Wedding hair trial for the socially inept

Google and general life experience tells me that weddings are quite important to women. It is their chance to be a princess for a day bla bla bla.

The other day I had my wedding hair trial. I thought maybe I’d have that princess moment and realise what all the fuss is about, because up until now I’ve been all about the marriage and the wedding is just something that has to be done to get there.

From research I discovered that most hair trials go like this…

Despite my best intentions, and a trip to Peckham for hair extensions, my bridal hair trial ended like this…

Weddings are just way too serious.

Eat your heart out Conchita.

My bikini wax trauma

Before I start this post, dad please stop reading. I know you’re my number one fan but this isn’t for your eyes.

My dad is a twat. That was a test dad and you failed. You’re still reading!

Ok I shall begin.

Nakedness. I HATE it.

Like, do not talk to me in the changing room if your vagina is out, do not make eye contact with me if you’re sunbathing topless round the pool, and do not under any circumstances expect me to drop my towel in public…EVER.

Given the above, hair removal has always consisted of at home methods, to avoid having to make small talk with a beauty therapist while my foof is out and proud in her face.

However, as you ladies know, shaving a bikini line is fraught with complications and is essentially a pain in the arse. Especially on holiday when you just wanna let it all hang out and be maintenance free.

So I decided last summer to man the fuck up and book a bikini wax. Just deciding where to go took me 3 weeks. I kid you not. Hours of painstaking research went into it, desperate to find a miracle salon that could offer a painless wax (pain is up there with nakedness, I’m a total wuss).

Eventually I plumped for Ministry of Waxing in Covent Garden and shat myself daily as the date moved ever closer.

On the day itself I downed a cocktail of anxiety pills and painkillers, cleaned myself an unhealthy number of times, and made way too many phone calls to my girlfriends in a frantic search for calming advice and reassurance.

When I arrived I told myself to act cool, like I’d done it loads of times before because I was a proper adult. Well that didn’t work, obviously, because I’m Miranda’s twin.

“I’ve got a booking for 1pm.” Going well so far.

“I’m a wax virgin and I’m going to shit my pants I’m so scared,” I blurted out way too loudly. Nice one knobber.

Ok so the wax itself. I was hoping for a paper thong, something to try and preserve my dignity. Nope.

Just had to get full on naked from the waist down and lie there, waiting for my therapist.

So I’m in the room with my noonie out, waiting, and all I could think was, “How should I lay?”

What ensued was a ridiculous series of poses.

Try to hide it. Too shy.

Legs open. Too much.

On my side. Too seductive.

So instead when she knocks, I’m standing up, freeze momentarily, tell her to come in, and then have to climb up on to the table in front of her, with my unwaxed vagina taunting me with, “You’re an embarrassment. Look at the state of you climbing around like a naked ox.”

Anyway, she then decides to ask me what I’m having done. Given that I’m a child with no experience of waxing, and zero desire to discuss anything so personal with a stranger, I clammed up.

“Ummm, anything, don’t mind.” *Admire art in room. *Avoid eye contact.

I mean who says that?!

She then went on and listed some stuff in alien…high leg, Brazilian, Hollywood, Brazilian bush…so should’ve google imaged it before.

At this point I was blushing so much I thought I was going to pass out, so decided to say, “Just give me whatever you have.”

Just like that. Like I’m casually ordering a drink at a bar, rather than a vagina I haven’t seen. And that right there was my biggest mistake.

Of course she has it all off. Of course. FFS. The most painful wax you could ask for was about to come my way.

As I already explained, my pain threshold is zero. I say ouch if someone kisses me on the cheek with stubble, I’m pathetic.

So as she lathered on the first bit of hot wax, naturally I screamed. She looked at me like I was a total freak and explained that was just the wax going on, and I still had the pleasure of it being removed.

And then it happened. The first strip.

I’m gonna put it out there, I thought I’d lost a lip. The pain!!!! Instantly I knew I’d made a mistake, but knew I couldn’t leave. Cue lots of shouting and swearing, possible a few c-words, possible hitting her each time as an uncontrollable reflex and then profusely apologising for hurting her.

At one point I decided enough was enough and thanked her for her time. She said she was only half done, and I politely explained it didn’t matter and I’d just make do with half a wax. But oh no. She just couldn’t let me be could she?!

“You’re not leaving this room unfinished. I wouldn’t let any client leave like that.”

So now I was being tortured against my will, so the volume of my screams increased, to the point she reached into the cupboard and gave me a squeezy monkey to hold. This stress toy is the equivalent of a sticker at the dentists or a lollipop after an injection, which I’ve always appreciated, so I was silenced for a while.

Until she lied. One more to go. Great, home straight, then I’m bald and free.

Liar!! She meant done with house of horrors part one. Part two involved me getting on all fours and spreading my cheeks.

Normal for regular waxing people, but not for me. For me, well, you may as well have killed me there and then. The room was spinning, I couldn’t breathe through my anxiety, and all I could think was, “Your vagina is in her face. Right now. Up in her grill. And your arsehole. Do I have a nice bum hole? I wonder if she thinks it’s a good one.”

Then there was the monkey. I had no hands because they were dutifully spreading my cheeks, so the monkey went in my mouth.

So just to recap, I was on all fours, spreading my cheeks, EVERYTHING on show, head down, with a squeezy monkey in my mouth.

Part of me died right there on that table.

When she finally finished, I got dressed and John Wayned it up the stairs to pay, scared to walk like a normal person in case my vagina fell off.

The cheerful receptionist, who had clearly heard my cries for help asked, “Would you like to re-book Mrs Robertson?”

Yes please, some time NEVER.

My tragic teenage years.

I drove past a group of teenagers at a bus stop the other day and remember thinking, “I LOVE those jeans…and that top. I wonder if they’re Topshop.”

I’m 28 and found myself lusting after a 15-year-old’s garms. Sad times. I wondered if I had the same affect on adult women when I was a teenager. I was, after all, the coolest person on earth during my teenage years.

No wait, my bad. I was a total loser! Let me take you on a trip down memory lane. My fellow noughties teenagers will hopefully remember some of these and share my pain.

I was a bit lost at school, I didn’t really know who I was. I never set trends for fear of ridicule but my god I was good at following them. If everyone in the year was wearing a certain bag, you could be damn sure I would too…a year later, once mum had agreed to buy it for me.

I went through many stages, all of which were helpfully labelled, which is very important as a teen. First came the oblivion years where I wore whatever mum bought me. Then came my grunge years where I wore super baggy trousers which fell off my ridiculously skinny waist. I then moved on to become a “townie” and as a “townie”, would spend my time slagging off the “shazzas” at school and talking about “gazzas”, although I never really knew what it was all about.

So, here are a few of the things that sat proudly in my wardrobe when I should have instead burnt them to to the ground…

• BACKLESS LOAFERS. They had a tendency to rub, so you’d dutifully fold over a white sock to cover the top half of your foot every morning before school. Sexual.

• BABY PINK WALLABEES. Because why wouldn’t you want to walk around wearing pink leather bricks on your feet?

• YELLOW SCHOTT JACKET. Everyone had one and everyone had one in red, yellow, or bright blue so they could stand out from the 100s of sheep wearing exactly the same on the school bus.

• DENIM PEDAL PUSHERS. It was cool to wear denim everything, and you don’t get cooler than a pedal pusher that cuts off at the most unflattering part of the leg. A diamanté belt over the top really set these off.

• ADIDAS POPPER BOTTOMED TRACKIES. Blue and orange, say no more.

• KAPPA TRACKSUIT TOP. Usually teamed with an Ellesse jumper to show off your huge number of designer goods.

• NIKE CORTEZ. Eat your heart out Forrest Gump.

• BRA WITH CLEAR PLASTIC STRAPS. Because nobody could see those yellowed plastic straps at all, especially not when you teamed them with a halter neck top…

• NIKE DRAWSTRING BAG. Had to be baby blue, as did everything in life. For a while it was like no other shade of blue existed.

• ELLE BAG. You got this bad boy free with ELLE magazine and used it to transport school books, proud at the size of the “designer” logo on the side. What happened to ELLE? And Kookai, Dolcis, Tammy Girl, Faith…

• GAP FLEECE HOODY. Again in baby blue, or baby pink, which was equally well received in the school corridor. Gap’s sales rocketed that year, all thanks to the Year 10s at my school.

• BOMBER JACKET. Token orange lining. Usually bought from Kempton Market or somewhere similar. This was then upgraded to a puffa jacket when you hit the big time post-SATS.

• TINTED SUNGLASSES. Blue, pink or purple tinted, black rimmed specs, courtesy of Smash Hits mag. I bought 3 editions to get every colour. Natch.

• SKIRTS OVER TROUSERS/PEDAL PUSHERS. Still struggling to find any explanation for this one, but Becks loved it as much as we did.

• PONCHO. This is when shit got real in my fashion world. I really thought I’d arrived when I got one of these babies.

So with a wardrobe full of sexiness, how did I accessorise?

Well, I had a packet of bindis that I bought in Hounslow. Those were cool for a while and didn’t look at all ridiculous. I also had a solid collection of hoop earrings, which went with EVERYTHING, even the bindis. I had two piercings in each ear so I could wear two sets of hoops at the same time, obvs, with smaller hoops in the second hole.

I rolled up my school skirt to within an inch of its life, to the point I looked in need of a gastric band because of the weight of material around my waistline.

For a while I had a dummy (not as a child, but as a teenager) which to this day remains the most fucked up school fashion in existence.

I also wore shag bands despite the fact I went to an all girls school and basically had no contact with the male world apart from my dad, grandad and younger brother.

I grew my nails once too, purely so I could pierce them like everybody else.

As for my beauty routine, I kept it simple and “classy”…

• HAIR MASCARA. Gold or metallic red. Festive.

• NO EYEBROWS. Eyebrows were not cool. I had about 3 hairs that I’d lovingly comb into a line, and I’d shave the middle so they started about 4in apart. Now THAT was hot!

• WHITE RIMMEL EYELINER. Coated over my eyelids.

• BLUE MASCARA. Why use black when you can use blue?!

• GELLED HAIR, SCRAPED INTO A BUN. The key here was to tease out two sections at the front, which could be worn straight and gelled or curled around a fountain pen.

• IMPULSE O2. This was my scent. £1.99 in Superdrug. Smelt like limey washing up liquid. Used it all over.

I would wear all of the above, and would pose seductively at bus stops, playing Snake on my Nokia 8310, while listening to a So Solid Crew single on my Discman. I never had credit, so Snake was all it was good for…and entering codes to download cool ringtones even though people only ever rang your house phone back then.

My love interests were any boy that gelled his hair, wore Hackett tops, and TN hats. As I got older, owning a moped was pretty much my only dating criteria.

I spent my time watching MTV, chatting on MSN messenger (under a shit name or one that ended in 3000 because all the good ones were taken), and keeping the dog on my Tamagotchi alive.

But man I was happy! You could get on a bus and say “40 please” because the fare was 40 PENCE. 40?!!!

£1 bought a serious amount of sweets and life was pretty good.

Yes, I looked like the Miranda version of the teenage world, as in a stand out freak, but it was ok because so did everyone else.

Trouble is I now have no excuses, I’m old enough to know better. I know it’s no longer ok to straighten my hair to within an inch of its life. I know!

So I’m off to buy that cool top the 15-year-old was wearing at the bus stop. Next stop, coolness!!!

Call 999. Major hairmergency.

I am half Irish. *Pauses for audience to offer condolences.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of my heritage, love potatoes and all that, BUT the downside is it means I’ve been struck with a tinge of the ginge. I’m brunette, but a bit of orange does like to creep out now and then. Usually every time I have a picture taken, just so it can exist for all of time in a photo and never be erased from memory.

Now I don’t mind red hair, in fact I think it’s quite beautiful. The problem is 99% of the male population don’t, so I have grown fond of £5.99 home dye jobbys.

Colour in a box, 20 mins later, job done. The downside is, ladies you will understand, cheap hair dye tends to build up to the point your hair starts to really not like you and refuses to co-operate anytime you wish to take it outside of the house and into a public space.

Cue my trip to Boots for a cure. So there I am browsing the aisles when I find a box of “hair colour remover”. Colour B4 to be exact.

Assuming it would just remove the hair dye, I bought it and rushed home eager to return my hair to its once natural state.

I can’t be sure how many minutes in I was when I started to think my hair was going much MUCH lighter than expected, but I didn’t panic like I should have. Oh no, me, panic?! Instead I sat there and watched it grow lighter and lighter, sticking to the timing instructions on the packet because I’m such a trooper and such a stickler for rules.

What ensued was what can only be described as a national disaster. I’m talking, call a Cobra meeting because some nuclear shit has just gone down in my bathroom.

After washing out my hair I watched it dry into an alien life form. I’m talking a beige/ginger matted Afro, solid in some parts, and completely frazzled in others. I looked like a beauty queen…from Mars.

Turns out the colour remover likes to remove ALL colour from your hair. As in every last scrap of pigmentation, not just the hair dye.

Well done genius!

There’s pretty much no turning back once you hit the point of ginger Afro. It’s pretty more or less a dead end. There’s the shave it off option, but I have a skull shaped like a deformed light bulb, and there’s the just shove more dye on top of it and use a bottle of serum every time you wash it option.

For the mental well being of society I went with the latter and two years on I’m still having to cover up my dark secret every couple of months with a trip to the hairdressers.

My advice to anyone wanting to dye their hair at home? Don’t come and visit my Miranda salon. Ever!