Perception is a flick of the hair

A week ago I was sitting in the sun, enjoying my voddy and lemonade, chatting to some friends.  We got on to complaining about our hair.  One by one we all stared at each other in amazement, you see I had always been envious of these girls, their hair and well, them in general always looks so effortless and beautiful, and they thought that of me.

See this is the thing, we all make a massive effort to make it look easy and well for myself, lately I have taken to twisting my hair up in a bun as it’s in desperate need of a cut that I neither have the time or the money to sort out.  One of the girls looked at me in disbelief and said, but your hair is always immaculate – hmmmm only because it’s so unwieldy it needs to be restrained (might have been reading too much 50 Shades of Grey!).  She was so amazed that some hours later she was still looking at me saying, ‘I can’t believe that you can twist it up so easily’.  Whilst I was looking at her lovely shiny locks that were straight and beautiful thinking the same thing.  

I guess this is it, we are all so busy worrying about what we look like to others, that we forget that actually most of us are beautiful, some of my friends are in fact stunning.  But we are also normal down to earth people.  We have lives, that mean that we cannot spend 3 hours getting ready in the morning.  God what time would I have to get up if that was the case, my mornings are about maximising my time with my eyes closed and snuggled up under the covers.  We all have jobs to do, friends to see, dinners to cook, exercise to complete and one million other things to sort out.

My own beauty routine has taken a turn for the worse over the last few weeks; I have actually left the house without make up.  I remember making a decision a few years ago not to leave the house without makeup, and for the most part I have stuck to it.  It has been a busy and tiring time for me recently, I seem to have come out the end of it though.  Make up made a return on Friday.  Yay.  My mother and my sister routinely go without makeup, not even mascara sometimes.  I remember for my sister’s wedding, that she was concerned about the amount of makeup that she would have to wear as she wanted to still look like herself.  For the record she looked stunning so there was nothing to be concerned about there.

It always amazes me when I make an effort the reaction that I get.  I remember vividly in the days where I rarely wore makeup to work (early 2000’s were dark days…) and getting dressed up for a work dinner – straightening my hair, putting on makeup and wearing a skirt.  Many of the managers were stunned, one even asking me if I had a sister that worked here (with a glint in his eye!).   Another time at my fav local for my birthday, we held a tube party, where you dressed up like a tube station.  I went as Victoria, Queen of course.  I put my hair up, donned a crown, and wore an lbd and some killer heels.  As I emerged from the taxi, a barman that worked there, who was at best a man of few words and at worst mute, wolf whistled me and made some comment about how different I looked. 

 

All of this begs the question then, why, if I know that this is the reaction that I get, given my current single status, do I not make this level of effort all the time.  The simple answer is because it is exhausting.  Given that for the most part I hate getting up early, it is not going to happen on a normal work day.  On the weekends depending on what is happening, I might make more of an effort but not often.  I am the wash and wear kind of girl.  I truly believe that if men had any idea what we have to go through with waxing, moisturising, conditioning, plucking, potions and lotions, they too would agree that it should be a sometimes not an everyday occasion.  And there is the argument that if I made the effort everyday what would I do on a special occasion.

So there it is, I guess that we are all a bit clueless to just how cute we actually are, we all have the same struggles when it comes to finding the time to look after ourselves properly, and I hate getting up early, even if it means time to make myself look good.  Here’s to another week of wash and wear hair.