Let's Talk... New Years

<Expectations of a good night> This year you are prepared. This year you will have an amazing new year's eve. This year will be different. You spent hours and hours AND HOURS scrolling asos and picked out the perfect dress. It’s sparkly and shiny and has a little slit up the side, classy and flattering with an edge of slutty, which is exactly what you were going for. Two days before, you have an everything shower. Hair wash, shave, exfoliate, a good scrub with the mango body wash. Upon exiting the shower you marinade yourself in the thickest body cream you have and sleep in it overnight like a pharaoh being embalmed. You wake up the next morning, your eyes ping open. One day to go - shit is getting serious. It’s tan day!!!! You moisturise your elbows, knees, ankles and hands with an oil free moisturiser and get to it. Long sweeping motions, back and forth, very gentle yet precise, see your white skin turn to olive (orange?). You are so prepared this year you even have time to do two coats of tan, oh yes. You sit and relax with sex and the city playing in the background as you plan your hair and make up. A smoked out brown wing. Totally screams elegance. The tan seeps into the layers of your skin as the hours pass. It feels great! You decide to sleep in your tan to get the best possible Maldives-esque glow. With your heatless curling device successfully attached to your head you fall asleep, ready for new years eve tomorrow! You are excited. Full of hope. You are so prepared there is no way that tomorrow will not be the best night out of your life.

<The morning after> Oh god, oh no. HELP! What the hell happened last night? The only thing you can think about right now is how crusty you feel. The individual lashes that you so carefully applied the night prior feel like tiny knives stabbing your eyes every time you blink. You think you will just rip them off, who cares if all your eyelashes come out in the process? You just need them off and you need them off NOW. You know you have vomited, you know you spent too much money and you know you ate mcdonalds chicken nuggets even though you are supposed to be a vegetarian. You feel bad and sad. The queue for the club was so long even though you had tickets. As you waited in the rain your hair deflated but to your credit your make-up held up very well. The club was overcrowded. Everyone was on coke and you didn’t get much change from £50 for two double vodka and sodas. Thinking about how much you spent on drinks, entry and taxis makes you CRINGE. New year's day is spent equally between the toilet and the sofa. There aren’t even any good pictures from last night that you can post to instagram. The night you spent 3 days thinking about did not live up to your expectations. What a waste of money, time and make-up.

<Making resolutions that aren’t achievable> (and based on your looks rather than on betterment of your person) Every single woman you know wants to lose at least a stone this year (woo). That sounds fun. Your Granny has joined slimming world for the fifth year in a row. It has become a long-standing family joke but it still makes you feel sad. Your mum is threatening to cut out carbs again. All your friends have joined the gym and purchased gym programmes which promise to make them strong and lean, healthy and skinny, a warrior and a princess. It feels like every advert is for weight loss. If it’s not meal replacement shakes it’s low calories meals delivered straight to your door. It’s weight loss classes and weight loss groups. It’s walking clubs and beach work-outs. It’s too much. But who are you to say anything? You do the same thing every single year. The beginning of a new year makes you feel too big. It makes every woman feel too big. It brainwashes woman to believe our only goal this year should be to to shrink ourselves to make ourselves smaller;

We say to girls “You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten The Man."

As women we are able to aspire to much more. We can run companies. We can climb mountains. We are creative. We are powerful. We are WOMEN.