When life gives you aubergines...

I know what to do when life gives you lemons but what do you do when life gives you aubergines?  You see for the last year (well longer really) I have stepping into my power with colour in what I wear and with my hair. 

My bright pink hair became a massive part of my brand, I felt like it was pretty easy to recognise me and helped me not only to stand out but to also show that I practice what I preach with confidence. Recently I've made some changes in the business and instead of doing monthly launches for our new collections I was going down to quarterly launches. It takes a lot of work going into a launch taking photos of myself in the pieces, taking flat lay photos, editing the photos, uploading them and putting them on the website, etc and doing one a month wasn't sustainable any longer. I've also made big changes in what we offer as it is our most inclusive range yet and you can choose from all our colours whichever you would like with what design, so a bit more personal to the individual customers taste. 

Last week was supposed to be my big photoshoot (when I say big photoshoot I mean I'm the make up and hair stylist, I'm the photographer and I'm the rodeo who sets it all up too!!) however, I unexpectedly had the boys home which meant I had to move all my work over by a child free day bringing us to the Monday before we launch on the Thursday - cutting it fine!! By this point my hair needed redoing, I literally have to do it every 10 days to keep it bright but I'd ran out, so I ordered some more off of amazon. I went to do my hair on Saturday morning, took one out of the pack of four and it wasn't until I was 3/4 of the way through applying it to my hair that I realised the colour that had spilled on to the sink was going not a pinky red but a purply blue. I glanced into the mirror and up to the bottle next to it, "Aubergine" my eyes widened. "Jord" I called from the upstairs bathroom trying to stay calm and not lose my absolute shit, he didn't hear me, Spencer pops in "Can you go and get daddy please?" I ask again trying to act relaxed. "No!" He says and shuffles off. Brilliant! Thanks mate. "Jordan," I say a little louder "can you come up for a minute I need to talk to you?" He acts worried, "What's happened now..." The first thing I wanted to know was who I needed to lose my shit at, was it me for accidentally ordering the wrong colour or amazon for sending me f***ing aubergine. It was in fact amazon thanks a lot. I finished applying it, cleaned up the sink and then got straight in the shower, normally I let it sit for 20-30 minutes but I could see how dark it was turning already.

I hoped once it had dried it would come out lighter and miraculously my faded pink hair would shine through but alas, it did not. Every time I caught myself in the mirror or went to take a selfie I felt like crying, it doesn't look awful, it just looks brown and my pink vibrant hair had been robbed from me, two days before a new collection photoshoot. I didn't have time to postpone and I didn't have time to wash it out and wait for more dye to arrive, so my only option was to try and lighten it, my weapon of choice was fairy liquid (puke) it works but very drying so I used a hair mask after (Body Shop Shea butter and my hair smells amazing now!). I posted about it on my stories and on my personal page about how gutted I was that my pink hair that represented my brand was gone and you know what? I had the most loveliest comments and messages from people saying that it was me who was the brand, not the hair, my smile and my personality and that made me feel so amazing, so thank you if you were one of those people.

Surprisingly, I actually quite like the purple, not this dark though so the aubergine is going ASAP but I have spent most of my life being various different colours, through the past 11 years while I've been in some way shape or form self employed, I have done a lot of different businesses. From up-cycling while pregnant with the twins and NJ slept at night, to Network Marketing companies, to even spray tanning, I've done most things and my hair has been most colours of the rainbow! There seems to be this stigma around people who try out different businesses and the fact that they'll never be successful because they can't stick it out in one business, I think that by my hair changing and that choice being taken away from me I felt like I was failing my business. I know they'll be people who don't understand that but I want to be a person in this weird and wonderful online space that can be seen as reliable and not have this stigma of change = unsuccessful. However, I do believe that this is the wrong way to look at someone who tries out different paths of life, I saw a TikTok of Gary Vee where a woman was saying she was successful as a real estate broker but she'd lost her passion and how can she get her passion back and worried that she was burnt out, his reply "Maybe you've scratched your itch...Stop beating yourself up, you're not burnt out you need to do something else." Over time we change as human being, we grow and we develop, we learn new things, we lose passion and we find new ones. If you're feeling stuck in life and scared of change because of what others might think, stop thinking about what will they say and start thinking but what if I don't? 

With love & gratitude,
​Ana xo

Watch here