Celebrate Your You-niqueness

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Most bloggers complain about how the blogosphere is such a saturated industry, and how difficult it is stand out or get noticed. Some bloggers wonder how they would ever get noticed with new blogs popping up every minute, with new bloggers thinking they could be the next Zoella. I kind of understand where this ideology is coming from. I mean, all you need to do is to go through the #prrequest, #bloggerswanted or #bloggersrequired (I use these hashtags too) on Twitter to understand this point of view. The blogging world is a lot noisier now than when I set up Fashion and Style Police, three years ago.

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Call me crazy, but I don’t see other bloggers as competitors, I see them as colleagues, and I don’t see any other blog worthy of me copying. I believe every blogger has something new to offer, a story to tell. We all go through life and have different experiences which influence our blogs, and that is our you-niqueness. It could be through how we style our outfits, our writing voice, our photographs, what we photograph, the critical eye we use in reviewing products or anything, every blogger is unique and every blog has the opportunity to shine.

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The problem really is bloggers not setting up blogs to stand out, not bothering or wanting to offer their readers something different. They want to go down the ‘safe route’, which they believe is guaranteed success, so they publish tried and tested posts like ‘this month’s empties’, ‘outfit of the day’, ‘product review’ and so on. They go for blog content that they believe is guaranteed to get them noticed. There is nothing wrong with this post ideas (I feature some of them), or getting inspiration from other blogs or magazines (we all do that), the issue is bloggers taking inspiration a little too far by copying other blogs, and not bothering to put their own spin on their posts.

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The issue is bloggers not being confident enough to celebrate their voice, they feel they have to write what everyone else is writing, wear what every top blogger is wearing, but the question is how do you stand out when you follow the pack? How do you make a name for yourself when you have nothing that sets you apart.

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You copy other bloggers’ poses, writing style, tweets, outfits and you want to get noticed?

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Everyone else is taken so I rather do ME. I celebrate my blog and all it represents, and I make sure I keep it a 100 every time I hit publish. I am not afraid to stand out. All the pictures in the post are from my early days of blogging in 2012 with my good old point and shoot Fujifilm camera, and my style being all over the place. My pictures are a lot better now with a Canon DSLR, and I have twerked my style as well, but sometimes I like to look back to where I started, so I can appreciate where I am, and keep my eye on where I want to be, and just ignore the noise.

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Fashion and Style Police will be 3 in few weeks and I will be featuring a big giveaway soon so keep your eye out for that. In the meantime, enter my current competitions here and here, if you havn’t already.

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Do you struggle to blog the way you want? Do you struggle to stand out from the noisy blogging pack? Drop me a comment, let’s chat.

Beauty Travel Essentials

I am planning my next vacation in my head. Nothing has been booked yet but I am thinking somewhere warm and sunny like Dubai or Vegas would be fantastic. Especially now as the sunshine is gradually leaving the UK, it would be nice to escape to a warm region. The online travel specialist; Love Holidays is carrying out a research on people’s travel behaviours; what motivates us to go abroad, do we keep to baggage allowance and what your beauty travel essentials are?

The weather plays a major role in deciding where I spend my holiday. Since we hardly ever have good weather in the UK, I tend to opt for warmer countries where it is nice and sunny, and where I can dress up in my summer outfits and rock my sunnies for some days.

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I always try to travel light but most times I end up with excess luggage, especially now that we have kids. It is so hard to travel light when going on holiday. There is just so much junk we need to go with, it is unbelievable. Then we come back with even more junk, guess because we love to shop too much.

The online travel specialist; Love Holidays will is carrying a research I cannot afford to go on holiday without my beauty products. They may be bulky to travel with but I would be lost without them. Here are my beauty travel essentials:

MAKEUP

I travel with my entire makeup bag. Crazy but true. It makes my life easier because I can’t be bothered picking out what to travel with and what not to. I may have to change this in future when my beauty products increase, they seem to be increasing a lot these days , but for now, I pack them.

HAIR

I like rocking a simple hairstyle when I am on holiday because I usually spend a lot of time relaxing in the pool or on a beach. Any fussy hairstyle will be messed up pretty quickly. I usually take a hair spray, a hair polish and a V05 Extreme Style Rework Fibre Putty  with me depending on the hairstyle I have on.

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SKIN

When I go on holiday, I make sure I look after my skin just as I would, so I take these products with me:

  • Fair and White Moisturiser which contains SPF.
  • Vita Coco Coconut Oil
  • Garnier makeup remover
  • Marykay Face Toner
  • Some cotton wool
  • Huggies Baby Wipes

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I cannot go on holiday without any of these items. Guess this explains why I always end up with an excess luggage.

Now over to you. What motivates you to go abroad? What are your travel beauty essentials? Do you exceed your baggage allowance? Leave me a comment, let’s chat.

*This is a collaborated post.

How I Relax Online

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I have always wanted to visit Las Vegas and I have had this city on my travel wish list for years now. I think it will be a perfect holiday destination. I live in a very quite village so holidaying in a busy town with all the hustle and bustle will be good for me. Sometimes, a bit of the crazy rush of adrenalin is needed to feel alive and no city parties like Vegas. I will definitely make a trip to this city one of these days. Even if I can’t party like the party animals, just sitting and watching the city that never sleeps will be a great entertainment.

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Speaking of holidays, taking time out to relax and unwind is so very important. Being a blogger, it is so hard to log off mentally. I may be on holidays but my mind never completely goes off my blog. I am thinking of new blog posts to write, outfit pictures, products to review, emails to respond to, comments to approve and reply and the list just goes on and on. I also spend most of my free time online doing one thing or the other, I tell people I can survive without a TV but I can’t live without my laptop and broadband. So having some form of entertainment online, like the Bingocams  to share wins with family and friends is great. Kate Moss, Sadie Frost, Robbie Williams, Bono, Russell Crowe and many other celebrities love the online game so it is quite popular.

This game can be played online with family and friends, and the general online community. I think it is a very cool idea as you can share news of your wins online in real-time with anyone either by joining in on an ongoing group chat, or by having a private one on one online chat. It is a great way to relax online and take time off social media and blogs.

Do you agree?

*This is a collaborative post.

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