Who said Looking Hot in this Heat was Easy?
I love the summer. It’s a time for kicking back and chilling out, when life goes slower and things seem easier. Except it’s not. Not where beauty is concerned…
Just when we want to look our best, our body starts to rebel against the heat and starts making our life harder.
See if you agree with my ‘Summer’s Top 10 Beauty Battles’… and check out my shopping solutions for overcoming your summer stresses!
1. Hair Colour
I’m of Spanish origin so I have naturally dark hair. All I wanted last week were some low-lights and a hint of bronze to add light to my flat matt hair, thinking that hopefully getting a touch of JLo would make my skin brighter and more youthful (you know, because my hairdresser uses a magic wand instead of just scissors). So what did I get? Lovely hair for a week and then the sun shone and my hair went orange. Yup, died hair goes from caramel to orangutan in one week. I know Orange is the new Black, but please… my hair is now an arrestable offence!
Solution: Sole Mare Sun Color Savor protect.
2. Sweaty Top Lips
It’s a lovely look, isn’t it? Sitting by the pool, puddles of sweat forming in your cleavage, your forehead glistening and your fringe sticking to the side of your head and best of all… a lovely sweaty top lip. So what do you do? Do you keep dabbing at it and bringing attention to the fact that your face is melting? Or do you leave your moustache of mini sweat balls to wash away your suntan lotion, burn your top lip area and have a strange dark mark there for ever more each time you sit in the sun? Yep, I went for the latter.
Solution: Neat Face Saver Gel
3. Scabby feet
I’m not proud of them. My feet are alabaster smooth tootsie perfection until the sun comes out and they see a flip flop – then they become the Arabian Desert version or a Hobbit’s foot. My heels develop cracks so deep you could park your bike in them and you can file your nails on the rough soles of my feet. No amount of moisturiser helps, instead I have to go to the DIY store and hire an industrial sander to sort these bad boys out!
Solution: Link
4. Toe painting
Basically, I can’t be arsed. My definition of a pedicure is cutting my toe nails once a week and painting over the old varnish with more cheap Pound Shop Magical Magenta… or, as in last week’s case, my kids’ Minnie Mouse Pale Pink from their (confiscated) make-up set some irresponsible person bought them. Who buys a four year old make-up, for crying out loud? Arseholes, that’s who.
Solution: Electronic Pedicure Tool
5. Hair styling
It’s hot. Hair is frizzy. It’s hot. Fringe is sweaty and curling. It’s hot. Hair needs styling but the hairdryer is making me sweaty which is making my hair frizz and my fringe curl and I don’t know whether my hair is wet or sweaty again. Bollocks – I’ll just have to wash it again!
And that’s what I do every day in the summer. Fun, hey?!
Solution: Beach Babe Texturizing Sea Salt Spray
6. Bras
Basically, as soon as it tops 30C I don’t want to wear one. It’s no secret I am a member of the Itty Bitty Titty Comitee, so my bras are things of structural beauty with internal padded shelving and underwiring. My boobs may appear voluptuously round and full and pert, but beneath they are a clammy, stinking puddle of sweat with back fat squeezing over and wire rubbing in places it shouldn’t. I hate wearing bras in the summer, but I hate small flappy droopy Snoopy nose tits even more.
Solution: Nike Pro Bra
Which leads me on to…
7. Chaffing
Some of you may not be familiar with this, because some of you may have a thigh gap (in which case, we can no longer be friends). As for the rest of you ladies who know what it’s like to walk bare-legged in the summer and have your damp thighs rub together until you have red swollen welts forming like a world-wide map between your legs – welcome to the world of chaffing. And it’s not just the obese and the pregnant who get this affliction in the humidity of summer – even as a size 8 I suffered. In the 90s I managed fine, cycling shorts were a thing back then, but now I just have to walk like I’ve shat myself and stagger around, legs apart, like a cowboy that’s been on his horse for three days. I’m sure no one notices.
Solution: Neat Feet Action Cream
8. Sunburn
We know it hurts, we know it ages us and we know it can even lead to cancer… yet we still do it. We still stay out in the sun until we burn. In this day and age there is no excuse for red skin and chapped lips; there are sun creams, big 70s floppy hats, lip balms and make up with SPF yet we STILL think ‘it’s not that hot, I’ll just catch a bit of Vitamin D’ until we spend the next week in agony. I remember one year I went to Bali following a really stressful time at work. As soon as I got there, and it didn’t feel all that hot (even though it hasn’t got an ozone layer above it), I fell asleep on the sun lounger for an hour in the sunshine. My entire holiday was spent with me bright pink (and that’s saying something when your Latina skin is used to the Mediterranean sunshine) with a bright white outline of where my bikini had been. My feet were so swollen my beautiful summer sandals didn’t fit, and I was in so much pain I had to cancel my scuba trip and days out to lay on my hotel bed covered in wet towels and wincing. My skin then peeled completely, like some exotic snake, before I had even got back home. The following week I was greeted in the office by, ‘Haven’t you just been on holiday? You aren’t very brown.’ No, but I AM very stupid!
Solution: Neutrogena Age Shield
9. Hair everywhere
Sun is to hair, what rain is to worms. First rays of summer sun and pop! Out sprouts a little hair, then another gazillion over night. Chin, nipples, bikini line, toes, and top lips of course. The same sweaty sun burnt top lip that is already looking beautiful in its red and shiny glory. In the winter I don’t care about hairy legs, I just swap my opaque tights for 70 denier black. But in the summer I have to shave, pluck, wax and yank those sodding black spiky hairs out every morning. Only for them to multiply overnight. I’m such a considerate wife, because I don’t see my husband worrying about giving me prickly kisses!
Solution: Tweezerman Slant Tweezer
10. Make up
Any other time of year, putting on make up is a joy. But in the summer? Forget it!
Your skin colour changes each week so your foundation is never quite right, your eyes are watering so much from the sun that your mascara runs, or smudges from the heat or washes off in the pool. Plus you get too hot to put primer and powders on, but you aren’t yet tanned enough to brave it au naturel. Personally I go for my fail safe bet, my fucking HUGE sunglasses and a bit of bronzer. Done!
So this summer, ladies, play it safe and scrunch up some sea salt product in your frizzy orangey hair, apply waterproof mascara, stick your sunnies on, paint your scabby toe nails the brightest colour you can find and slather some chaffing cream between your legs and you are good to go and hit the beach. Just remember to bring an extra large sarong to mop up all that top lip sweat…
