Posts Tagged ‘acne’

Bare Faced Cheek

Monday, January 16th, 2012

Just over a year ago, I wrote a blog post that gave me serious anxiety. It was about how I suffer with acne. When you have bad skin, you spend your whole life covering it up, literally and metaphorically. You are constantly hiding, constantly worried someone will point it out. That post was one of the hardest things I’ve ever written, but the response it received let me know it was necessary. I was flooded with emails from women who felt my pain. And so, today is phase two of ‘getting it all out there’. The above picture is me, no makeup, no retouching, just me. This is the first time since probably age 13 that I’ve appeared in public with no makeup on.

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Posted in fashion | 34 Comments »

Bang(s) Goes 2010

Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010

Well, it’s been quite a year in Bangs World. I moved back to England at the end of ’09 after six years of galavanting in various cities around the world and wasn’t quite sure what lay ahead. Then 2010 started and my luck took a crazy turn. As the year rolled on, something more and more mind blowing would happen each month. I couldn’t quite take it all in myself. But I sure have had some great times and as always, documented them here on this blog.

In January, I lamented the fact that no one had told me that my lover (in my mind) Idris Elba had been DJing at a place I often frequent.

Well the universe must have been listening, because in February, I won a competition to have Idris Elba call me on Valentine’s Day. It was a joyous, momentous occasion and I stand by my theory that Idris totally wants me. I made this video, which I was later told, he watched. Mortification!

On came March when I caused a bit of a hoo-ha by declaring that Europeans Dress Better Than Americans – that made for an interesting comments section. I also talked about how much I hate runners – oh how that came back to bite me in the ass later in the year.

In April, I got some Jimmy Choos and was oh so happy about it.

In May, I shared probably one of the more personal posts I’ve ever done on this here blog, where I talked about my struggle to come to terms with my looks. It sparked some great discussion and yes, reading the comments made me cry, multiple times. I still get emails about that post and am so moved that it touched other people the way it did.

In June, one of my readers questioned whether I hate women – how could I not respond to that one?! I flung maxi dresses into a category with Uggs boots and Crocs – an opinion which lead to someone who had been very keen to work with me refusing to do business with me at all. Seriously. So very professional. The Sex in the City 2 movie came out. I was unimpressed.

In July, I wrote an open letter to parents, letting them know that the sun does not actually shine out of their child’s ass. Surprisingly, parenting groups didn’t call for my beheading. A group of bloggers got together to write about the shambolic Mac/Rodarte collection which lead to the line being scrapped – blogger victory! Then I stirred up a bunch ‘o shit by writing a post called Woman Law: Being a Lady - behold the hate it garnered!

In August, I got fed up with people asking me to write for them for free. I got up on my soap box, wrote a post called Blogsploitation and it turned into a kind of protest march with bloggers from all corners coming out saying they felt the same – some really great comments that show how much of a solid community bloggers are.

I had quite a few requests from my American readers who thought it’d be funny to hear me rap and so, in September, I debuted Bangs Goes Rap with my pretty epic rendition of Jay Z’s 99 Problems. I am waiting to a) become a YouTube sensation and b) get a record contract. I was also nominated by my beautiful readers for a Cosmo Blog Award and came runner up in my category, which was totally amazeballs.

October was a landmark month for me. After being approached back in May to run a half marathon, D-Day arrived on 10th October when I actually ran 13 miles and didn’t die. Hands down one of the most amazing moments of my life. I then wrote about the drama I had going on behind the scenes with the PR company who’d asked me to do the half mara and caused a bit of an internet shit storm.

In November and totally stepped out of my comfort zone and wrote about my acne and my lovely commenters surrounded me with love and support like never before. I celebrated three years of the blog and wrote a Beginner’s Guide to Blogging to help out anyone who might be thinking of taking that step into the blogosphere. I also signed up for the Paris Half Marathon. I put a call out on Twitter to see if anyone wanted to do it with me and overnight, I had 19 girls signed up. Team Bangs on the Run was born!

Rounding the year out, in December, I gave you a guide to X Factor and warned you about Bitchy Boys all while making embarrassing videos of myself training for the Paris Half Mara.

It has been one helluva a year, but it would’ve been nothing without the support, encouragement and love I’ve received from you, my readers, my lovely blog family. Thank you so much for laughing with me, crying with me and sharing my joy. It really does mean the world to me.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see what 2011 has in store!

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Posted in life | 10 Comments »