Living Life the Essex Way (3 page)

BOOK: Living Life the Essex Way
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We didn’t plan what we would do or say – that was just us. I think you can see everyone’s true colours most clearly in series one. You see Lauren really out of control, you see
Mark and his ‘she’s fit’ comments, and as for Amy . . . I know some people questioned whether she was acting or given lines, but, believe me, that was the real Amy! The funny,
sweet, lovely, say-anything-that-pops-into-her-head girl who was my best friend from school. It’s definitely more the real her than the Amy we saw on her solo show
It’s All About
Amy
, where I could see that everything she was saying and doing was too thought out for the cameras, whether she knew it or not. Maybe that’s why a second series wasn’t
commissioned.

When you look at how everyone else became a part of the show – they all pretty much came about because of a link with me, Amy, Kirk or Mark. We are the original four, definitely. As far as
people I brought in, obviously my sister Billie was through me. Then I introduced Lucy Mecklenburgh – Lucy Meck – to Mark in Marbella just before we filmed series one. So as soon as he
was single and able to make a move, that was her lined up for
TOWIE
, as anyone Mark got involved with was going to become central to the show.

I mentioned to the bosses I knew Peri Sinclair, who had the shop around the corner. And then Joey got onto the show because of me – although he will never admit it! He got papped with me
on a night out once and I told the photographers his name was Joey Essex, and they loved that cos you couldn’t make it up – but no one thought it was his real surname. I told the
producers to put him on the show, and then I ended up getting with him. And because of the link to me he got lots of air time, which showcased how entertaining he can be. Like when he took me on a
date and we ended up visiting a tip and then eating these squashed sandwiches in the middle of the woods. It was pure genius, and really established him as a central character. He will never ever
thank me for it, but look at those facts!

In fact, thinking about it, I need to get some commission off all this lot! Of course, I wasn’t the only one from the original
TOWIE
lot who made suggestions to the producers, and
I’m sure that each and every one of us thinks that we were the one who brought the most to the table!

2
THE ORANGE COUNTY RULES

When I was young, I was a bit of a letdown as far as the Essex girl image goes because I don’t remember being that interested in beauty in my early years. I was a proper
tomboy throughout primary school, and was never one of those little girls that worry about their looks and spend hours looking in the mirror and trying on their mums’ make-up. And I think
that is partly a way of thinking that I got from my mum Sue.

Don’t get me wrong, Mum definitely knows how to look good – she is glam, stylish and totally gorgeous! She is also a really young mum – she had me when she was just 22 years
old. But she doesn’t go in for fake tans, false nails, or anything like that. She was more bothered about being a mum – things like putting a good dinner on the table for us all every
night when Billie and I were growing up – rather than looking like she had walked straight out of the salon.

So it was only really when I went to secondary school, and the other girls began to get into beauty routines and that, that I learned about it and started getting into it too. I wasn’t
obsessively girly or anything, but I started to take a lot more interest in my appearance, and enjoyed experimenting with the latest crazes along with all my friends.

I went to Shenfield High School when I was 11. It is a pretty nice school in Shenfield, which is just outside of Brentwood. It is a mixed school, but the boys and girls are taught separately
which, looking back, is a good idea – it meant we were less distracted in class! I guess it must work, as the school gets pretty good results. Billie is 11 months older than me, and was in
the year above me at school. Mum would give us a lift in every day and I’d say I was pretty happy there. I wasn’t too bothered about the academic side of things, but I loved the
socialising and the friends and the fun times. Mum was fine with the fact that I wasn’t very academic, as long as she knew that I wasn’t wasting my education and was making the best of
things in my own way.

At school there was a group of seven of us who were all best friends. Lucy Meck was one of them, which shows just how long we have been friends, although I admit we aren’t as close now as
we were then, as you might have noticed . . . The seven of us hung around together all the time, and I’m not going to lie – we were the popular girls in school. We called ourselves the
Seven Sexy Cinders, after Cinderella. We came up with the name ourselves and were pretty pleased with it! So pleased we made a book about ourselves, which I’ve still got. It is full of photos
of us all posing and having fun, and notes that we wrote each other about our nights out, and of course the boys we fancied, and our plans to always stay best friends. It’s definitely a book
of great memories that I am going to keep forever – even if some of the things in it are a bit embarrassing to read now!

But although we were popular, we weren’t like something out of the
Mean Girls
movie or anything like that. We weren’t nasty, and I got on with everyone in my year. I
remember one girl called Heather who I used to sit next to in German class. She hated the glam look and wasn’t interested in celebrities and that, but we always used to chat and have a laugh.
I didn’t judge her for being different from me. That’s something I have always tried to stick to – everyone chooses their own way to act and look, and if it doesn’t hurt
anyone, just because it is different from how I choose to portray myself, it doesn’t mean I will judge them because of it.

Billie was in the year above me at school, and she was in a group of friends that called themselves the Shenna Plasticz. I looked up to her and her friends a lot, and we started changing our
appearance and using beauty products around the same time. As I’ve said, it wasn’t that I suddenly became obsessed about the way I looked, but it was really good fun to try out new
products and beauty routines, and I think that’s pretty normal for a lot of girls our age. But our mum and grandparents used to get mad at us for our make-up, and especially the fake tan.

I remember my Nana Liz, Mum’s mum, who still lives near us in Brentwood, saying, ‘Your skin is so lovely, why are you girls putting that tan on it?’ But we didn’t want to
know – we were sure we looked good! In the year above me were a group of girls we called the Orange Crew. And, oh my God, they had proper bleached-white hair, orange skin and false eyelashes.
When we first started at the school we thought they looked silly, but a year later things changed and we were starting to look the same! I don’t think we did it to such an extreme – a
lot of us still had dark hair rather than white-blonde – but we definitely had the orange faces and the lip gloss. I love lip gloss; I became obsessed with it then and am obsessed with it
now. It is definitely one of my must-have beauty items.

Not everyone in our year went through the same transformation obviously. Some girls took it too far, and some didn’t care and wouldn’t do anything about their looks at all, but we
went for glam and pretty, and I like to think we got it about right. But you can be the judge of that – have a look at the photo on page 2 in the picture section.

It’s weird when you look back. One day you are looking all sweet and innocent and childlike, then the next you discover all this beauty stuff and your whole appearance really changes. But
it is all part of growing up, and I definitely think people need to try things out when they are teenagers – you just need to accept that you will get some of it wrong and will not always be
happy to look back at the photos!

So anyway, an Essex girl will try to make sure she looks good all the time, but especially on nights out. We like a glamorous, big, full-on look that catches people’s attention, and we are
not afraid to look like we have made a lot of effort – why should you hide the fact that you want to look the best you can? That’s a good thing!

But that takes time. Before a night out I will take on average two hours to get ready – and that is assuming all the other stuff like my nails and tan are already done. I like to get ready
with my mates, at my house, with a glass of wine and some music in the background to get us in the mood. If I absolutely had to though, like if I had no warning I was going out, I could get ready
in an hour, but that really would be the quickest. I would rather not go out at all if I had less time than that.

As everyone knows, the tan is probably the most important thing for an Essex girl. There is a reason Essex is nicknamed the Orange County! But we are proud of it, and looking tanned means you
also look healthier and slimmer. Not that I always got it right from the start . . .

The first time I tried fake tan was when I was about 14. I can’t remember exactly who out of the Seven Sexy Cinders started it first, but suddenly it was something we were all doing. Last
year, Lucy tweeted a picture of me and her at the age of 13, lying on the grass looking really tanned, and the press picked it up and ran a story implying we used fake tan even back then. But
actually we had just been on a camping trip and were both naturally brown – it was a year later that we hit the fake tan for the first time.

But yeah, when we started getting into it, we got 100 per cent into it, and keeping up our tans became a really important thing. The downside of that, of course, was that when we got it wrong,
we got it 100 per cent wrong, but we didn’t care – it was all about the tan! We were using these tanning wipes you could get from Superdrug for 99p, and we used them
all
the
time after that, even though we didn’t really know what we were doing. We would end up looking orange, like
really
orange – especially our hands. We used to get these
dark-orange marks between our fingers, which was a total giveaway, so that everyone knew what we had been doing.

It didn’t go down well with the teachers. They noticed what we were doing and used to tell us off. But we never took any notice really. I mean, seriously, what kid takes style tips from
their teacher? In fact, our rule was that the more they hated our look, the more we loved it.

I have pretty much been tanned ever since, though obviously I have moved on from the tanning wipes. Now I do my own tan at home with a can of Fake Bake. It costs about £30, and I put two
layers on all over me each time, so each can lasts for around four uses. But while I’m pretty expert at doing it now, if it is a special occasion I’ll go down to the salon to have it
done, as there is still always the chance of screwing it up. They are professionals, so it is always going to be that bit better. I like Fake Bake as a brand, as I don’t think it is as sticky
as some of the others – that sticky feeling you get after you have put the stuff on but before you can wash it off is horrible with some of the products. And while all tanning products smell
a bit, the smell of Fake Bake isn’t as bad as most of them.

Being tanned is like a religion in Essex. Pretty much everyone does it, and I don’t just mean the girls, but the boys too. Personally I think pale skin can be nice, if it’s like
porcelain with freckles – whatever makes you happy really, but I do think tanned is the best. Luckily my skin is quite naturally olive coloured, which helps when you fake tan a lot and, to be
honest, it just makes me feel more confident in my appearance.

So yeah, while being tanned is still pretty much a must for an Essex girl, we are realising the risks and choosing to go for the fake. Girls will get a spray tan done every week –
it’s set in the diary like a weekly appointment, like church used to be in the old days, but now it’s less God and more Goddess!

Even though not many girls are using sunbeds these days, for obvious reasons, boys still make the most of them. In fact you will find more boys on the sunbeds these days than girls in Essex. All
the boys on
TOWIE
are doing it. I think they want to be tanned, but they reckon getting a spray tan or using cream is too girly, so they go on the beds. Somehow they think doing it that
way is manlier. Except Harry Derbidge of course – he loves a good spray tan! I can’t remember the last time I had a sunbed – I think about my skin too much to risk that.

My forehead has peeled a couple of times when I have been burned in the sun, and it is really bad. I don’t like that. But I do love the heat and the sun and lying on the beach while on
holiday, so the whole risk thing can be a proper dilemma. I whack factor 15 all over my body, and factor 30 on my face – I especially worry about the skin on my face, as I 100 per cent
don’t want to get wrinkles just yet!

When Billie and I were young we got called the Jetsetters at school, because we were always on holiday and would come back with tans when everyone else was looking white and pasty, which was
amazing! My grandparents on my biological dad’s side, Wendy and Mick, live in Spain, and my parents owned a place in Alicante for a while, so we used to go out there all the time during the
school holidays and would come back with good tans. I’d do my best to make my tan last by moisturising loads, so it would fade slower.

We even lived in Alicante for a while – for about five months when I was 15. That was enough time for us to get really brown. We don’t have the place out there anymore, but I’d
like to own somewhere abroad one day if possible.

The downside of all this fake tanning, of course, is that Essex girls have orange-stained beds once a week. The reason for that is the day you get it done you need to leave it for about eight
hours, so we will get the spray done in the afternoon or evening, sleep in it, and then shower it off in the morning. But through the night some of the tan will rub off onto the sheets and duvet.
It’s not the nicest thing in the world, but it’s something any boyfriend of an Essex girl has to get used to. Nowadays you can get bed protectors to stop it from happening – you
clip them onto your sheets like a sleeping bag. I have one and have tried using it, but I reckon it is a lot of effort. I think only the really hardcore tanners use them, and actually it’s
just better not to have your best sheets on your bed that one night of the week.

BOOK: Living Life the Essex Way
3.82Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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