NO SHOWER NO SEX NO DEBATE.

I am a night-time shower-er. My whole family is. We feel quite strongly about it.

Shower in the morning as well if you wish, but don’t even think about putting your sweaty, smelly day-old arse between my sheets without cleaning it first.

It is gross and nasty and as for the chance of a dirty doodle and a nasty ny-ny ever meeting in the dark…you will find yourself more celibate than a nun.

 It’s a tough stance, but some things are just not up for compromise.

It’s been known to nearly end a few relationships, until the offender sees the error of their ways and comes around to the Hart way of thinking.

Recently however, this evening showering business is wreaking havoc on my beauty regime.

My beauty regime goes like this;

·               Wash body in soap of the non-allergic variety. Use it on face too, even though that is widely recognised as a cardinal sin in the beauty world.

·               Shampoo and condition hair with whatever product was on sale when last I shopped.

·               Towel off and cover body in sorbolene. (The tight-arse/allergic kid’s attempt at preventing wrinkly skin).

·               Scrunch some de-frizzing product into hair

·               Put on pj’s and go to bed, drying your hair on your pillowcase. The benefit of curls being that sleeping on them doesn’t make them any better or worse. In the morning, you just add a bit of spritz (or just wet your hands and scrunch with water) and you’re done.

 Voila.

Not much to it, the real beauty (ha ha) lying in its ability to be appropriated to any environment anywhere in the world.

Wherever you go, your beauty regime follows. Even if you're camping.

It’s always been enough to get me by. There was never any danger of me being a supermodel, I’ve had wrinkles since I was 12 and I have reactions to most of the expensive smelly stuff anyway.

It’s been enough up until now.

Up until when I became a mother and breastfeeding almost literally sucked the life out of me, causing my nails to stop growing, my arse to diminish, my hair to lose its curl and fall out entirely and my skin to become as desiccated the Murray-Darling riverbed.

My face looked like a Cruskit. 

I rang the Breastfeeding Association for advice, but in their typical, propaganda fashion, they just told me there must be something wrong with my diet and to eat more nuts.

Really people? Exclusive breastfeeding for over a year and that’s what you tell me?

Add to the monumental weight of mother’s guilt why don’t you? Thanks very much.

So just when I was about to ween Q cold turkey, she decided the independence of drinking milk from a cup quite suited her independent nature and I was saved. My boobs are now only used morning and night.

During the days, they are mine, all mine.

I cut my nails for the first time in over a year, my lips stopped cracking allowing them to return to their former shape and size, and my hair began to grow, sprouting new shoots like a nervous young plant.

New shoots that now frame my face in little wispy tufts, too fine to curl, too short to blend into the rest of my hair.

Made all the worse by my nighttime shower.

Come morning, my hair having dried overnight, I look like a pubescent lion.

There are not enough bobby pins to save me.

Suddenly I’m finding more than a scrunch and go is required and frankly, I just can’t be bothered.

Of course if I skipped this nighttime shower, the problem may be solved.

But I couldn’t do it. I can’t do it. I’ll never do it.

Bad hair be dammed.

I look like this, only better.

At least I know my sheets are clean.