I have recently questioned my site, is it just shamelessly glorifying vanity? perhaps, but aren’t we all a bit vain???

I am so vain and I think this song is about me???? Yes that sounds about right too, I am vain, full stop. In the dictionary vain is generally described as; a person that is overly concerned about their abilities, appearance and personal attributes.

I can definitely relate to the first two, ability and appearance– However for the point of the blog I will delve into the latter, appearance.Appearance is  how we appear ; to be more in depth- how we look, how we dress, how we put on outfit together, the desire to paint our lashes every morning apart from perhaps lazy Sundays (and that has to be a very lazy Sunday for me!!!)

I can pin point my vanity obsession  from early on, I was an ugly duckling adolescent- skinny, flat chested, bad skin with heavy braces too match (no invisaline for me!!) and to top it off completely gawky, put it this way I showed my husband a photo of me at about the age of 13 and he didn’t know who it was. Appearance can affects us dramatically and that is the truth of modern day society- in my 30 years I have been told in relation to my appearance the following and possibly more….. fat, skinny, anorexic, pretty, stunning, attractive, beautiful, ugly, natural, fake, exotic, plain, sexy, daggy, photogenic, weird looking, elegant and gawky. How do I feel about these labels? well most of the time I choose to remember the positive comments however as anyone would know that suffers from even a mild case of Ugly Duckling Syndrome your past can still be haunting.

However, what I can tell you about my Vanity is that although I am overly concerned about my appearance (do these pants really work with these shoes, photograph me on my best side…) I am not particularly concerned about what others think and I don’t choose friends on their vanity beliefs, of course I love a compliment but deep down the only one I need to impress is myself. When it comes to vanity impress yourself and that’s what matters because you will never impress everyone and why would you want to? I chose to wear what I want, embrace my small chest and thin frame and embrace a gawky face that I finally grew into after I got my wretched braces removed.

Valuing your appearance , doesn’t make you a bad person or even a shallow person, its just like any other interest; something you enjoy doing and I enjoy “doing appearance” , its fun I love expensive fashions and  playing around with different make up looks (it’s not a sin). Appearance can be changed on a daily occurrence , you can swipe  a bright red lipstick on and look/feel a million dollars in a minute (maybe 5 if you do liner, lipstick and gloss). Fashion is the same, you can create any identity with fashion even if it is only for a day and then the next day you can create an entirely new appearance all over again. Fashion and Make-up can determine your character are you quirky, arty, stylish, hipster,glamorous? Well I guess that’s up to you, and what you pull out of the wardrobe tomorrow, because at the end of the day we can be anything we choose and that is a powerful thing. Now what am I wearing tomorrow?????

Images courtesy of polyvore.com