On Student Beauty
Being a student and keeping up a beauty routine was always going
to be tricky. For eighteen years my mother had nagged me in a
manner not dissimilar to that of the Tesco Self-Scan machines to
‘wash my face’ and ‘go for a shower’. So, the temptation to not
stick to these routines now I had my new-found freedom was, well,
tempting.
On fresher’s week I was hit by a plethora of polo shirt wielding
adolescents who I thought quite frankly looked like they needed a
good scrub. ‘NO. Stop,’ I thought to myself, ‘must not turn into my
mother.’ Anyway, I was faced with a new world where backcombed hair
that looked like a half-hearted homage to Jedward was apparently
the look I should be striving for. Standing on my staircase,
viewing all these ‘beautiful people’ I could feel my prized ghd’s,
snuggly packed in between my well ironed blouses, begin to quiver.
I had entered the world of the great unwashed.
And so for the first year of my university career, I confess
that I bought into this ‘dirt is good’ way of life. A backcomb
here, a slap of Sun Shimmer there and bam! I was ready. Besides,
this was what boys were attracted to, right?
Furthermore, the heavy nights and my introduction to a certain
Mr Ron Bacardi were taking their toll on my fresh-faced teenage
looks. One particular moment engrained on my mind was when I
gingerly looked at myself in a full-length mirror, naked, post
fresher’s week. To put it bluntly, I looked as though I had had
fifteen rounds with Mike Tyson- my hair was lank, my skin had
erupted and my body was peppered with a multitude of bruises. And
that’s without mentioning a suspicious injury on my leg that was so
black that I looked like I was permanently wearing a knee-pad. It
would seem that my life of freedom and looking good were most
definitely not a match made in University heaven.
I made a vow to behave myself from that point on. Needless to
say, my vows were smashed as fast as you can say JP Chenet. Drink,
sleep, backcomb, drink some more. This cycle of doom was doing me
about as much good as the pot noodles and kebabs I was living off.
And, of course, this was all combined with my sudden new-found urge
to bleach the crap out of my hair and wander around in a kind of
pseudo-pyjama ensemble at all times. In essence, the beauty life of
a student is anything but beautiful.
Without wanting to sound disgustingly, Jane Eyre-ishly cheezy,
the beginning of my second year and return after a long summer
marked something of an epiphany in terms of taking care of my body.
I suddenly found myself rolling my eyes at the annoying ‘generic
fresh’ littering my path with their Ugg boots and trackies as I
marched my way to the gym. I also realised that nobody, (except
maybe Kate Moss) can ever look remotely respectable or attractive
in anything made of off-grey sweat material.
Being interested in, or (in my case) having a mild obsession
with beauty whilst ‘living the dream’ was never going to be
easy.
