I Still Feel Like a Shopping Addict: My No-Buy August

After the success of my No-Buy July, I decided to carry on and do a No-Buy August. Although I'd realised at the end of July that my determination not to spend can sometimes be very punitive, which I think is a part of why I sometimes have these breakout shopping binges, so I decided to try to take a slightly more relaxed approach with my trip to St David's, where some of my favourite sustainable fashion shops are - I only get to go there once a year, I know I'm not going to go crazy and buy everything in the store, so I would let myself have a browse and maybe make a purchase.

I was kind of planning in general to offer myself this more relaxed approach going forward. Sure, "I went a year without shopping," sounds cool and would be a great thing to have achieved, but the actual end goal I'm hoping for is a simplified life where I don't spend so much time and energy on consumerism, money and stuff. I don't think that the way to get to that place is by heaping guilt on myself all the time. Yes, I can benefit from having some boundaries and self-discipline around my spending, which is why I'm still aiming for a no-buy (otherwise I tend to just create more and more loopholes for myself and don't get to learn what I need to learn), but if my accomplishment in the end is 'just' a low-buy, then I'm still improving and making changes.

Sometimes I feel frustrated that I go backwards and forwards so much on what I want to buy, how I want to dress and so forth - I can only imagine that it's just as frustrating for you to follow along! But I do try to be honest and accountable on this blog, and at least if there's another me out there who feels just as tangled up and confused by their shopping and spending habits, you can see that you're not the only one struggling to find a balance or sometimes making less-than-ideal decisions whilst you try to help yourself out of the rut. One thing I've really enjoyed since day one on this blog is being able to pull together all the things I've learned and all the resources that have helped and inspired me and kind of compile them in one place for anyone else who is on a similar path, hence the links I've started adding to the bottom of many of my newer posts.

However, the most frustrating thing of all is that after three years of trying to tackle this problem, I'm still overspending in my problem categories and - worse - I still feel like a shopping addict, just one who's come back a little bit from the brink of debt and financial collapse. 

I still have a lot of weird issues around my style, too. I think that with all the big changes in my life over the last few years and the difficult decade I had before that, I've really lost touch with my sense of identity and also my confidence. My fixation on 'fixing' my problems with style and shopping is just a symptom of that - it's the outside shell of the issue, the visible thing that I can take in hand and work on. It still feels to me as though I have to solve these issues before I can move on (to what, I don't know yet!). I've spent the last couple of years trying to override, ignore or suppress that feeling, which hasn't worked. 

So how did my attempt at a no-buy August pan out?

Week One

I found that I'm very strongly influenced by the content that I consume, more so than I realised. I spent a couple of days watching the same YouTubers I've been watching a lot lately (Gittemary, Christina Mychas, Malama Life), and found myself thinking that perhaps I could sell some of my more 'out there' stuff as I don't really wear it or know how to style it these days. Then a couple of days later I was reading the Voice of Nature blog and found myself wanting more flowy faerie clothes. This isn't really something I can avoid - even if I came offline, I suspect that TV, movies, books and even people around me are still exerting some kind of influence - so I think it's something I just need to be aware of, and if I've been consuming content a lot perhaps just assume that my thoughts are not entirely my own. Which sounds a little sinister when put like that. I have always been very susceptible to advertising so this doesn't particularly surprise me, it's just useful to keep in mind.

I was also able to use this susceptibility to my advantage by tweaking my media consumption to include more from people with a strong anticonsumerist perspective (I like ecofriend.Lia) and guided meditations, and otherwise cut back on the time I spend just browsing online. I found this really helped me to feel calmer, as well as more grateful and appreciative for all the things I already own.

Week Two

This was the week of our annual family holiday to Wales. There's nothing like quiet time in the company of the sea and the sky to put things in perspective. The heat was blistering and money tight, so most of our days were spent on the beach, shifting focus between the vast blue horizon and the minutiae of tiny starfish clinging to the rocks at low tide. 

The holiday was not without its, um, shopaholic moments - I asked Dai to drive me back into St David's after our initial visit so that I could buy an item of clothing I'd spotted, only to discover, once I managed to persuade him, that the item was out of stock in my size. I also had a bit of a wobble when my brother-in-law arrived with his beautiful, glamorous girlfriend. 

I dislike this comparison tendency that I still have. It's certainly not as pronounced or as constant as it used to be, but I've noticed that as I shop less I fixate less on comparing what I am wearing, which at least I could change, and instead compare things I can't particularly control, like my hair texture, my shape or my skin. This is pretty unhelpful and obviously something I still need to work on. 

Luckily, it turned out that a week of free thalassotherapy was exactly what the doctor ordered. I found that the confidence I gained after my firewalk continued to expand my comfort zone, as we adventured around the coast by kayak and stand-up paddleboard. I don't think I would have been brave enough to try these new things even a year ago, let alone dash into the sea in T-shirt and knickers as I did one evening when I was too sunburned to get my wetsuit on but still really, really wanted a swim.

I always find the Pembrokeshire trip to be an opportunity to reset, to reconsider my responsibilities, how I approach them, and what I can let go of. It also helps me, each and every time, to reconnect with my deep and abiding love for our beautiful planet, and to remember to see the world through my little one's eyes. 

Our eventual plan is to move to the Welsh coast - even the Spud asks regularly, "Mummy, me go sea now?" - and I am reminded anew to make this a priority when it comes to setting my budgets.

Week Three

The post-holiday blues hit hard, and this week was mostly bleugh. Still, I felt buoyed by having come this far without falling off the wagon. With no firewalks or sea swims making themselves immediately available, I shifted my focus back onto my study of Druidry, as I had been reminded how that particular way of connecting with nature and embracing enchantment in the everyday had thoroughly enriched my life. 

At this point I was seven weeks in to this iteration of the no-buy challenge, and I was starting to really experience the benefits. I felt steadier and more secure in myself, less subject to being caught up in online trends, and at peace and comfortable with the contents of my wardrobe. I'd stopped looking for the next thing I might purchase.

Week Four

Much to my surprise, I still hadn't really had any urges to break the ban. I had occasional dips in mood, but I found I could remedy these with any one of hundreds of activities available to me close to my home or via the magic of the internet: walking, cooking, visiting the library, journaling, guided meditations, qigong, breathwork, self-massage, wild swimming, even the odd bit of kundalini chanting when Dai wasn't around to hear me. I got a bit gung-ho about wellness and self-help and found myself charging into cold showers and smoothing my magnetic field. From the outside it possibly looked a bit nuts, and long-term I suspect the pick-and-mix approach could just become another form of consumerism, but it was fun, free and exciting. I was learning lots of new things, and new coping mechanisms for everyday stresses, as well as getting to know myself a bit better (on more levels than one. I was intrigued to find out that apparently the Door to Life resides in the lower back!).

At the end of the month, I felt much calmer and less anxious about shopping in general. My knuckles weren't white any more, and I could see myself continuing in this vein for a while longer. I could also, just about, conceive of a future where the occasional purchase was a joyful thing, neither a big deal nor an all-consuming urge.

Recent inspirations:

How to make good shopping decisions even though you have so many options and lots of feelings

Consumerism is keeping you broke! Here's how

Alternative Ethical/Sustainable Slow Fashion Brands Part One

I Bought No Clothes For Two Years - Here's What I Learnt

I'm going to be away for a couple of weeks - normal service will resume when I get back.

My No-Buy July: A Belated Write-Up

July, it seemed, was a good month for those of us trying to buy less stuff. Frugalwoods was running the Uber Frugal Month (I've signed up for this so many times that I've memorised the emails, yet I still don't invest, and I haven't yet trusted myself with a credit card. Maybe next year. Why do I feel like there's this whole arena of adulthood associated with these kinds of financial decisions that I somehow don't feel ready for yet?). I also discovered a YouTuber, Christina Mychas, who was running a No-Buy July support group by email, and also has a Facebook group, Low Buy Beauties.

In July, our annual trip to Pembrokeshire was so close that I could almost smell the sea, and we were also starting to get excited about our trip to Shetland in October. Dai booked the overnight ferry at the beginning of July, and I was starting to realise, with considerable discomfort, that a 'big' holiday (we originally booked it to fall between my 30th birthday and Dai's 40th, but had to push it back a year due to covid uncertainties) would be something we could do far more regularly if I stopped spending so much money on other things.

My finances weren't looking great following my trip to Brighton with Alice. I hadn't emptied my piggy bank, but as a carer I'm on a low income, and it takes a while for the coffers to refill. I wasn't intending to spend a lot on either holiday, but it did remind me that it was time to have a look at how I was doing with my budgets.

Well, it wasn't good. When I added up the columns of numbers in the back of my journal, I learned that, seven months into the year, I was already over the budgets I'd set myself for cosmetics, books, and clothes. Clothing was the worst category - I'd nearly spent twice my annual budget, which meant, terrifyingly, that in seven months I'd nearly spent the same amount I spent throughout the whole of 2021. Not. Good. At all.

It was time for a bit of triage. I was on the waiting list for a commission from a slow fashion artisan I'd been admiring online for some time, and I contacted her to say I couldn't afford the piece right now, and would it be all right for me to get in touch in a few more months and go back on the bottom of the waiting list then. She was amazingly nice about it, and actually said that when I get back in touch I won't have to wait again, which was so kind. I also had a tattoo appointment booked in early September for a new large design on my left arm, but I knew I couldn't justify another three-figure spend, so I contacted my tattooist and cancelled the appointment. I did not enjoy doing these things, but I also would not have enjoyed finishing up the year with no cash cushion left in my account. The modern wisdom is 'treat yo'self', but without limits my spending was spiralling out of my control. Better to wait until I could afford these things without risk of crippling myself financially.

I was also still plugging away with Flylady, and our small house was looking so much better. Partly because it was cleaner (!), but also because we didn't have so much stuff squeezed where it didn't really fit. But then, reading back through my journal, I was quite alarmed to discover that apparently I had also had a 'big declutter' back in February. By July, I couldn't see the difference or remember a single thing I had gotten rid of only a few months ago, which freaked me out a bit! I took a quick inventory of my wardrobe, and was interested to find that my 63 t-shirts (as inventoried in 2019) had been reduced to a much more storage-space-friendly 25, yet even when I wracked my brain I could only think of five or six I had given to friends or donated. Where did the other 30-odd come from, and where did they go?!

This experience really confirmed to me that I am still not quite the mindful shopper I had convinced myself I was. I could do with being a lot stricter on myself when it comes to spending, and I think I'm doing the right thing by trying to get the most out of the items that I have so I don't constantly feel like I have to be seeking something more. It's a bit worrisome that so many pieces are still kind of just passing through - I do shop mainly second-hand nowadays, and I get a lot given to me from friends' clearouts, but if I don't want to be decluttering eternally I need to be MUCH more ruthless about what I bring into the house.

I decided to follow Mint Notion's Shop Your Closet challenge throughout July. It would challenge my ingrained consumer mindset - I'd noticed that when I picture myself doing this or that in the future, I imagine a fantasy wardrobe for myself and start planning what to buy, rather than figuring out appropriate outfits from the abundance I have already!

Week One

An easy week, shopping-wise. No temptations, no slips, no mistakes. I noticed that my usage of Instagram and Pinterest fell dramatically throughout the course of the week, which made me wonder how much the 'inspiration' I'm seeking actually translates to 'the next thing to buy'. 

This was also the week I had the brainwave of rearranging my clothes instead of decluttering any further. My winter gear was put away in under bed storage, and I moved my socks and bras from a drawer in my wardrobe into a small crate that sits in the wardrobe itself. Then I had enough room to vanquish the last of those plastic crates that have been living scattered around our bedroom. It's a great feeling and the room feels and looks so much better.

(Actually there are still a couple of boxes on my side of the bedroom. Those are my 'maybe' boxes, where I'm keeping those last few pieces that I haven't decided whether or not to let go of. Traditional wisdom holds that you should seal your maybe boxes and put them away for a few months, after which time you can declutter them guilt-free, but after reminding myself that I'm an aspiring environmentalist, not an aspiring minimalist, first and foremost, I've left the boxes open so that I can mix my maybe items into my outfits. Some of those items will still have to go - they just don't fit and aren't comfortable. Others might have ended up in the boxes simply because I was desperate to get rid of something, anything, to edge closer to the mythical capsule wardrobe of my fantasy self, and they might deserve another chance.)

I watched a lot more YouTube than usual during this week - I found that it kept me feeling positive about the challenge to hear from others who were doing/are doing a no-buy - it reminded me that I'm doing this to have more money for other things; that I'm not making a sacrifice, just changing my priorities. (I've linked some of my favourite videos at the bottom of this post, as well as some articles that kept me fired up!)

Week Two

Now that things were tidy and manageable I found myself quite naturally focusing on things other than my wardrobe. I'd been enjoying the Shop Your Closet challenge as it has encouraged me to try new combinations and wear those items that didn't see the light of day as much, but I now found myself deviating from the suggested outfits as I had so many ideas for combinations I wanted to try. But after getting dressed in the mornings, I noticed that I wasn't really thinking at all about clothes.

Instead I was cooking more and making some of our household staples from scratch (armed with The Planet-Friendly Kitchen by Karen Edwards). It was too hot to go out or do anything very active, but I made some headway into my To Be Read pile. I made some cash selling a few of my unwanted things through Facebook Marketplace, and I started getting up early to beat the heat so that I could start again with my yoga practice - I have an annoying tendency to stick with it just long enough to notice my strength and flexibility increasing, then slack off long enough to stiffen up again. Much like I do with shopping bans, actually! But not this time, I hope.

What I do with my time when I'm not on a shopping ban baffles me. Surely I can't just be spending hours a day browsing? I thought I'd broken that habit. And yet I suddenly seemed to have a lot more opportunity to do the things I was always too busy for. Odd!

Week Three

I really wasn't sure if I wanted to admit to this on the internet, but I had a horrible moment where I found myself crying behind my sunglasses on a busy high street because I felt horrendously self-conscious and ugly in my summer clothes. In hindsight I think the book I'd been reading that weekend had been a bit triggering for those faint eating disordered thoughts that sometimes still crop up in the back of my brain, and I was feeling a bit vulnerable. I just couldn't think of how to help myself past these painful feelings without either shopping or dieting, but I knew that neither would be helpful, especially not as a knee-jerk response.

I did eventually decide that I probably needed a bit of indulgence and self-care time, a morning routine that wasn't a quick wash-and-go, maybe even a bit of lipstick and a pair of high heels. I've mentioned before that I keep trying to do without 'frivolous style and beauty stuff' in the name of, I dunno, dedicating myself to being a more serious eco warrior (or something like that), and it has helped to see that my favourite sustainability influencers clearly love clothes and make-up and generally looking nice. This overload of crappy feelings really brought home to me that I actually need to carve out that time in my morning routine to let myself feel good about myself. 

I'm wary of coming to depend on make-up to feel acceptable like I did when I was younger, so I'm going to try not to overdo it but instead to find a balance. 

Week Four

Speaking of balance, I know that I've already spent too much in my 'problem' categories this year, so going forward I really don't want to spend too much more in 2022. But this week I started to have some some wobbles about what my next steps are going to be. Realistically, I don't know if a year without shopping is ever going to be a thing for me, and sometimes I wonder if that's even a sensible thing to aim for - this blog post about choosing low-buy over no-buy came into my orbit this week, and the writer makes a good case. 

Although I feel like 'giving myself a gift' every week might be a bit excessive and would definitely push those big holidays further out of reach, I can certainly see that, say, a monthly treat like a new face mask or a book or whatever could actually be really uplifting. But when I tried a low-buy year before, it went horribly wrong! Maybe now that I'm not shopping online so much, I could do it? Being able to still shop somewhat would also mean I could do some thrifting, which I have been keen to do more since I started watching Gittemary's channel.

I have actually started planning another trip with Alice for a few months' time - we're going to take the train to London in January or February, and we're planning to visit the flagship Waterstones bookstore in Piccadilly and browse the shops in Soho, as well as a bit of sightseeing. There's approximately a 0% chance that I will come home empty-handed after noodling around Beyond Retro, and I'm trying to channel my inner Gittemary and not feel guilty as long as the shopping is sustainable and doesn't bust my budget. The thing is that I still kind of want to be this hardline frugal mindful simplicity guru who doesn't care about style, doesn't go nuts for new zero waste and vegan skin care products, doesn't adore clothes, doesn't enjoy shopping as an activity, doesn't like going to the spa - but I'm not that person and I do love all of those things. I feel like it undermines my anticonsumerist Druid credibility, but I can't change myself - I have tried!

I can't decide if my end goal is to quit shopping altogether (except replacement items and the things I need to live!) or just to give it less overall room in my life, an occasional enjoyable activity rather than a complete obsession. People who've done a no-buy year tend to rave about it as life-changing, and I kind of want some of that! But I also want to not always be punishing myself...

This post is getting super long, but at the very tail end of July I went with Dai and the Spud to Valhalla Viking Festival, which I'll talk a bit more about in another post for the sake of brevity. But suffice to say I completed my no-buy successfully despite delicious temptations abounding. It was helpful to remind myself that there will always be something else to want, and I won't actually miss or regret the items I don't buy.

Inspiration:

Quit Fast Fashion in Your Twenties (applicable for any age, and funny as well as lots of smart advice on how to generally shop better!)

I stopped buying clothes and found my personal style

Zero Waste Without Minimalism? 

Un-Fashioning the Future

How I Overcame My Shopping Addiction

The Fat Egg Fights Back, or, My Recent Brush With Diet Culture

This post talks about weight, weight loss, calories and dieting. I have avoided using actual numbers where possible, but if you think this post might be triggering for you, please don't read it.

I've been putting off writing this post for a little while. It's been hard to get my thoughts in order about this sensitive topic, and it also means admitting to a bunch of thoughts and feelings I rather wish I didn't have. But since this whole blog has kind of been an exercise in doing exactly that, I guess I'll just go for it.

So, earlier this year I went on a diet. If you know me in real life, you know this is a Big Thing for me, and also massively hypocritical, as I am usually quick to point out to friends that calorie counting is unsustainable and doesn't work, and that the assorted diets peddled via glossy cookbooks and 'wellness plans' amount to starvation. Why I came around to thinking that my diet was going to magically be the exception I don't know. With a history of disordered eating, I really ought to have known better.

But an old schoolfriend had been posting a lot online about her new, healthy diet and intensive exercise regime, and how much better she felt now she had lost all her baby weight. Conversely I have the kind of body shape that means after family functions my mum gets phone calls from various aunts asking when my baby is due. I'm aware of this, and my feelings about it range from not giving a flying fuck to crossing my arms over my belly when I sit down to hide my spare tyre, depending on the vagaries of my mood.

It's also true to say that at my final wedding dress fittings, there were some concerns about the tightness of the bodice. It was getting to be a bit of a struggle. My takeaway habit was showing. 

So I decided that I was going to have to do something about this issue. But, knowing my propensity for problem behaviours with food, I knew I was going to have to tread carefully. I downloaded the NHS Better Health app, thinking that the health authority of my country would be the safest and most appropriate guide. I bought a scale, because my general policy is not to have one, and entered my height and weight on the app. It told me I was slightly overweight, set me a target of how much weight I should lose, and a plan for how to do so in twelve weeks.

What I didn't like very much was the calorie goal the app set for me. 1400 calories. I knew that this was far too low for a moderately active adult human, so I changed the settings to 1800. This is still low, by the way. Food, health and nutrition experts have criticised the NHS's recommended calorie guidelines for normal eating as well as for weight loss. Consider that the calorie allowance for the famous Minnesota Starvation Experiment was 1600 calories a day, which was considered a semi-starvation diet. Marion Nestle, PhD, professor of food studies and nutrition at NYU, describes the modern 2000-cal recommended daily intake as "only enough to sustain children". (For more on this, read The Fuck-It Diet by Caroline Dooner.)

Two days in, I was hungry, dizzy, and miserable, and I face-planted into a takeaway pizza feeling like a failure.

The next morning I decided to try again. This time I turned the calorie counter off and tried to focus on smaller portions and more plants. The app doesn't like this very much, and kept prompting me to turn the calorie counter back on. This raised a few red flags for me - I didn't like to be pushed towards obsessive counting and monitoring. Maybe for many people these are 'normal' aspects of a weight loss diet, but I find it hard to see the differences between fixating on your food in this socially approved manner, and disordered eating. I'm not sure where the line is drawn.

Anyway, over the next couple of weeks I managed to lose almost half of the recommended weight. I wasn't hungry all the time, and I discovered that I quite enjoyed exercising. The only downside was that the weekly weigh-in made me really anxious, which, again, reminded me of having an eating disorder. 

Eventually the weight loss plateaued. And then, despite the fact I was still eating smaller portions, still exercising, it began to creep back on. I got stressed about this. I came, I would say, the closest I have come to relapse since my early twenties. I am still a bit cross about all of this. I knew, going in, that this industry is built on smoke and mirrors, that its game is fuckery. I've spent years trying to inoculate myself against its poison. And yet I still fell for it.

The week before my wedding, I was the same weight at which I started, albeit a bit stronger and a bit more flexible from all the movement I'd been doing. But I've still got a round soft tummy and a round soft bottom. What I learned is that unless you're willing to devote your whole life to the misery of monitoring and restricting your eating, which I am not, diets still don't work. Your body defends itself. Your metabolic rate adjusts.

I'm a bit annoyed that I now have a set of scales I don't want and that I put my hard-won mental equilibrium at risk when I could have just been kind. I'm disappointed that I felt badly enough about the way I look to have started this game yet again. Especially when I can see that the women around me are beautiful at all different sizes. Why don't I think that that applies to myself? Why do I think that other people are gorgeous when they are soft and curvy, but think of myself as looking like a fat egg?

So, I'm going to go and re-read The Fuck-It Diet and Beyond Beautiful. I found several fitness instructors on YouTube offering body positive workouts, which I'd highly recommend - it's nice to move my body just to feel good, not to punish or force change. I have deleted the Better Health app. I will be wearing crop tops and bikinis this summer, and unfollowing anyone who conflates self-love with having a specific body type.

Notes:

As well as the above-mentioned books, I would recommend reading up on the work and findings of the Health at Every Size movement (particularly when the NHS has apparently not caught up, oh dear).

The Body is Not An Apology 

 I will be away next week; normal service will resume the week after.

Saved by Stylish Vegans: Make Getting Dressed Great Again

I guess this post could be considered a reprise of Beauty Care for Wild Women, with a nod towards Toxic Femininity.

A couple of months ago, we had a day out at a vegan market in a nearby town (we've been cutting down our meat and dairy intake drastically). I had an absolutely fantastic time - it was sunny, I ate my own body weight in free samples, I bought a lot of plant-based cheeses, and I had the most incredibly delicious seitan "chicken" burger for my lunch - and I also came away feeling hopeful and uplifted. Firstly, it was great to see that more environmentally-friendly ways of living are becoming more popular and accessible, and secondly, the people-watching was absolutely on point. After a day of admiring stylish vegans with all kinds of different looks, it dawned on me that it was completely and perfectly possible to be someone who cares about ethics and the environment and also look good.

Although I knew in theory that 'lots of people doing a little bit is better than one person doing everything perfectly', and I hoped to gently encourage my friends to try a cruelty-free product or think a little more about the environment, I'd also read that 'it's better to kneel now than to fall from ten feet later.' I was (am) so convinced that we are staring down the barrel of climate change disaster that I'd just kind of given up on myself. Might as well get used to not looking nice, I won't be able to afford luxuries in a few more years anyway... Whether this depressing apocalyptic view is correct or not is up for debate, but it made me no kind of poster girl. 

It had started as enjoying a more low-maintenance look at the beginning of my shopping ban, but after a while I started feeling guilty for occasionally wanting to indulge in luxury or vanity. After all, the environment...

After the market, I realised that schlepping around feeling miserable with my hair scraped back, skin dull, no eyebrows and plain clothes was not only making my day-to-day more crap than it needed to be and knocking my confidence unnecessarily, but it was hardly doing a good job of promoting the eco life to my beauty-loving friends. I've come to this realisation once or twice before since I've been writing this blog, but finding it too easy to slip back into the same habits.

Meanwhile I'm still trying to operate in the everyday world - see friends, go out, do things - and as I was neither looking nor feeling my best (and haven't been, in all honesty, for some years, as I've just gotten so in the habit of not bothering), the old comparison trap was rearing its ugly head again.

I found this time that the best way to deal was to just make sure I was really happy in what I was wearing before going out for the day. Sometimes this means taking the time to blow-dry my hair and apply a full face of make-up. Other times I'm happy to go barefaced but need to pay extra attention to my outfit. 

While I don't really like to budge from my crunchy-granola ethics when it comes to cosmetics - I like things to be cruelty free, preferably made with natural and organic ingredients, and the packaging should be home compostable or recyclable - I'd been kind of half-assing it with nothing but a dab of coconut oil here and there. This might well work for some people, but eventually my skin and hair let me know that they needed a bit more pampering, and I bought myself a new moisturiser, a face mask and a deep conditioning treatment. It was good to feel that I could look after myself appropriately but without compromising my standards.

Likewise, by paying that bit more attention to what I'm wearing and how I feel in it, I can feel more confident and enjoy my clothes more without feeling like I need to rush out and buy something new every ten minutes. Sometimes I forget, throw on any old thing and end up feeling a bit glum, but in general I'm feeling a lot better in myself.

I also decided to tackle some of the appearance-related niggles that had been bothering me in a low-grade way for quite some time, but which I'd been ignoring as I didn't want to spend money on my appearance or acknowledge that I'm not 100% low maintenance and cool about the way I look. I was no longer happy with one of my tattoos, so I went to a tattoo artist and had a chat about how to improve the situation. Frugal? No. So very worth it? Yes. Similarly, I tentatively spoke to my hairdresser about tweaking my style a little bit. I didn't need to buy a lot of things, but I found I could feel a lot better on an everyday basis by not ignoring my feelings and making those tweaks.

Sure, it would be great if I was perfectly happy with every aspect of my appearance, but that isn't the case - same as for most people - and trying to tough it out and ignore those feelings was making me feel worse, not better. I was aiming for neutrality towards or acceptance of those bits I didn't like, but somehow ended up making myself feel like I wasn't allowed to enjoy looking good at all.

I'm trying to find the balance between taking care of myself, honouring myself, being a happy and functional person, but without doing more harm to others, including the rest of the ecosystem, than I can live comfortably with. 

Toxic Femininity

Not long ago I met up with my bridesmaids - six of my dearest friends - for morning coffee. Socialising with other women post-lockdown has been a bit of an eye-opener for me - embarrassingly, I had kind of forgotten that not everyone has been in the same echo chamber as me, worrying about climate change and learning how to cut down their consumption. Actually, I kind of completely forgot that lots of people aren't generally thinking about their consumption as problematic (whether it is or isn't, which of course is not for me to decide, although I would suggest that all of us in the global North perhaps need to think twice about our normalised habits) or obsessing over ethical fashion and cosmetics, and had to work at not pulling a disapproving-grandma face any time anyone mentioned PrettyLittleThing or L'Oreal.

What I have been working on, however, is being more open and honest about stuff (hopefully in a gentle way), so at one point I did find myself saying to two of my particularly glamorous friends - one of whom I haven't seen without make-up and impeccably coiffed hair since we were in primary school, and one of whom I have never seen without the whole arsenal of femininity in play - that I'm amazed by how they do it with two children apiece when I find it a challenge to shave my legs with any kind of regularity, let alone find the time for flicky eyeliner, and I wished I could ever manage to be as groomed.

Once they'd finished laughing at me, they told me two things: firstly, that skinny jeans can be hiding all sorts of things, so even the most fabulously turned out woman might possibly have not got around to shaving for three months, and apparently this is pretty normal. 

Secondly - and here one of my very oldest friends flicked her elegantly curled, highlighted hair, looked me dead in the eye, and said, "Well, I wish I didn't feel like I have to bother with all this -" she waved a hand to indicate her make-up and curls "- just to feel like I can leave the house. I wish I could be more carefree. I feel like other girls who don't wear make-up all the time are way more comfortable in their skin than I am. This is what I have to do just to feel acceptable, and I love it when I can get home and take my make-up off so I can rub my eyes without smooshing my mascara all over the place."

Okay. So that was me told. I was kind of stunned, to be honest. How had I managed to angst about my girl envy all this time without ever considering things from the other side of the fence?

Another thing we talked about a little bit - perhaps inevitably - was weight. I guess out of the seven of us, probably three or four are on a diet at any given time. Even I bought a scale this year, but I'm going to talk about that whole mess in another post. Suffice to say for now that eventually I had to sit down and re-read Just Eat It, and that while I was doing so I suddenly realised that the way a lot of women feel about their weight and looks - not good enough, must constantly improve - is also how I very often feel about the way I dress and the things I own.

What diet culture and consumer culture have in common is simply this: it's about control. When you fall too far into these twin traps, your thoughts are forever rattling around the same hamster wheel: what should you eat, how do you look, what should you wear, what should you buy. When you walk into a room, or down the high street, you automatically and semi-consciously rank yourself against other women - who's the thinnest, prettiest, best-dressed? 

More and more of us now are becoming aware of the toxic and damaging messages of diet culture, but I haven't often seen it linked to the parallel trap of overconsumption. Yet to my mind the insidious connections are obvious - people with low self-esteem are far more likely to spend more, not just on gyms, diet foods, supplements and all the other accoutrements peddled by the nutribollocks industry and its influencer poster children, but also on clothes (to conceal, to sculpt, to flatter, to commiserate, to aspire to), cosmetics, treatments and surgeries. Treat yo'self - self-love can be yours, right now, for this one-off bargain price of the cost of bath bombs, crystals, candles, lingerie, gym gear, hair dye, new nails, fake tan, gym membership, microblading, laser hair removal and a plant-based wellness spa retreat in the heart of the Cotswolds. 

I feel like this weird self-hating soup of diet culture, overconsumption and influencer culture is to women and femme-presenting people as toxic masculinity is to men. Things we might otherwise enjoy for their own sake (clothes, fashion, beauty, movement, food) become tainted by this bizarre set of rules for how we are 'supposed' to look (exist).

Stay in your box. Keep your attention fixed on the way you look. Build your brand. Get thin. Get thicc. Get strong. Get noticed. Be different, but also accessible. Be relatable, but also better. Have the right kind of eyebrows. Suck your stomach in. A little bit of FaceTune never hurt anyone. So authentic (#ad). It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle change.  Don't rest on your laurels. Don't rest, period. Don't consider being content - there's always something else you can tone, sculpt, tweak, improve, buy, buy, buy. 

It's all the same trap.

Imagine: if being a woman wasn't a secret competition to be the best woman.

Imagine: feeling content. With what you have. With who you are.

Imagine: if you took the time you put into beauty routines and wardrobe overhauls and decluttering and shopping and diets and faux wellness and used it instead to rest and recharge. 

If you could walk into a room without a) picturing how you looked walking into the room and b) immediately ranking yourself against everyone there.

What your social life would look like if no one was worried about their body, their skin, their clothes, their hair. 

If we re-framed self-esteem as something you build, not something you buy, and made it contingent on something other than looks or wealth.

If we stopped buying - literally - into the bullshit.

Beauty Care for Wild Women

A change I made around the beginning of this year was that I started carving out a little more time to take care of myself. Beauty and I have had a fairly chequered history - I've swung from surface glamour - elaborate hair and make-up routines, but at bedtime taking a halfhearted swipe at my eyeliner with a bit of damp loo roll and sleeping with my foundation on - to letting nature take its course in the - apparently mistaken - belief that if I followed the same skincare routine as my other half, my skin might end up as clear as his.

Paradoxically, I am quite self-absorbed yet pretty bad at the basics of looking after myself, which is why I have plantar fasciitis (bad shoes) and sensitive teeth (turns out you shouldn't drink multiple cartons of juice a day for several years if you don't want to tear up every time you eat something with sugar in it). I have been a person who buys new outfits on a daily basis, but once left a bout of tonsilitis untreated for so long that it spread to my stomach glands. I was basically unable to eat from the pain and felt so run down and ill that I fell asleep in public places on my lunch break, but I assumed it was some weird new psychosomatic manifestation of my eating disorder and didn't bother to see a doctor for a rather long time. I honestly didn't know that tonsilitis of the stomach was a thing that could happen.

I was surprised to find that I had a bit of resistance to reinstating any kind of grooming routine beyond soap, water, lip balm and a dab of botanical perfume. I felt as if I were, in some way, betraying my 'natural self'. Is my muslin face cloth a tool of the patriarchy? I still don't really have a clear answer on that one. I suspect it's somewhat akin to 'shopping ethically' under capitalism, and we can all only do our best.

Anyway, much like rebuilding my wardrobe after giving birth, I decided I wanted to feel good in my body again, and as well as doing my yoga and going for walks, for me this meant I had to give it a little TLC. I kind of feel like I shouldn't have to - surely my body will look after itself best if I just leave it alone? - but after a week of dry body brushing in the morning and applying lotion in the evening, my skin was so improbably soft that I had to concede that perhaps I could do with a little bit of looking after, after all.

I remind myself that women throughout history have cared for their skin and hair using nature's bounty - which, yes, has included lead and nightingale poo at various times, but given that many beauty products currently contain the likes of petrol, carcinogens and formaldehyde, perhaps we shouldn't be too quick to judge - and what I am doing is therefore no different. I make my own products where I can, but when the ingredients cost as much as ready-made products, I buy carefully chosen natural products from a small handful of retailers. 

Recently, I had a fitting for my wedding dress, and under the bright lighting I winced to see how unkempt I was next to my (admittedly exceptionally beautiful) bridesmaid, who is always very well-groomed. We got to talking about wedding make-up - when we first planned the wedding, a make-up artist and professional photographer were booked, but having rearranged four times due to COVID, they were no longer available (or affordable). I didn't mind doing my own make-up, but in that moment it dawned on me that my two-years-out-of-date Lush slapstick probably wasn't going to cut it. 

When I started looking into what was available, I learned that since I started my shopping ban, the world of beauty had kind of moved on without me. I didn't actually know that primer was a thing. At first I panicked, and begged my gorgeous bridesmaid Bel to take me make-up shopping, envisaging a sprawling department store where some glossy professional could teach me how the hell one fills in their brows without looking as though they have a couple of weevils crawling across their forehead. (That said, the last department store makeover I had, circa 2016, was appalling - I had to sneak into work to wash off the Batman-villain eyebrows whilst my glamorous co-worker laughed herself hoarse.)

The night after the fitting, I decided I wasn't ready to compromise my 'crunchy' standards (side note: I recently learned the term 'granola girl', and although I'm not really the right age group for TikTok trends, please know that this is me. Granola mumma?). I went online and ordered some samples from zero waste, organic, natural and vegan make-up brands - all through Peace with the Wild, link below - and yes, I found a primer. The foundation, concealer and powder all had four ingredients - all of which I could recognise and pronounce. I felt better knowing I could look my best for my handfasting without compromising on ethics, or putting toxic goop on my face.

I do love to try new products, but I'm extremely cautious and generally don't put anything on my body that I wouldn't eat (the exception is nail varnish - I haven't bought any new since the end of 2020, but I have a few bottles that I have been given by friends). I also don't hoard products and only buy new to replace what has been used up. Dai has more bathroom products than I do.

What I am trying not to do is focus on concealment, improvement or perfection, but instead think about nourishment and care. 

For the curious, I shop from:

Peace With The Wild

Lush (although I'm choosy about which products; some contain talc or parabens which I prefer not to use)

The Really Wild Soap Company

Bain + Savon

I also use flower essences to gently help me stay in balance, my essentials are both from Saskia's Flower Essences - I use Breathe Deep, Seek Peace and My Personal Space.

For further reading, I highly recommend:

Wild Beauty by Jana Blankenship

No More Dirty Looks by Siobhan O'Connor and Alexandra Spunt

Freedom Face: A Beauty Guide Free From Toxic Ingredients, Expensive Gloop and Self-Hating Bullshit by Lucy AitkenRead

(I did not realise until typing this list how many of these names and titles contain the word 'wild'!)

Happy in my Skin

Fifteen years ago I hated the way I looked. I thought I was fat. I thought I was ugly. I thought that having bad skin and flat hair made me not only unlikeable but scarcely worthy of personhood. Like many young people of a similar age, I obsessed about it. I starved. I binged. I created weird food rituals. I exercised continually. I asked for a treadmill for Christmas. I spent a fortune on lotions and potions for my skin, my hair, my imaginary cellulite (I have real cellulite now, turns out it's fine). I wrote endless lists of ways to improve myself. One that I wrote, aged thirteen-ish, includes the bullet point, 'get boob job'.

For a teenage girl, this wasn't unusual. An awful lot of my friends were doing the same thing.

In my mid-teens I discovered Goth and alternative fashion. This gave me a new focus, and it took me a few more years to realise that covering your issues with make-up is not the same as confronting them. There was a stage in my life when I wouldn't go outside without make-up on. I was happy to spend an hour just on my hair and make-up in the mornings, because I didn't feel 'acceptable' without it. Oh, the irony, when I was relating to subcultures that were spawned from punk, the original fuck-you to standards of appearance laid out by society and the media.

At the time, I didn't realise that my obsession with my clothes, hair and make-up was, for me, a different symptom of the same problem. I was still spending an enormous chunk of my time - and money - fussing over my appearance. I thought that because I was eating three square meals a day, and had the confidence to wear weird clothes in public, that I was OK. The fact that I still hated the person I was underneath, the face I was born with, somehow didn't even register with me.

At around the time I drifted out of the Goth scene, I discovered body positivity. I had always considered myself a feminist - of course I believed in equal rights for women - but I had never stopped to think what it really meant. Not just to me, personally, but in general. If feminists were fighting for equal rights, what were they fighting against?

One of the issues raised by feminism, I learned, was one that had taken up a large portion of my teen years - beauty standards. The more I read up, the more I became horrified that it had just genuinely never occurred to me that there was more to my life than what I looked like.

Don't get me wrong. I care about how I look. I like to look good. But I'm trying to accept that my idea of 'good' is not necessarily going to be anyone else's idea of good. 

When I was a little girl, my mother tells me I had no interest at all in fashion. From my own memories, this isn't entirely true. I had no concept of being stylish, or even of looking acceptable in the eyes of my peers, but I had strong ideas of what I liked (flower patterns. Rainbow colours. Shiny fabric. People with bright-coloured hair. Dreadlocks. Things with ponies on. Some of these still hold true. Some do not).

Then, growing up, I went through the hideous stage I think many of us do in secondary school - suddenly realising that I didn't 'fit'. I wore a baggy Green Day hoodie I had on loan from my friend Topaz. My hair was cut short and bleached blonde (attempting to emulate Mary Stuart Masterson in the film Some Kind of Wonderful, which I watched approximately 1000 times when I was laid up on the couch with a neon-pink cast around my broken ankle, aged thirteen). I liked rock music and dance music and ripped jeans and obnoxious plastic earrings and shell jewellery and skate shoes and None Of This was acceptable to my classmates, who proceeded to make my life a living hell.

I left school very young, but the damage, as it were, was done *turns up the melodrama*. I had learned that the things I liked (weird clothes, Bleeding Edge Goth dolls and going to the bookshop after school with Topaz to buy manga and L.J. Smith books) were enough to make me unacceptable to others. Even in my Goth years, when I was generally thoroughly enjoying myself, I was aware that I had 'guilty pleasures', mostly musically. And yes, from time to time, I got slated for them.

I have always tried to cram myself into the 'right way' to do things according to however I was presenting myself at the time. So the most important step so far on my journey to feeling comfortable in my skin, life, and wardrobe, has been to seek out and embrace all the little, guilty, nerdy, secret interests I have stamped on and squashed and bring them into the light. To stop staring into my closet with a growing sense of horror and instead fling on the nearest, cleanest tee and jeans and go write something, draw something, cook something, go outside.

The next stage is where I'm at now - to stop treating pleasure in clothing and enjoyment of aesthetics as if it's something shameful, but just one of many facets that make up a whole person. Instead of throwing on the nearest clothes, I can take pride in putting together an outfit - not to appear acceptable, not to fit in, but to my own standards, what looks and feels good to me, because I'm happy in my skin at last.

A Style Manifesto for the Awkward and Confused

A quick note - my runner-up story Green Witch is now live on the lovely new solar-powered Solarpunk Storytelling website. You can read it here, but please do check out the winning stories as well, they are absolutely excellent, so inspiring and optimistic.

 I wrote this circa 2016, when I was figuring out that the goth scene wasn't for me any longer but couldn't decide what, exactly, I was going to do next. I had to laugh when I dug it up, as most of these points are still pretty relevant to me today. I'll let you guess which (although I've never yet succeeded in getting Dai to fill in any quizzes. Except the sorting hat quiz on Pottermore. He got Slytherin).

• Stay in bed too late and leave yourself half an hour of getting-ready time. If you like, follow this up by staring into your wardrobe in abject terror for fifteen minutes before grabbing yesterday's clean-ish clothes off the floor. Don't forget to pull on a bobble hat in an attempt to disguise your still-wet hair.
• Wear the same seven items over and over, because every time you experiment with anything else it seems to go horribly wrong and you look like a mad bag lady. Not in a cool Tavi Gevinson way or a rock'n'roll misfit way. Just someone people wouldn't sit next to on the bus.
• Is your predilection for comfy clothes because of your punk rock middle finger up to beauty standards, or because you couldn't be arsed to shave your legs? (Again.) It's a chicken and egg kind of deal, right? Feel quite smug that being a lazy bastard helps reflect your body positive values. 
• Read fashion blogs and feel even more confused than you were to begin with. Ditto 'street style' websites. Become convinced that 'high fashion' seems to mean 'buying clothes that don't match each other or fit properly' and wonder why it only looks socially acceptable when someone else does it.
• Make Pinterest boards and take online style quizzes in an attempt to define your personal style. Stare at them for hours in the hopes of discovering their deeper meaning. 
• Overthink dressing for every social occasion so that you always end up over- or under-dressed and feeling vaguely uncomfortable.
• Decide you don't care at all about how you look. Live in oversized men's T-shirts and baggy jeans for a month and then realise you are horribly bored.
• Rectify this by veering to the other extreme! Throw on fifteen clashing items and hot pink lipstick in an attempt to express your inner self. Realise you look insane.
• Try minimalism, and end up looking as though you're going to a board meeting when actually you have a movie night with friends.
• Stare creepily at passers-by in bewildered attempts to 'get inspiration'. Stare until you make them nervous. Maybe take notes.
• Trawl around shopping centres to try and discover what you are 'drawn to'. Come home with Harry Potter knickers, another bobble hat, a grey jumper identical to your ten other grey jumpers, and seven books. 
• Talk your loved ones' ears off about your crisis of identity. Force them to fill in quizzes about your best features and when they last saw you 'looking fabulous'. 
• Continue to wear your same seven items (and Harry Potter knickers). Pat yourself on the back for being able to decide that you LIKE these seven things (sorry, 'pieces'). You've come such a long way.

Just Eat It: Intuitive Eating and the Ghosts of Diets Past

I've been reading a book recently called Just Eat It: how intuitive eating can help you get your shit together around food, by Laura Thomas PhD. A few pages in, I wanted to recommend it to pretty much every woman I know. Occasionally by slapping them upside the head with it until they read it, though I'm told that's frowned upon.

I can't call this a book review, because a book review needs to be fairly analytic and I struggled to evaluate this book logically beyond AAAAARGH MY MIND IS BLOWN EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS. Let's call this a book discussion, instead, because boy, did some weird shit come up for me while I read this.

Firstly, I hadn't really realised that diet culture is insidious as fuck. Take a second look at the TV viewing you grew up with, after reading this book. Here's a snapshot from my developing years: Friends. Buffy. 90210. The OC. Ally McBeal. Farscape. Other than showing my age, I suddenly realised that according to these (admittedly enjoyable) shows, there's pretty much only one way to have a female body, unless you are an actual alien. Cast members from several of these shows admitted to suffering from eating disorders whilst filming. This was such a lightbulb moment for me - until fairly recently, the vast and incredible diversity of human bodies was literally nowhere in the media. (I'm also white, cis, straight-sized and able-bodied, so compared to a lot of folks I'm well-represented in mainstream media.) There is one single main body type held up as 'standard' or 'normal' for women - thus all other bodies are implied to be aberrational (see: the running joke in Friends about how Monica used to be fat).

This obviously struck several chords for me, as I had a bizarre, somewhat melancholy dream about being a crew member on the set of a TV show whose entire job consisted of lovingly framing the actresses' hipbones and making them look as thin as possible. Doy....

I also found myself remembering the ghosts of diets past with a weird nostalgic fondness. That buzz that comes from the hope that this time, the stars will align and you'll magically transform into the thin toned babe in the lycra booty shorts, swishing your hair on Miami Beach. Or something. The excitement, the anticipation of a new "wellness plan". That one diet book I followed (with the hideous subtitle of 'get skinnier than all your friends') where you consume nothing but black coffee till lunchtime, blow up balloons every day, and take an ice-cold bath every morning (I'm not kidding, I did this). 

The chapters on clean eating and concepts around 'processed' foods were fascinating to me as well. I almost... didn't want to accept the facts being presented to me. Part of me wanted to continue to believe that the right combination of chia seeds, spirulina, coconut water and kale would make me pure and clean and lovely and forever unhungry. How can so many Instagrammers be wrong?!

The reason I chose to buy this book at this time was that I have a bit of a pot belly going on at the moment. This was brought to my attention by several friends and family members getting excited about my 'good news' and asking when I was due.

At first I laughed this off - I'd spent a good portion of our holiday on a cider farm... maybe I was becoming one with the apples? - but after a while it started to get to me and I started considering a diet. I'm not really sure why. If diets worked, there wouldn't need to be a multibillion pound industry built around the concept. Also, been there, done that, hated it, would put the whole concept in a dustbin and set fire to it if I could. I own a t-shirt that says 'screw diet culture', for goodness' sake. But in a moment of self-consciousness and weakness, the urge was there.

Happily for me I bought this book instead.

Why does this relate to my blog about consumerism? Well. Sit ye down and I'll tell you a story about the hundreds and thousands of pounds I would not have spent if I hadn't believed for a decade and more that the way I naturally look is actually a problem. A problem that it is presented as being my duty, nay, my life's work to solve.

Times that amount of money by the number of women in my friendship group caught in the same trap. Times that amount of money by the number of people in the world caught in the same trap. How many years of your life have you spent fighting your own body? How many products have you bought to hide, flatter, disguise, slim, tone, lift, sculpt? How many uncomfortable garments have you tolerated because you believed in some dark recess of your mind that your body, not the badly made clothing, was the problem?

Diet culture is fucking poison. Don't swallow it.

I thought I knew my onions (sorry) about food and nutrition, but this book was a revelation. I've remembered how to listen to my body instead of the clock. I laugh in the face of food guilt. I take great pleasure in reminding myself 'nutrition is cumulative!' when that stupid little voice in the back of my head starts chuntering away about my food.

If you've ever felt guilty about eating a doughnut, seriously, read this book.

The Curse of the Pinterest Wedding

By the time Dai and I got engaged, two years ago this month, I had been living free from disordered eating behaviours for four years, and I believed that I was fairly comfortable in myself. Post-baby, my weight had gone up quite a bit (or at least, my dress size had - I don't own a set of scales), but I quite liked having a softer, curvier figure and I wasn't bothered by my stretch marks. Birth was the most incredible, awful, arduous thing I had ever undergone - it seemed only logical that it would leave a mark behind.

I thought I was pretty happy with myself and had avoided the traps and pitfalls laid by the industries who profit from getting women to feel badly about their appearance. I don't do diets, ever - my eating is intuitive. I only buy products that I enjoy applying and that don't hurt or make me feel bad about myself - so no waxing, cellulite creams or anti aging products but lots of beautifully scented skincare with natural ingredients (I love Lush, because they don't market to a particular gender, they try to be low-impact, and their products smell great and are a joy to use), massage oils, botanical indie perfumes and really pretty eyeshadow. 

However, the February before the shopping ban I discovered that the beauty standards of the dominant culture can get in your head without you noticing, and smack you across the chops out of the blue, leaving you in tears over the way you look. For me, it was the day I tried on my wedding dress.

I'd taken a risk and ordered a dress online, from a dress designer on Etsy. I was so excited when it arrived - it was beautifully packaged too, with pink and blue confetti hearts spilling out of the box as I lifted yards of tulle gently, reverently into my arms.

I'd thought it would take me months and months to find a dress. I wanted tulle. I wanted blush pink. I wanted a long train. I wanted buttons, not a corset-style lace-up back. And I found it the first day of looking. I'd never imagined myself in a strapless wedding dress, let alone a ballgown - too traditional - but on the model it looked like something from a fairytale. I remember catching my breath and thinking, I'd really feel like a BRIDE in that dress.

But when I tried it on, I didn't feel like a bride at all. I felt like a frumpy troll. What an idiot I had been, to buy such a feminine dress, when I was such a great ugly lump. The wedding guests would fall about laughing.

I rang my mum in tears. "I hate the dress," I sobbed. "It'll have to go back." But I felt sick. If I didn't feel happy in a lovingly handmade fairytale gown that ticked all my boxes, what would it take?

Luckily for me (and my dress), my bridesmaids came swooping to the rescue. They stuffed me back into the dress and took photos while I laughed and smiled with them. When they showed me the pictures, the troll I'd seen in the mirror was gone. The laughing woman in the photos was radiant and joyful. She wasn't the slim blonde model from the website, she was me, with my bad skin and more teeth than a happy beaver, but I was glowing, and I looked great. The dress looked great on me, baby weight, henna-ed hair, tattoos and all.

I realised I'd been freaking out because I didn't look like an airbrushed model. I'd swallowed the wedding propaganda hook, line and sinker, and I'd beaten myself up because I didn't think I looked how a bride "should look". I was so disappointed that I had nearly let poor self-image and stupid, stupid patriarchal beauty standards affect our big day, and surprised, too - recovered from disordered eating, I was usually pretty relaxed about my looks, and I was shocked by my own visceral reaction and the surge of shame and disgust I had felt. Unrealistic expectations and picture-perfect overstyled social media weddings had a lot to answer for.

The Great Dress Debacle was not the only occasion during wedding planning when I felt the pressure for things to be perfect, and I had to make it my mission to let go of impossible standards. As my experiences in motherhood, and my mismatched wardrobe (after my ill-fated spending splurge and clearout, when I fell off the shopping ban wagon), were fast teaching me, if you try to micromanage every detail and make everything perfect in every way, you're on the road to disappointment. I had to forget perfection and just get on with having a good time. Screw Pinterest weddings. I was going to aim for fun, memorable, and ending the day legally married to the man I loved. If there was something blue at my wedding, it damn sure wasn't going to be me.

So I didn't attend a bridal bootcamp. Actually, I didn't go on a wedding diet at all. I chose to do my own nails with funky wraps from Espionage Cosmetics, chose hot pink glitter Vans over high heels, my bouquet was... No, I won't tell you that, or there'll be no surprises!... and my biggest and most indulgent splurge was custom lingerie of my own design made by Buttress and Snatch, whose beautiful fripperies I'd coveted for years. Instead of panicking over everyone looking at me, I kept telling myself "they've all seen you before! They know what you look like!" and kept on doing what would make me and Dai happy, whether it would look good on social media or not.

Don't get me wrong, I still had wobbles. I nearly had a meltdown at a wedding fayre wishing we could afford an events designer to make the reception hall into an enchanted forest (with white blossom trees on the tables, tea lights in glass globes hanging from their branches, and gold lace table cloths... It WAS beautiful, I admit), but there was just no way we could shoehorn it into the budget. Instead we planned our own decor for the cost of just one such arrangement, with dried flowers from a local florist, beer bottles we rather enjoyed sourcing ourselves, wooden rounds handmade by a friend working in woodland management, and little succulents in pots. 

When you plan a wedding, you'll never please everyone. Assorted relatives offered "helpful" criticism during the planning stages, and we had to learn to shrug it off and carry on regardless. I eventually came to realise that everyone's 'perfect' wedding would be different. This one was going to be chaotic, colourful, quirky, utterly imperfect (trying to coordinate wedding outfits whilst still breastfeeding multiple times a night led to little quirks such as the groom's buttonhole clashing with the bride's hair ornaments... All you can do then is own it like you did it on purpose) and OURS.

I could have sweated over every detail. I could have bought matching floral robes for the bridesmaids for a single getting-ready photo. I could have hired a car for a grand entrance, got hair extensions, dieted into a smaller dress, fake tanned, mani-pedi-ed, Wonderbra'd, freaked out about every pimple and pore. Blown the budget on a candy floss machine and a temporary tattoo station and a photo booth and a doughnut wall and a personalised cocktail menu and vintage tea cups as favours... And it still could never be perfect, because there's rain and mud and breast milk, ill-timed farts and stray eyebrow hairs, and who the heck would I be trying to impress anyway? Strangers on the internet, or my friends and family who love me already and really wouldn't notice the lack of a rose gold balloon arch? 

My friend Topaz noted in the bridesmaid group chat that I looked "like a majestic jellyfish queen" in my wedding dress. Indeed. And what more could any woman want? 

As it turned out, I was grateful I chose to take the philosophical approach. Our wedding was planned for May 6th, 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic was newly devastating the country. We don't know yet when our wedding will happen, or what it might eventually look like, but all I can do is continue trying not to get my knickers in a twist over things that are out of my control.

Thank heavens for wedding insurance.