Monthly Archives: August 2015

Summer is here and – if you’re anything like me – you’re frantically hunting for your foot file and your gradual tanner to get your legs and feet into some kind of presentable condition. There’s a post coming up with some of my most-used foot products, but what about the legs? My routine has been the same for over a decade: scrub with a body scrub, shave with a razor and then, an hour or so after my bath or shower (I wait until the pores on my legs aren’t so open) I moisturise and/or use a gradual tanner, depending on the occasion. Oh – I sometimes body brush before the bath or shower, too, but since moving house and losing my body brushes (along with a suitcase filled with summer clothes and a box of foundations!) I make do with an extra-thorough scrub.

I’ve been using Gillette razors for as long as I’ve been shaving my legs, which is why I’m very happy to be involved in the competition that Gillette Venus are running in association with ASOS. The competition is the #GoddessLegs selfie competition – yes, as the name suggests, it’s all about LEG selfies. To celebrate beautiful legs and the new Venus Olay Sugarberry razor, Venus and ASOS will be giving away loads of weekly prizes including goody bags with razors and £50 ASOS vouchers. I have tried the new Olay Sugarberry razor and it is quite the timesaver – no shaving gel or foam needed, it just glides straight over the skin. Handy when you’re in a shower that’s as small as the one in my new house – I hardly even have room to move my arms to wash my hair, let alone do complicated leg-soaping positions!

All you have to do be in with the chance of winning one of the prizes is tweet your leg selfie to @GilletteVenusUK using the hashtag #GoddessLegs. Don’t let your phone correct that to #GodlessLegs, as mine did – nobody will see your entry and it will mean something quite different.

Venus asked me to give my top five tips for taking a “leg selfie” and I have to admit, it wasn’t easy. Taking leg selfies isn’t easy! You just have to do as best you can and try not to dislocate your shoulder as you attempt to hold your iPhone in increasingly awkward and improbable positions. (Me.)

Top #GoddessLegs Tips

Prep Your Pins: The Smooth, Shiny Leg Maketh the Selfie. Make sure yours are shaved and slathered in something moisturising. There’s nothing worse than some eagle-eyed Instagram Troll screen-grabbing your picture, zooming in and pointing out that your legs are both hairy and scaly!

Find a Good Angle: This may take some time. Legs are notoriously weird to photograph (see next tip) and it doesn’t help that they’re so long and far away from your eyes.

In the ideal world, you’d always shoot your legs from below – like a photographer would – to make them look elongated, but unless you’re able to detach your arms, you’ll have to just get by as best you can. I tend to prefer the “aerial view” of my outstretched legs.

Crop Wisely: There are a tremendous number of very strange leg selfies trotting about the internet. The weirdest is possibly the one where people shoot their legs from thigh to knee (see photo below) as they lie on their sun lounger, creating the illusion of hotdogs. Bizarre. Avoid cropping too tightly to help maintain length and avoid making your legs look detached from your body.

 Add Shoes: There’s nothing a fine shoe can’t do for a leg selfie. The more bold or colourful the better. I also think that it’s nice to reference the fact that you might be on holiday or on your way to a glamorous event, even if you’re not! If you can’t fire up a bit of pure jealousy then you’re not doing things right. Anything that screams “I’m not working!” will do the trick.

 Utilize your Smartphone: You have an infinite number of chances to take your perfect selfie. Just keep deleting the bad photographs and clicking away. Don’t forget to harness the power of the Photo Filter. One of the greatest inventions of the new millennium, the Photo Filter (like the ones on Instagram or photo editing apps) can transform any picture into something that looks as though it belongs on a billboard. There are plenty of filter options to achieve faux-bronzed, defined legs and you can then up the contrast, saturation and “warmth” in the settings. Have fun.

To learn more about Venus’ competition with ASOS and to view the entries, visit the Goddess Legs website here

This feature has been sponsored by Gillette Venus as part of their #GoddessLegs campaign

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