Anyone else never told "the secret"?

[bollytrolly]

I've just always been a bit of a mess all my life my appearance no matter how carefully I press my clothes or do my hair or put my make up on by the time I get to where I am going I always look a mess with frizzy hair, clothes all creased and make up sliding off my face. If I have something to go to where I'll be photographed I will end up getting a black eye or a bee will still me on the face. I seem to be so hard on clothes, shoes and socks and everything seems to fall to bits in double quick time even with better brands. People always slag Boris Johnson for looking a mess but I wonder if he is just a male version of me and can't get it right even if he really tries?

I had awful acne as a teen and am still getting spots now at 44 even though I take great care with my skincare, see dermatologists. Other women seem to glide though life, cool calm and collected never a hair out of place, they never seem to sweat or go attend meetings with a large toothpaste stain on their boob that they don't notice until after.

Even with items I remember at school it was always me who got the desk someone had drawn a knob on with black marker or got the ripped books! I remember as a girl I used to think of the other girls as "top girls" you know proper girls who looked nice and did ballet and horse riding lessons and then me who had awful allergies and had snot pouring out my nose half the year!

I just wanted to be a feminine and delicate woman for once in my life but now perimenopause his upon me and all my short comings are just getting worse, chin hair anyone?

Is there some secret women learn as young girls about how to achieve this aura of polish? Is there anyone like me who still has no clue?

I don't know but I think I am one of those women you are referring to. Over the years from time to time people have commented that I always look so put together and have an aura of cool. If it makes you feel better, I don't feel that way about myself. I feel a bit sweaty and lazy with my clothes choices as I get older but my perception and others of me seem quite different.
I see it in my 16 year old daughter. She just always looks neat. She'll throw on trackies and a top and somehow look put together and stylish whereas a lot of her friends look a bit random and ramshackle. No idea what it is

Such a lot of insight on this thread!

The influence of our mothers, self confidence, and actual detailed advice.

Generally I can scrub up well when necessary- for me it's eyebrows, eyeliner, and lipstick.

I second the advice on putting hair up- though I don't really have a range of styles, I'm one of those twist and clamp people- it works though.

Also, embrace the artistic wild vibe for the days you can't be arsed. If you can't beat it, exaggerate it! I use a bit of hair clay to get my hair really full at the roots so it looks thick rather than bushy. Bold colours.
Sail through the world supremely uninterested in what you look like on those days. Affect a distracted 'mind's on my next invention' air rather than 'where is it I'm supposed to be again?'!

Dig it out and put a post on the Style & Beauty topic asking if anyone can match it. Someone there will be able to do it!

I had a male friend who had the secret. He looked like a matinee idol- actually slightly creepy how glossy he was.
If he threw his jacket on your sofa, your whole room looked styled.

You are me and I claim my £5! It’s a standing joke among my family and friends that you must not travel with me as something always goes wrong. (I was once on a train that caught fire, FFS, which was a bit extreme even for me.)

Always look a bit ‘off’ clothes / grooming wise (doesn’t help that I’m on a charity shop clothes budget); lank thin hair that doesn’t hold a style; gave up wearing makeup partly as a feminist thing but partly because it always looked crap and amateurish anyway. I always spot a crease or a mark or a click after I’ve left the house, and have never really known what colours or styles work for me so I look like I’ve dressed during a tornado in a TK Maxx warehouse.

I got excited recently as I found a “Dark Academic” thread on S&B here, thought “ooooh, maybe I do have a style after all!” and enthusiastically uploaded a photo of a vintage fair bargain jacket I bought recently that seemed to me to be what they were talking about…I received one polite “nice jacket” comment and was studiously ignored by everyone else (while they raved over everyone else’s skirts and dresses) so was left feeling I’d got it wrong again.

Definitely don't have the secret, I don't know how to apply make up and my hair just hangs limply whatever I do - I'd actually welcome a bit of frizz!
Neither my job nor hobbies require me to dress smart (it would actually be weird if I did, not just not enforced) and sometimes it does make me feel like I've never really grown up living in jeans and jumpers!

I think your mother has probably had a bit of an impact at how feminine, or not, you see yourself though.

I think I'm a bit in the middle. I can look polished but time doesn't really allow for it. However a good hairdresser is key, one who you can trust and get to know. Wardrobe wise Vinted has been brilliant for trying new looks without spending a fortune and I'm going more classic with my look. Giving up alcohol has massively helped my skin and wellbeing. May be small changes and see how you feel? Somehow I am raising a tween who is incredibly stylish 🤷‍♀️

My Mum and I too, @bagforlifeamnesty
Adjacent to low level depression and problematic drinking levels too, though… along with ADHD they are like an evil triad, I think.

I know people who look effortless and stay looking effortless all day, they do spend a long time on their and make up but even in a rush and throwing their hair in a messy bun they still look amazing where as I look like I’ve always been dragged through the bushes, it doesn’t matter how much effort I put in to looking nice I always look like a mess!

My DH and I literally spoke about this yesterday! His best friend literally looks groomed and tanned, does lots of sports and is quite a blokey bloke BUT when he gets changed into his day clothes for work or just leisure he literally looks perfect. He wears perfectly pressed clothes and they REMAIN that way, never sweats or crumples them, they're like new at the end of the day or even in long car journeys - fucking unfair! I literally put my clothes on and am a crumpled mess before I leave my bedroom 😵🤯🤯🤯

My guess would be you are massively underestimating the time, effort and cost of looking ‘done’. I mostly look a state, I do however, know how to look ‘done’ and maintain it through the day. It costs £100s and requires hourly attention to my appearance (run a brush through hair, touch up lipstick, use one of those lint rollers to get fluff off of dress etc). It’s true there are some people with glossy skin and silky hair who can make a little less effort when young, but by late 30s/40s most of us have multiple skin/hair/body issues that require maintaining.

This is a good parody: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_luxxDc5jro

Chin hair! Not present at bedtime but a half an inch long, black bristle by breakfast time.

I just felt that this thread would be about exactly what it is!!

I am the same. I was never taight how to take care of myself. My parents either did not care or thought it did not matter. My mother always said she would wear makeup; buy clothes; get her hair cut 'when she lost weight' and never did so she is and still is in charity shop clothes and I am the same. Like it is somehow shameful to pay attention to your appearance!

I have tried to change. i have bought alot of books on how to dress chicly etc; secrets of French women etc (probably a load of tosh but mainly about how to care for your skin etc) and i try and try but I still look a total mess. I have mitigated it a bit by buying all my clothes in navy blue so that everything sort of looks cohesive.

I'm going to read the thread and pay attention.

I also had a facial last week and have told myself that this is no longer a luxury. It's basic maintenance.

I bet you look fine most of the time, way better than you think.

I have hair that grows sideways and forms a helmet round my head. I hate having long hair but shorter makes it wider. But it feels better so that's what I do. Never really learnt how to do make-up so I don't bother.

Maybe I look like a sack of spuds dragged through a hedge backwards, maybe I look perfectly ordinary like most people. It's not important.

Olivia Colman is an Oscar winner who specializes in “woman in a mess pulls it together” roles.
She and her costume designers know “the secret”.
She’s also very entertaining.

I’m slightly the same as I think I look fine in the mirror but “oh my goodness do I really look like that” in photos. I had to look at some cctv at work and was dreading it.

But I looked a lot more like the mirror me than photo me, so I guess I look better moving then a static image! Well, that is what I am going to keep telling myself.

It was a weight off my shoulders when I felt confident enough to tell the hairdresser that I'm never going to do more than air dry my hair and run a brush through it before I go out of the house.

I also I just don't like heels and can't be bothered with them.

I will never look put together but I will at least have clean clothes that look ok together and brushed hair :)

What made a difference to me:
getting colours analysed do my clothes all go together

accepting that I need to blow dry my hair

using eye and face primer to stop my makeup migrating or disappearing
eg https://amzn.to/3OZgJDa

https://amzn.to/3OY0HJS

I also wear a bit of jewellery and have a nice but big enough bag.

*so my clothes

Nailed by @MallardsMoorhensAndLethe! A bit of time and focus on yourself (you are indeed ‘worth it’) - Walk Tall and Fake Confidence (it really does become less fake and more real the more you do it).

Most of this is me but I don't feel I look a scruff.
The only thing I do regularly is get my eyebrows done, colour my hair and leave conditioner in after I've washed it.
I mostly wear jeans and t shirts so look casual.
For work, I wear black trousers and a shirt or top. My clothes and shoes are mostly from M&S and other high street stores.
I doubt I look stylish but not messy.

I’m nearing 50 and have always wanted so badly to be graceful, elegant and put together but always had a slightly wild, unkempt look whether thin or fat (I’ve been both). Never worn make up, hair always more than slightly wild so I tried to embrace the boho vibe but never really pulled that off either.

My DD on the other hand is 15 and always looks immaculate. Her hair and makeup are always flawless and her clothes choice perfect for every occasion. How does that happen??? Definitely nothing at all to do with me.

i’m like this. I was always the scruffy one at school and now as an adult I never seem to get it right. I find a more formal look suits me better but then I feel ridiculously overdressed, and I haven’t quite learned how to embrace it or to dress it down. I feel like a ‘big’ person (despite not being especially tall, I’m 5”7) and I have big wide feet so I never feel feminine or delicate because I have great big clompy shoes on. I have a wardrobe full of clothes and I hate virtually all of them, I never feel nice in anything. I’m the top end of slim I guess, I carry weight weight well for my frame, but I would look so much better if I lost a stone but it just will not budge. I feel really chunky and bulky and uncomfortable in my skin- I always have.

every single photo of me is awful, even my wedding photos. I would happily never have a photo taken again, I always look red, bulky and old.

I do try to make an effort with grooming but after a while I lose interest because it doesn’t make any difference. I’m now 40, perimenopause has hit and I’m going on HRT soon, I am really hopeful it will help with some of my weird symptoms like dry skin, hair loss, redness etc. As I have got older I have developed both rosacea and little patches of melasma on my face which is really noticeable in photos (and on Teams which I use daily for my job and I sometimes just look at myself and feel so revolting).

i also think that more people do look more groomed and polished now. When we were kids, my mum wasn’t groomed, but neither anyone else’s- they were all a bit frumpy, a bit overweight, a bit grey… with one occasional ‘glamourous’ mum who was always tanned and made up. Now everyone’s groomed it seems, except a rare few. I’m 40, when my mum was 40 there is no way she’d have gone to a gym wearing high waisted leggings and a cropped vest, high ponytail, fashionable trainers etc.

I think I have realised over the years though that this isn’t about a physical state, this is about a mental state. It’s about how I feel, not how I look. I feel sad inside about how i look and I have always felt this way, for as long as I can remember.

this has been very cathartic, thank you. I would like to join the intervention thread mentioned above if someone can link to it when it’s set up please 🙏

I once decided to do a boudoir photo shoot in the hope I'd look and feel glam for once. It was really expensive and included hair and make up. As the lady was doing my hair she said "hmm.... oh dear... did you bring any hats?"

Another time I tried to make a difference to my hair, I searched for a recommended hair dresser and paid a lot to have cut, colour and highlights. The result had people literally laughing and asking "why did you go there?". Well because I went off reviews and recommendations? What else can I do? I don't understand.

This is me! I always joke that I have gone few fewer stages of Neanderthal man than most other people but that doesn't make me feel better.
We have just come back from a few nights in a super swanky hotel where we spent a lot of time by the pool and in the hotel bar. I was a blotchy, sweaty, frizzy, bitten mess who had to move her sunlounger every 5 minutes to ensure that I was in the shade at all time. I spent the first day or did reassuring myself that everyone else was European and that was why they looked so put together. However, the number of English accents meant that I couldn't continue under that misapprehension and there were also people from the US, various Asian and Middle Eastern countries so it couldn't just be that.
Like others, my mum never did anything other than very basic make up. I would say it was due to money but there's a balance of priorities & interest in there too.
Then there's the principle of the thing. Fundamentally, I don't see why it should matter beyond basic hygiene and therefore the fact that it does annoys me.
However, I think ADHD might be the biggest thing. Very recently diagnosed but it's making me realise why I always find routines so challenging (whether that was naps when the DC were babies to getting them to do music practice to cleansing & toning every day) and, on top of that, am always so chaotic and lack attention to detail. A colleague joined recently who is always perfectly put together but one thing I found particularly fascinating was her eye make up. I basically poke the brush in the direction of my eye lid. Her eye make up routine alone involves several stages.
So, yet again, I am making all sorts of resolutions but am unlikely to stick to any of them.