Blown away

You guys are so funny - I was blown away by your comments about my Trinny and Susannah-ing day. Thank you so much for all your sweet words of support. You made me feel much bolder going into the lions den on Saturday.

So, I feel I'd be cheating you if I didn't let you in on how it all went. Please feel free to skip along to the next blog if you couldn't care less - I quite understand.

Well I enjoyed myself so much more than I was expecting to. I wore my crocs for extra courage and the first thing they said was 'wow, you've got a pair of those funky shoes'. Good start.

My friend Sarah and I were swathed in different coloured squares to determine 3 aspects of our best colour palettes; dark-light, cool-warm and bright-muted.

The beauty of this system is that it's not a 'red is not for you' judgement, it just lets you know if a tomato red is better than a pinky red or a plum. The dark-light relates to the intensity of the colour, cool-warm is blue based versus yellow based colours and bright-muted is colours with little or lots of grey in them. I am a dark, bright with cool tendencies. This means, in a nutshell these colours in my wardrobe get to stay...

and these have to go......

Yes, I was so taken by the whole thing that I turfed out all the no-no's from my wardrobe the moment I came in. Just on the basis of colour, not how much I paid for them, or I can't part with them for sentimental reasons. Actually, I haven't parted with any of them yet - just hung them in the guest wardrobe to see if I can do without them. It helped that I agreed totally with their advice and actually have many of the shades they advocated in my wardrobe already.

Weirdly, when I look at the no-no's all together, I have to say that they are the things I never get compliments on wearing and don't feel quite comfortable in.

Next, they did our make-up, the scariest bit for me as I am always bare faced by day. I did feel a bit like a child who has been rummaging in my Mum's make-up bag, but a comment from my friend Sarah 'Don't take this the wrong way, but I didn't know you were so pretty' has made me vow to try a little.

Then it was style time, where I was surprised at how kind they were. They didn't criticize anything we were wearing. In fact, their mantra was, if it makes you happy, wear it. But they did help us focus on our good points and give us tips on how to emphasize them. Mine are my collarbones (never really took much notice of them, just thought they gave my arms something to attach to) and a flat stomach (yes, sorry, even after 2 kids, don't hate me). So no focus on my gigantic arse, thunder thighs, chunky calves..... Their advice was, give people something nice to look at and they will gloss over the rest. Which is so true - how many times have folks failed to notice a new hairdo or glasses.

For the cheeky anonymous commenter who asked what it cost me - £125 and money VERY well spent in my opinion. But in the future, don't ask me anonymously or I won't tell you.

So for me, a definite confidence booster and a real help for future purchases. My friend Sarah had colours that are further from what she usually wears and seems less excited than me about the whole thing. But then, she was less hopeless than me in the first place.