by
User Mag by
I also use this time to connect with PR I work with. I ask them about new products, campaigns, partnerships, and often see if any of their experts can comment on the newsletter I’m working on. This is usually a quicker turnaround so I have to send out the emails quickly and wait for their response. These experts are often dermatologists, estheticians, or beauty brand founders.
Noon- 1 p.m.
By this point, I usually have my Skin Reset newsletter all set. I reread it a few times before publishing it. I often schedule it for later in the afternoon—but this changes frequently depending on what times I’d like to try out to see when I get the most engagement.
Because my eyes are growing tired, I take a quick break to eat (I often forget to when I’m busy), do some Pilates, and get my animal’s energy out before I have to get behind the screen again.
Packages are also beginning to arrive around this time, so I make sure to unbox any products I’ve received to test out. This is definitely the highlight of the week.
1 p.m. - 5 p.m.
I check my email again to see if there are any messages I need to answer. I also go through and see if there are any that I could flag for upcoming stories. These emails are also from PR, which consist of information on experts and upcoming product releases.
This is when I usually begin working on my articles for other publications—unless I have a deadline earlier in the day. If that’s the case, that takes priority over my newsletter.
For most of my articles I work with experts who answer questions for me via email (or sometimes on a phone call). I place these in a Google Doc and look over their responses and see what I can use for the article I’m working on.
The type of articles I work on varies greatly these days, as I’m not solely writing beauty stories—even that’s the topic I try to focus on the most. I’m currently working on both home and celebrity stories—one for House Beautiful, a few for People, and I just got assigned one for HuffPost that I’ll need to get started on.
I also try and do some sort of posting/reposting on Instagram to maintain some sort of social life for my professional account. My days of social media management have derailed my desire to be super active on any sort of app. But, self promotion is a huge part of why I’ve written so many articles.
5 p.m. -10 p.m.
Each day can look different from the next, as sometimes I get assigned articles and need to turn it around the same day. Other days, I have more emails to send out and answer instead of writing articles. Some days I’m writing at my desk, other days are spent on the couch, in bed, or in the car.
My best work is done at night, which is why I like to work on my larger assignments when the world is getting quieter and the emails stop flooding in for the evening. This is also when I tend to rethink everything I’ve written for my Substack and wonder if it’s going in the right direction—so I spend a good amount of time on Canva playing around with logo ideas, headings for letters, icons, fonts, and every part of branding you can think of. I also brainstorm some ideas to write about for the next days letter.
The evening is also the time where a lot of brands will host fun virtual events. I’ve done virtual wine tasting, painting classes, and other at-home activities via Zoom.
While it’s hard to get into specific details because of deadlines and embargoed information—I hope this gave you a rough idea of what a day in the life of a freelance writer looks like. Each day is different and some days are longer than others—I’ve had days where I’ve worked from 9 a.m. - 3 a.m. with hardly any breaks from my screen.
But there’s also days where you get an influx of new assignments and feel an overwhelming amount of excitement because you get to work with talented editors and write for amazing publications.
Here are some of my favorite articles I’ve written over the past few years:
I really enjoyed this! So much so that I came back to read it again.
Loved this! 🤍