Last Minute Beach Holiday Vlog & Lookbook

A few weeks ago I booked a last minute holiday to Spain with my mum. Sure, it wasn't anything super cool like Barbados but I hadn't been on holiday for three years so you know, close enough. Watch my full vlog and holiday lookbook, and make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel! 

Taking the Pill for 7 Years has turned me into a Psychotic Bitch

Ah, my old friend, the contraceptive pill. We've endured a 7 year relationship since I hit the tender age of 16. Cilest, Yasmin, Diane(tte)! They even sound like the sassy BFF who's always down for a night out and equally always there to hold your hair back during a hangover induced vomit. Oh, and did I forget to mention that she's also great at stopping you from forming an actual human child inside your insides? Like a phantom cock-block, kind of. She's just great. Isn't she? Is she?

After so long all relationships can get a bit sour. It's not that she's needy- 5 seconds of daily attention is a commitment I'm totally happy to deal with. But after 7 years together, shit just got weird. Every woman reacts different to contraceptives, it's all dependent on themselves and the brands they use. But for the past year of taking it, it was though I constantly had PMS. And when I had PMS it was if I had been possessed by a psychotic lunatic bitch that needed to be sectioned and/or sedated. Crying at the Colmans TV adverts was a regular. Panicking way too much over why people haven't text me back became another. Reading too far into the punctuation in a text ("He no longer uses exclamation marks! He no longer finds talking to me fun!") also became totes normal. And then there was the time I got drunk, got an ex from 5 years ago to pick me up, and then cried to him for about 5 hours about how my life was meaningless and I was afraid I'd never amount to anything.

I became an irrational, hormonal, anxious, borderline depressive bitch that simply could not read a situation properly anymore. It was as if someone had given me a personality transplant and I was only ever feeling manic, paranoid, severely anxious, or a numb sense of nothingness. Can the real Sophie Milner please stand up? Oh wait, she can't, she's too busy sobbing over an episode of Jeremy Kyle...

Fortunately, this bizarre behaviour isn't just an abnormality in myself or the start of something more serious like anxiety or depression. It's something women have started standing out against recently. Alice Roberts discussed the effect the pill had on her in her piece for The Guardian. Holly Griggs-Spallwas even wrote a book Sweetening the Pill: or How We Got Hooked on Hormonal Birth Control after also feeling super low and anxious having been on the pill for a decade (you can read some of it in this piece on the Independent) 

Let's talk pill types. I've always been on the combined pill. First stop in my journey to crazy contraceptive hell was Dianette. As a 16 year old who'd suffered for two years at the merciless hands of teenage acne this pill was a god-send, plus it never made me feel like I was one pill away from a mental breakdown. But due to certain related health issues, GP's no longer prescribe it for more than a few months. I scammed the system for sometime then got caught out and put onto Microgynon. Then I went back to Dianette. Then back to Microgynon. Then my skin went all shitty so I went onto Yasmin which made me so miserable I never wanted to leave the house - depression is one of Yasmin's widest known side-effects. Then I was back on Microgynon. Then Mercilon.

Now I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure it's not particularly healthy to be zipping between brands for a 7 year span. But then, what are you meant to do when each one seems worst than the last? Put up with all of the hormonal bullshit and allow yourself to be swallowed into Yasmin and Cilest's drama? The bitches.

When I spoke to two doctors, both tried putting me onto Microgynon - which is interestingly the cheapest pill for the NHS to prescribe - and both told me that contraception was not their expertise. One even told me to "hurry up" and he had not got the time to discuss it fully as he was running 40 minutes late.

So after running out of Mercilon I made a decision: me and my former best gal pal of 7 years would go on a break. Maybe even a permanent one? Who knows. She pushed me too far and I CBA with her bullshit.

How am I feeling now? It's as if I'm a completely different woman. Actually no, it's like I'm finally myself again. I've regained all clarity, I'm so much happier, and severe anxiety and paranoia over silly things like what to wear tomorrow is no longer an issue (and that's a big thing coming from a fashion journalist.) I haven't yet redeveloped acne but I might have to ditch my lazy skincare routine in favour of something a little more thorough... And what of contraception? Do I consign myself to a life of hormonal misery and chronic bitch syndrome, or to one of happiness and calm but with a few rubbery balloon-like inconveniences involved? Maybe femidoms are more than just a sex-education class joke? Quite frankly, with contraception, I'm more than happy going back to the fumbling rubbery methods of 16 year old virgins if it means that I won't lose my shit and try kill someone immediately after sex just because they picked up their phone and checked their emails and I mistook them for playing on Tinder...

Have you experienced something similar? I'd love to know your worst psycho-bitch moments to make me feel a little better about myself. Tweet me @sophiemilner_fs!

Lazy Girl's Guide To Nailing Style AND Comfort

Whoever said beauty is pain clearly never wore a jumpsuit. They were most likely too busy falling from their vertigo-inducing high heels or massaging their sore biceps from lifting their heavy vintage Chanel bejewelled hands to notice the simplistically chic beauty in pairing a jumpsuit with flats.

Since normcore actually became a thing a couple of years back, it drilled into my head the idea that you don't have to get dressed to an inch of poised perfection to be chic AF. This was an amazing revelation to a girl that never left the door without a minimum of 3.5inch additional heel height.
Style CAN be comfortable in so many ways. Hallelujah! But there are certain limits to remember before we all start leaving the house in pyjamas. The secret? It's all about confidence, more than anything. If you're confident in something, then it's comfortable. If you are comfortable, then you are confident. If it's neither, then there's a good chance you probably look and feel a bit like a dick.







In fairness, there's little more that's comfier than a jumpsuit. Especially this super soft chambray jumpsuit by Baukjen*. It has a loose oversized fit that gets cinched in with the tie belt. Plus, it nails the SS15 super-trend of denim everything. It's an essential for the lazy girl and makes hangover struggles a hell of a lot more stylish.

I'm So Over Makeup Shaming

Every time someone tells me �you should wear less makeup�, or I see a post telling me to ditch the cosmetics to embrace my �true self�, or an article congratulating a celebrity for going makeup-free, it makes me want to dive into a lake of Nars sheer glow foundation and dwell there until I feel better about myself again. First things first, nobody needs makeup. Nobody should need it to feel beautiful. And I�m fully aware that the beauty industry is a multi-billion pound a year one that works largely by making women think they need to buy all of their stuff in order to look good. But quite frankly, I�m so over being shamed for my choice to wear whatever amount of makeup that I choose to wear.

The biggest problem that I find I�m constantly trying to fight is the implication that makeup is something for ugly women to simply make themselves look slightly less ugly, and that those who feel more comfortable wearing makeup than not wearing it are in fact uglier than those who choose not to wear it at all. Let me make a correction: makeup is about enhancing beauty, not covering ugly.

Another problem I am beginning to find increasingly disturbing is the levels of praise women get for choosing not to wear makeup. Does anybody else find that patronising? I�ve had friends say �Oh wow, well done for not wearing so much makeup today!� Sorry, I forgot that wearing makeup was a sin against the world� Shall I go and say some hail Mary�s? Also, with a reaction like that, can I ask where the fuck is my medal for not choosing to wear it? Every time these kind of comments are made a little part of my soul dies and goes to a heaven where it can RIP without being berated for its love of good cosmetics and the confidence that comes with it.

Why should going barefaced publicly be seen as an amazing achievement and brave? It�s no more than a simple choice of appearance, like the same as choosing whether to wear jeans or a skirt. It�s this whole attitude surrounding makeup that casts its use in a sometimes-controversial light. It confuses me, because ultimately wearing makeup is a choice, exactly the same as not wearing makeup, so why should these choices be looked at any differently?

There's nothing wrong with promoting natural beauty and the notion that you don't need to wear makeup to look beautiful. Campaigns promoting this have reversed societal judgement that once dictated that we need cosmetics to fit the current ideal beauty standards. Now what is beginning to take its place is the idea that you need to look beautiful, but only naturally, with no help from makeup at all. These campaigns act like a liberator for us women who do not want to wear makeup. But now what for those of us who love our makeup?

What's wrong with these campaigns is they promote natural beauty in a way that shames those who choose to wear makeup by making them feeling guilty, judged, or that because they choose to wear makeup they are not naturally attractive. I�m happy enough leaving the house without makeup on, but I�m unhappy that I now feel a pang of guilt and worry that others might judge me when I wear a full face of makeup so skilfully painted that even Michelangelo would be jealous. Shaming people for their choices won�t change them, it will just make them feel worse about it. Nobody should feel that they have to validate themselves as a person by proving to others how they look without makeup, in the exact same way nobody should feel they have to validate themselves by wearing it. Plus, more often than not 

Of course there's the idea that the makeup industry shames women into thinking they need to buy all of these products in order to look beautiful. But what's forgotten in that argument is simply the power makeup can have on others. Unfortunately, I�m not Beyonce, and I did not wake up like this. And interestingly, I�m not flawless without my foundation. So naturally (or unnaturally, as the world keeps trying to tell me), I enjoy using a little something to smooth out imperfections and enhance my natural beauty. And what of those with acne and facial scares? I'm pretty sure I don't even need to explain that one, but here's a video to inspire just in case.

 Then there are remarks about how wearing makeup can be unfair and some even argue it�s deceptive. But then what about getting braces? Or using hair straighteners or curlers? These are both examples where tools are used to change a natural look. I mean like, how dare Kate Middleton get a blow-dry immediately after the birth of the royal baby? Damn, the cheeky bitch for trying to deceive us all into thinking she has perfect goddess curly hair 24/7 when clearly it should be slicked back with the sweat and tears that come from the pain and stress of squeezing a baby out from between her legs. Why is it that makeup is crossing the line between real and fake?

Men shouldn�t really come into any part of the argument, but unfortunately they do. I came across this ridiculously infuriating article aimed at both men and women from Elite Daily about Why You Should Date A Girl Who Doesn�t Need To Wear Makeup To Feel Beautiful. Whilst the writer begins by critising women for wearing makeup to appeal to men more, she fails to recognise that her article is based entirely on the premise of a man�s pleasure, hence the title. Despite backtracking, trying to say that women who wear makeup are still great, the whole article goes on listing the reasons why women who don�t wear makeup are better. How is this article helpful? It does not empower women to not wear makeup, it creates an inferiority complex and makes women feel shit and ashamed about the fact that they wear makeup.

Bringing this rant to an end, I�m so over the semantics of real vs fake that surround this debate: so the idea that if you wear makeup then you are fake and if you don�t, then you are �real�. Well, shit me, I forgot I can no longer be considered a real-life human being when wearing makeup and that I must be reduced to an animated mask of caked on cosmetics. Surprisingly (apparently), beneath this deceptive mask of makeup that I choose to wear is not the face of a hideous demon. It�s the face of just another human being, with slightly less definition to her face. Wearing makeup is a choice, just the same as wearing no makeup is a choice, and that is it. Never let anyone determine your worth based on how much or little makeup you choose to wear.