Ive sat and rewritten this intro a multitude of times and kept deleting parts which sounded apologetic, disclaimer-ish and the such. This is probably for two reasons, I have no intention of this post being a pity party or angry and jealous at all, and well.. this is the internet.. and often.. the internet sucks.

I rarely post truly personal content on the blog. I try and keep the general tone light, informative and unbiased, it always has been more about the products than it is me.  My Instagram feed contains lots of pretty photos of products, selfies are a rarity.  I haven’t thought too much about why that is.. until now.

A couple of days ago Jamie Kerm Lima addressed beauty Industry leaders. If you don’t know, Jamie is the founder and CEO of one of my favourite brands on the market; IT Cosmetics. I have found their products to be highly effective and beautiful to use, but thats besides the point.

While Jamie is a beautiful woman (her hair transformation to blonde is stunning) she is not considered the ideal by the beauty industry. She is a curvy woman, her skin is not flawless and she isn’t a fresh faced nineteen year old.

In the address (see below) Jamie spoke about advice she had gotten about her brand and its representation. The crux of the message was… YOU’RE NOT ASPIRATIONAL, and women wont want to buy product from women who look like you.

I guess this got me thinking about myself, my blogging goals, brand support, YouTube, Instagram and the whole shebang. The number one reason I started off not posting selfies on Instagram was because of the concern that it would interfere with my career. But Ive relaxed with showing my face now, I post on YouTube for goodness sakes!

For the most part Im comfortable with who I am, what I look like and the rest but there is always a niggling little question in the back of mind..

It usually occurs when I see brands (that I may have reached out to without success) support bloggers with significantly less followers, experience or content. My rational brain sees that and thinks “Oh! Good for her” and honestly, more often than not it stops there.

But sometimes, just sometimes another part of the brain kicks in and thinks.. and wonders if its because .. for lack of a better term. Im not aspirational enough for that brand. Again on most days Im able to shrug it off because well.. thats life.

But on those insecure days (they come around once a month for me.. coincidence?) my mind goes to..

Of course they don’t want you representing their brands… who would look up to a plus sized, dorky, 30 something for beauty reviews?

Definately dorky.. but real

Seeing the cookie cutter YouTubers and Instagram girls flood my feed only serves to reinforce those feelings. You know, the ones with the most views, the nicest, most expensive things, the brand collabs and  the continuous sponsored posts.

Here is the thing though, They have all of that  because people like me, like US watch them.

We look up to them and admire their “hustle” We buy the products they’re selling, in the hope that our contour/brows/highlight will as “on fleek” as theirs. We replicate their style, model our photos on theirs in order to become goddesses like them (be aware there is a fair amount of tongue in cheeks here)

And we all know that the reality is different, they sit around in their pjs, eating cookies on the couch like we do. They have real lives that aren’t perfect. They have relationship breakdowns, bad days and make social media faux pas.

Are my holiday photos aspirational enough?

But when you’re doing the best you can to juggle a full time job (EDIT a full time demanding career), home responsibilities and also a video upload once a week as well as blog and Instagram content, and your videos get next to no views, and your instagram posts arent gettin’ those likes the self doubt cant help but creep back in. Realistically I know that a lot of it has to do with the time I am able to dedicate to the content, the quality of the posts and the like.. but we have to be real.. there is something more to it.. right?

When this occurs I do my best to shake it off, and support real, genuine, every day people; bloggers and YouTubers (Like one of my absolute faves; makeup artist and YouTuber RawBeautyKristi who is beautiful in her own right, and Marlena Stell, who has made an art of being a Lady Boss)  I think if we all take a minute to click away from the YouTube It girls (and boys) and start supporting real women (and men) who look like us we can start to make a bit of a change. Living OUR  best lives is aspirational

Image source Instagram – RawBeautyKristi

And you know what.. Ive got a couple of extra kilos to spare, and Im starting to get some lines, but that  doesn’t mean that my knowledge, experience and opinions of products in this industry are any less valid or valuable. And there are plenty of brands who do seek my opinions and thoughts on their products.

I believe in the average woman. Do you?

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