This blogger without her makeup…

The ever gorgeous and very clever Jodie at Mummy Mayhem recently came up with the idea ‘Bloggers Without Makeup Day’. And what a day it seems to have been! So great was Jodie’s idea that I of course wanted to be involved too. So why wasn’t I involved on the day I hear you ask? Well that’s a great questions and I promise I have a great excuse! I was on the other side of the world. Told you it was a great excuse!

I’ve always loved makeup, but have never really been obsessed with it. I remember when I started Beauty College I ‘got in trouble’ for NOT wearing ENOUGH makeup! And while I say I’m not obsessed with it, I do prefer to put on some powder and a bit of mascara before I leave the house.

I’ve thought about analysing why we feel the need to do this, but really I don’t think for me there are any deep psychological reasons behind it! My face is quite pale and I look better, healthier with a bit of colour. Really it’s that plain and simple!

Anyway enough of my ramblings, here I am bare faced sitting on train somewhere in France, I think travelling from Paris to Bordeaux a few weeks ago! Actually that was at the beginning of our trip so a couple of months ago!

Bloggers Without Makeup

Congratulations Jodie on a fantastic idea that turned into a great day and no doubt liberated women everywhere! Next year (and I hope there’s a next year) I hope to participate on the proper day!

You can read the full Blogger’s Without Makeup stories and follow the journey on Jodie’s website:

Bloggers Without Makeup

Bloggers Without Makeup Day

BWM Day 2010 Thanks

BWM 2010 Video

Crossing over to the dark side

I'm a brunette!

As you well know I’m a little obsessed with getting my hair done. And I’m not afraid of a change. Except after growing my hair for nearly a year for our wedding, I have become quite attached to my long locks, and wasn’t ready to cut them off, but still felt like I needed a change.

Couple that with our upcoming 8 week trip to Europe and not wanting horrible regrowth half way through our trip and voila, my change would be darker locks!

So that’s what I did last week! I managed to freak myself out twice in the mirror after forgetting the following morning that for now, I was no longer a blonde!

Do you experiment with your hair? How many hair colours have you had over the years? Or do you prefer to keep it simple?!

Oh, and as always all my hair posts are dedicated to Kylie! xx

Now here’s some flaws.

It’s not often, you would see a photograph of me in something above the knee let alone my swimmers, or God forbid my underwear. But after sitting back and watching the Jennifer Hawkins debate unfold over flaws and all naked marie claire cover, I felt that in this case words just wouldn’t be enough.

As Hubby and I flicked through the weekend papers yesterday and I saw the Jen pics, my first thought was: flaws and all my arse. Good for her for stripping down and good for marie claire for putting her on the cover un-re-touched. But hello people, if I had Jen’s body, I’d do the groceries with no bloody clothes on.

There has been criticism of ‘Jen bashing’ and saying she’s not real, and I think it’s a shame that when it comes to body image we get off track and sometimes don’t maybe express our opinions the way we should. All women of all shapes and sizes are real women. Some body types provide a more positive image than others, yes, and is Jen’s one of those bodies? Well that is the million dollar question.

Do I like looking at Jen’s body, and admire her hard work and/or freaking good genes? Yes, I do, and I can appreciate her as a lingerie model and her job that requires her to look a certain way. But out of all the women in the whole entire country, was she the right one for the magazine to make a stand? Probably not. Maybe the right person to make a little bit of ripple, but to try and cause a tidle wave of support for body image, for the AVERAGE Australian women, no.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have my head stuck in the sand, and I think that someone like me or fellow potential covergirl Kerri Sackville would outsell Miss Universe herself in the magazine stakes, (although I’m sure we’d give her a good run for her money), but it still saddens me that at the end of the day whether it was a close second or still the top priority, magazines, like marie claire have a duty to their advertisers to sell magazines. And shitloads of them.

And so here I am flaws, creases, cellulite and all. Why? Well why the hell not? I know I’ve put on weight, about 10kg over the past couple of years. And yes sometimes I have extremely unhappy and p*@$ed off days with my body. I hate my thighs and tummy every single day. But I also know that this is the only body I’ve got, and while I whinge and moan about clothes that don’t fit anymore, I know I’m not fat, but sometimes it still sucks.

But would you catch me like this standing next to Jen. Um, let me think about that. HELL NO!

UPDATE: So after pondering all this for a few hours I felt the need to add something else. Someone wrote on Twitter last night about how they felt when they saw Jen naked on the cover of marie claire. And basically it wasn’t good. I felt the same. I thought if that’s a flawed body then what hope do the rest of us ‘normal’ non-supermodel people have. Um, how about zero. Yes we are all very different shapes and sizes and we should all learn to love the skin we’re in, but comparing ourselves to Jen, which we would all naturally instantly do, is not going to help.

Lastly bravo to Madison Magazine who unfortunately didn’t seem to drum up the same publicity as Jen, but their spread on Aussie’s baring all was a little more comforting in that you could look at women of all sizes and relate. And that’s what we want. To see people who are just like us.