I had a lovely chat with marvellous Mickey Noonan for Standard Issue podcast about therapy, medication, depression and anxiety. It's actually quite funny. Listen on Acast or wherever you get your podcasts from (it's episode 240).

I love pretty clothes, but I hate shopping, so much so that when I attended the Cosmo Awards last year my Mam chose my outfit (thanks Mam!). Yours Clothing looks fab online, so I popped into my local branch in Bristol to see their latest collection. As an unenthusiastic shopper, and because I wanted to avoid going for my usual tried-and-tested style choices, I asked each member of staff to each choose an outfit for me (thanks to Paris, Jade and Tess!).

Monochrome.
Black, white, and a strong red lippy – all you need for a bold, clean, polished look.

​The Yours collection is peppered with similar little twists and edges that lift their pieces without compromising on practicality or comfort. Take this stripy top, with the elasticated piping don the sides adding a sophisticated final touch.  

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Stylist's Choice: Dungarees

Like many of us I haven’t worn dungarees since the late eighties, but shop assistant Paris recommended I give them a go (I would recommend an upsize for girls like myself with longer bodies than legs!). My belly is my own personal Area 51 (I’m pretending it doesn’t exist), but the sidey buttons draw the eyes to the hips, while the bib (is it called a bib? I’m calling it a bib) draws in at the waist. Paris paired these with a cute stripy tshirt with detailed sleeves and an elasticated waist (again, small details that make Yours stand out from standard high street fodder). 

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​If your new year’s resolution was to experiment with colour, try this knitted number in a flattering pale blue, for a subtle change that will match many of your wardrobe staples. 

​Stylist's Choice: Nude Pink Knit Jumper





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Jade loves this butterfly top, now I do too! The fabric is gorgeously soft, and the beaded butterflies are perfect for girls like me who know that sparkles aren’t just for Christmas! (I would recommend upsizing as it’s a bit clingy at the hips). 

​If you’re not a fan of pink (or, like me, you’re a bit hip-and-tummy conscious), this stars-and-stripes-and-sparkles number is made with the same beautiful fabric, and has pulley-bits at the side for a cute ruched effect. 

Now, I had my doubts about this collared jumper. I love masculine styles on other women, but any time I’ve tried it I ended up with rugby player shoulders and a monoboob. After a nudge from Paris, I tried it on. And it works. I loved it. The lush material with contrasting linen panels is cut to compliment curves, not fight them. 

Stylist's Choice : Cold-Shoulder Top.
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Tess recommended this sheer art-deco inspired cold-shoulder top (she suggested pairing it with leather look leggings, but I stuck with sheer black tights). It’s just sheer enough to be a little bit sexy on a night out (it would also work with a slinky black vest for extra coverage), but it could be dressed down for the office – it works very well with the cross-back jacket I told you about before. Again, this is something I wouldn’t have picked up myself, but I'm so glad I kept an open-mind -  thanks Tess! Yours have an online customer chat too – take a chance, you might find something you love!. 

​The brand’s biggest seller (excuse the pun) is underwear, and it’s easy to see why. They’ve a gorgeous range of luxurious undies, at prices decent enough to make every day a matchy-matchy day. Far too many women wear a poorly-fitting bra (I myself wore a B-cup for years, before recently getting fitted and finding out I’m a D!). Yours stores provide a full bra-fitting service, and a range that provides for different body shapes, from babydolls to this long-line number (perfect for less busty girls). With Valentine’s Day coming up, they’ll be adding much more to their lines too. I can't wait!

I love this set. The bra has four hooks and a wide back for extra comfort and support, and the matching knickers have a comfy waistband, a cheeky sheer back, and come with removable suspenders. Guaranteed to brighten up any grey January day!

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I’ll never love shopping, but the lovely ladies at Yours Bristol made it so much easier and more fun, and with a wider range available online, there’s no reason not to give them a go! 

Bonjour!

Now, a few of you good people have asked me how I manage my mad type 3 curls. I've had a bit of practice, and I've got my routine DOWN. I started tonging my hair when I was eighteen, At it's longest (mid-back length) it would take TWO HOURS to style. Now that it's shorter it takes about forty minutes, but once it's done it can stay sleek for up to three days: an excellent method of fooling friends, colleagues and strangers into thinking you're not a lazy slob. 

TOOLS.

I don't spend a lot of money on tools and products. The tongs I use were £7.99 from Argos. I once had a pair that cost £3.99 from Asda that did a cracking job. I like a thin-medium, straight barrel (with no weird twisty bits), but to each their own. You can get fancy conical wands, but with tongs you can tuck the ends under the lever-y bit, smoothing them down for a nice defined curl. 

PRODUCTS. 

I use whatever mousse, shampoo and conditioner are on special offer (I'm not into all the compare-and-contrast business of beauty products. I'm sure you'll find a billion blog for that if that's your jam). 

TECHNIQUE

This works best on dry, slightly-grubby hair - not exactly post-festival filthy, but a-couple-of-days-and-a-sweaty-run dirty. 

As with anything, practice makes perfect - just give yourself plenty of time before you have to head out. Iif there's anything I haven't explained properly, just give a shout here or on Insta. Let me know how you get on!

​Mxx

​I may go down in history as the first person to have been heckled at the Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival.
On Sunday I was on a panel called Is the Selfie Selfish? chaired by Emma Gannon. I was joined on the panel by Frances Borzello, art historian and author of several books on the subject. Frances is an expert in self-portraiture through the ages, but fascinatingly has barely any internet presence herself.  She also has a filthy laugh and declared herself “one rackety woman”. Emma and I fell in love with her instantly.
The discussion promised to “examine the history of self-portraiture and discuss the power and capacity for change that documenting one’s own image can hold”. Frances galloped through a brief history of portraiture for 15 minutes, we took questions for another fifteen, so we had 30 minutes to dissect the last decade of contemporary culture to an audience of two hundred people ranging between 11 – 80 years of age. We tried to pitch a level of discourse that was accessible to everyone; conversational and informal. Admittedly, I alienated two-thirds of the audience when I declared “while Millennials may be lazy and entitled, at least we didn’t cause two recessions”, but on the whole I think we did an admirable job. 
After Frances expanded on how woman artists in 19th century portraiture modelled their self-portraits on those of their male contemporaries (or didn’t), she opened a conversation on men who take selfies now, and whether they’re statistically overtaken by women. I was in the middle of replying that accusations of millennial vanity and narcissism always seemed to be aimed at women and girls when it happened. A VERY angry woman started waving her arms and yelling “THAT’S NOT TRUE”. She was given a microphone (at the panel’s insistence) and declared that she needed to compose herself before “something really rude” that she’d regret. She was visibly shaking with anger. She told us how inane the conversation had been, how only Frances had touched on anything with any resonance.  “This whole thing has been so UNSOPHISTICATED” she blasted, to a ripple of applause.
Quite what this cohort of the audience were expecting when they spent £8 on a ticket for a discussion which promised to “merge art history with Kim Kardashian” I don’t know. Perhaps they’d seen the wonderful Claire Balding and Jilly Cooper in conversation, and expected the same level of discourse from two writers at the beginning of their career. After the discussion numerous complaints were made because Emma, as chair, hadn’t defined what a selfie was at the beginning. Each of these complaints were from people who clarified that they, of course, know what a selfie is, but they were appalled that we hadn’t taken a fraction of what little time we had to observe a formality. Perhaps they’ve been educated in How To Debate – A+B+C= Successful Discussion. I haven’t. Imagine explaining to a 12-year-old what a selfie is. I don’t think my 31-year-old ego could take the withering stares of the girls who excitedly gathered around me at the end of the talk to show me their Instagram accounts – the fake ones their parents follow, and the secret account strictly for their cool friends.
I can’t help but suspect a vein of snobbery. They weren’t expressing disappointment at the content of the debate. They were angry with the format. As one twitter user put it “what is it about talking in a way that everyone can understand that gets people's goat?”. I doubt they’d have kicked off so much if they’d paid £70 for an opera ticket and didn’t like the direction. They certainly wouldn’t have heckled. It’s perfectly acceptable that they expressed their opinion. But the resilience, lack of respect and outright hostility we were met with was shocking.
I mentioned that there was little or no feminism visible in the mainstream media in the early 00s when I was a teenager, and that our generation are responsible for starting a new conversation that was accessible to every girl in the country through her phone. The same woman huffed “Err, feminism wasn’t INVENTED 15 years ago! WHAT ABOUT NAOMI WOOLF?! (brilliantly, she tailed off with “I mean, I don’t like her, but still….”). My point was that when I was a teenager I struggled to find contemporaries who were interested in feminism. Now my generation has created a world where Topshop tell t-shirts declaring THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE. Those 12-year-olds in the audience have easy access to the work of women like Caitlin, and Lena, and Paris Lees, and – SOD IT – ME AND EMMA GANNON ACTUALLY – and a million other smart, funny women all over the internet, in a way that previous generations never had, unless they were exposed to feminism by their parents or at school (I certainly wasn’t). WE DID THAT. Congratulations if you can name-check every prominent feminist author published in the last forty years (and I absolutely thank each and every one of them, whether I agree with them or not, for paving the way for us). It must be exhausting to know so much more about a subject than others. But that’s not the way to capture young imaginations and engage young minds.  
Frances mused on what skill a selfie takes, before declaring that she’ll never take one. She doesn’t want to participate in that element of youth culture, but she’s engaging with it and respectful of it.
If a speaker doesn’t engage with a topic as you’d prefer, please ask a question and (and this is the really important bit) listen to the answer. You might not like it. You might find it facile, or insipid, or boring. Fine. You pays your money, you takes your chances. But buying a ticket does not allow you to dictate the way we communicate. Nor does being born at a particular time. Your opinion isn’t more important than anyone else’s. 
That said, I must say that otherwise I had a lovely time at the festival. I met some gorgeous people, including MY IDOL FOR HALF MY LIFE, Marian Keyes. She was just as LOVELY as you'd expect, and the chance to shake her hand and thank her for her work more than made up for the verbal bashing I'd received earlier. So, Cheltenham, thank you for that. I hope to see you again next year. ​ 

My name’s Michelle Thomas and I have nominated myself for Best Newcomer in Cosmopolitan’s Influencer Awards 2016. Let me tell you why for…
I’m an accidental activist who gained 26,000 instagram followers in a single week last year after my blog about a body-shaming Tinder date went viral.  Since then I’ve built a brand based on reassuring women; if you're healthy and happy, you're golden. If you're not healthy and happy, here's what helps me – running, not running (and not feeling guilty about it), spending time alone, spending time with people I love, monthly manicures...all that stuff contributes to my well-being. My account shows an overweight 30-year old woman exercising, failing at exercising, eating delicious healthy food, eating delicious junk food, being silly, being sassy, being herself (my #iwokeuplikethis pictures are hideous – my hair looks like two red squirrels fighting). I strive to be as authentic as possible. I like pretty dresses and I post pretty selfies. But I also post candid pictures of my pot belly. I mourn the loss of my favourite bra after the underwire pops out. I post about my mental health, about my medication, about good days and bad. I respond to critics of my body. I posted pictures at 6am when I used to start my shifts as a barista.
My story went viral because it resonated with thousands of people who have been affected by bodyshaming, either directly like I was, or indirectly. I’ve had emails from men in their late teens/early twenties who are desperately in love with a plus-size woman, but they won’t make the move because they think they’d lose their mates. The blanket ban on body-confidence for women who aren’t thin, young and white affects everyone – not just young women. 
Instagram is still saturated in thin white women who spend all their time doing yoga on a beach. There’s nothing wrong with being thin and doing yoga, but show me some authenticity – I want to see Deliciously Ella up at 5am prepping all her veg for the week ahead. I want to see the truth under the glamour.
I documented training for a 10k for Mind this year, and my fantastic followers joined me in posting #honestworkoutslfies.  On the race day I met a woman who, as a personal challenge, was running 1000k (600 miles) in the year between her 39th and 40th birthday. She was a size 24-26, Tess Holiday proportions, and ran faster than men and women half her size. Health is about more than fat – it’s fitness, blood stickiness, insulin levels, sleep quality, stress. That’s a conversation that we need to start –. shifting focus from what your body looks like to what your body can do. I started #healthyhappyhot because I want people to aspire towards health and happiness, not thinness.
Social media allows you to choose what you view, which is an awesomely powerful thing. Rather than picking up a magazine and flicking through 300 pages of glossy, hyper-airbrushed, hyper-glam tall skinny white women, it’s easy to tailor your feed to show you happy, healthy, smart, witty, kind, and beautiful people – some of my favourites are  Georgina Horne, Danielle Brooks, Stina Wolter, Dawn O’Porter, Stina Sanders, Paris Lees and @rubyetc. When you see the obvious disconnect between what you’re choosing to look at and what you’re being made to look at, you think critically about what you want to change in your world.
I know that my account, my work, makes a real difference to my followers, and that’s the most incredible feeling. Knowing that something I’ve written has provided comfort and reassurance to strangers on the other side of the world is the proudest I’ll ever be of anything I do. It’s been a hectic year – I’ve gained 40k followers including Twitter and FB, I’ve got two agents (literary and broadcast) and I’ve built an impressive portfolio on feminism, dating, mental health and body image. I’m the ideal nominee for Cosmopolitan’s Best Newcomer award, and I’m just getting started.
Please vote for https://www.instagram.com/msmthomas for Best Newcomer in Cosmopolitan’s Influencer Awards 2016 (with 26k followers) before 30th Sept – it takes 45 seconds, go on!
Thanks so much,
love Michelle x

P.S. Here are the gals I’ve nominated in the other categories
Best Newcomer In Association With OGX Me, obvs.
Best Lifestyle Influencer Fiona Longmuir
Best Health & Wellbeing Influencer Mirna Valerio
Best Sex & Relationships Influencer Erika Moen
Best Fashion Influencer Georgina Horne
Best Beauty Influencer Sali Hughes
Best Vlogger Marian Keyes
Best Use of Social Media @rubyetc
Content of the Year Deliciously Stella
The Blossom Hill Influencers Choice Awards #ITSOKTOTALK by CALM

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Having depression doesn’t mean I’m always depressed, in the same way the being allergic to bee stings doesn’t mean a person is in constant anaphylactic shock. It’s only when they get stung that it’s a problem.

Likewise:

A person with a bee sting allergy can get stung at any time. Their allergy is not dependent on their life circumstances – they could win the lottery and they’d still be allergic to bee stings. Their allergy isn’t negated by terrible world events or the fact that there are many people worse off than them, and it’s unhelpful to them to suggest that it is.

Being allergic to bee stings isn’t indulgent or selfish. It’s a chemical anomaly. If an allergic person is stung by a bee it’s important they don’t feel afraid or ashamed to get help. Treatments that may relieve a bee sting to a person who is not allergic to bee stings, such as vinegar or spit on a dock leaf, are not effective to a person who IS allergic to bee stings. Those people need an epi pen, and in some cases professional medical attention.  

You can’t snap out of an allergy, and a positive mental attitude, though helpful, is not an antidote to a bee sting if you’re allergic to bee stings.

Being allergic to bee stings doesn’t make you a bad friend, or parent, or employee.  
A person who is allergic to bee stings may encounter a bee, and not get stung. For example, if a friend or colleague is allergic to bee stings, and fears they are at risk of being stung they may say: “Hi, I’m allergic to bee stings, and there’s a bee in my office. I’m going to close the window to prevent more bees from coming in. I would also like to remove this enormous bouquet of flowers from my desk.” Then you could say “Sure thing. I’ll put the bouquet in my office instead. I love hyacinths”. 

​If a person with a bee sting allergy hasn’t been stung for a while, that doesn’t mean they’re no
longer allergic to bee stings. Though they may take every precaution, no one is guaranteed lifelong bee sting evasion. However, no one should live in fear of their own chemical imbalances. By encouraging people to talk openly about their allergies, and educating others about what to do if they encounter someone having an allergic reaction, we can make our gardens safer for everyone, and we can all enjoy some time in the sun.