Lipstick Armour: The Beauty That Hid My Alcoholism
Lady Danger & Learning To Feel Powerful
People often assume beauty is vanity.
For me, beauty became armour.
Long before recovery, beauty was one of the few things that made me feel powerful when I felt powerless inside.
I remember falling in love with a lipstick shade called Lady Danger by MAC.
Bold.
Dramatic.
Powerful.
The kind of lipstick that made you stand taller when you wore it.
I loved how glamorous it made me feel. How a lipstick could somehow create confidence that I often struggled to feel naturally.
Beauty fascinated me.
Maybe because it felt transformative.
Maybe because it gave me control.
Or maybe because when life feels chaotic, changing the outside can feel easier than confronting what is happening inside.
Lip Filler, Glamour & Emotional Armour
At eighteen, I got my lips done for the first time.
Just one syringe.
Done by a surgeon.
And honestly?
It made absolutely no difference.
They used Juvederm, which was considered a more premium filler and something I had been excited about at the time.
I paid £300 for that first experience and remember feeling disappointed afterwards, not because of the product itself, but because I felt it had not been placed in a way that made much visible difference.
I remember sitting with family afterwards and asking:
“Can you tell what’s different about me?”
Nobody noticed.
Not one person.
At the time, I found it hilarious.
I had imagined some dramatic transformation.
Instead, I looked exactly the same.
But that first appointment opened a door.
Nail Armour: What My nails said about me
And then there were my nails.
When I was eighteen, I started getting them done every three weeks.
At first, acrylic nails.
Long.
Polished.
Part of the image I was building for myself.
Later, living in Spain, I moved more towards gel nails. Partly because acrylics were harder to find in my area.
But nails became much more than beauty maintenance to me.
They became symbolic.
I remember being younger, sitting on a beach in the Seychelles, when a man sitting nearby said something to me that stayed in my mind.
“You can tell a lot about someone by looking at their nails.”
And strangely, that always stuck with me.
Because over time, I realised there was truth in it.
When my nails were chipped, neglected or a complete state, usually I was too.
When they looked polished and cared for, I often felt more together.
More stable.
More myself.
The nails became another ritual.
Another form of maintenance.
Not simply vanity.
But part of how I held myself together.
Part of my image.
Part of my confidence.
And perhaps another layer of lipstick armour too.
But there was another side to those appointments that I rarely spoke about.
Getting my nails done could feel embarrassing at times.
Not because of the nails themselves.
But because my hands shook.
Sometimes badly.
At the time, I was often withdrawing from alcohol or trying to steady myself through the aftermath of drinking.
And the shaking was something I became painfully aware of.
I remember sitting in nail salons feeling self-conscious, trying to keep my hands still while silently hoping nobody would notice.
Sometimes people would ask:
“Are you cold?”
And I would smile and say:
“Yes, I am.”
It felt easier than explaining the truth.
Looking back now, those shaky hands told a story I was still trying to hide.
The polished nails looked put together.
Controlled.
Beautiful.
But underneath them, my body was often struggling in ways I did not yet fully understand.
And perhaps that is why nails became so emotional for me.
Because they represented more than beauty.
They represented the version of myself I was desperately trying to hold together.
Botox, Thailand & Hiding Pain
Later, while living in Thailand, I entered a world where beauty clinics were everywhere.
Bangkok felt filled with aesthetics.
Beautiful clinics.
Luxury waiting rooms.
Treatments advertised almost casually.
And at twenty-three, Botox entered my life.
People assume Botox is always about vanity.
For me, it felt deeper than that.
I did not want people reading my face.
I did not want my exhaustion, sadness or inner chaos to be visible.
I wanted control over what people saw.
While alcoholism quietly grew in the background of my life, beauty became something I could manage.
Something predictable.
Something I could perfect.
Botox became routine.
Every three to six months.
A regular appointment.
A strange form of maintenance while emotionally I was anything but maintained.
I used a South Korean brand and became increasingly fascinated by aesthetics.
During COVID, beauty treatments had become such a regular part of my life that needles no longer intimidated me.
Beauty had almost become ritualistic.
Part therapy.
Part routine.
And part emotional armour.
Unfortunately, later living in Spain became more restrictive in terms of accessing some of the products and brands I had previously been familiar with.
And then came lip filler.
I fell in love with it.
The volume.
The glamour.
The transformation.
Eventually I had more done elsewhere.
And unlike my first experience, this time I could see the difference.
Beauty fascinated me not because I hated myself, but because it had started becoming emotional protection.
A mask.
A ritual.
A distraction.
And it was not only Botox or lipstick.
I hid behind my eyes too.
For a long period of my life, I wore coloured contact lenses.
Not simply because I liked the look of them — although I did — but because they changed something about how I felt when I looked in the mirror.
I chose lenses that made my naturally brown eyes appear larger and different.
More dramatic.
More doll-like.
More protected somehow.
Looking back now, I realise beauty was not always about changing how others saw me.
Sometimes it was about changing how exposed I felt.
I remember one moment that stayed with me.
My driving instructor looked at me and said:
“I can’t read you because of your contact lenses.”
And that comment stuck.
At the time, I laughed it off.
But years later, I understood why those words lingered with me.
Because perhaps that was partly the point.
I did not want to be read.
I did not want people looking into my eyes and knowing what I was carrying inside.
The contact lenses became another layer.
Another version of lipstick armour.
Beautiful.
Glamorous.
And quietly protective.
And it was not only my eyes that changed.
My hair became part of the transformation too.
I went through a period where I constantly changed it.
Brunette.
Blonde.
Back to brunette.
Then blonde again.
Even black.
And then back again.
Looking back now, I can see there was something restless about that time in my life.
I was always searching for something.
A different version of myself.
A reinvention.
A fresh start.
I changed my appearance repeatedly and went through what felt like a chaotic period of reinvention, constantly altering how I looked on the outside while feeling increasingly unsettled within.
At the time, I convinced myself it was simply experimentation.
And part of it was.
I genuinely loved beauty, glamour and transformation.
But I also think there was something deeper happening.
Because when you do not feel comfortable in your own skin, changing the outside can sometimes feel easier than sitting with what is happening underneath.
The hair became another chapter of lipstick armour.
Another disguise.
Another attempt to feel different.
Or perhaps to feel better.
When Beauty Became Camouflage
At the same time, I became increasingly obsessed with achieving a certain figure.
Big boobs.
A small waist.
An ideal version of femininity I had built in my mind.
At twenty-five, while heavily struggling with addiction, I made a decision that was never properly planned.
My second breast augmentation.
And unlike my first surgery — which had been carefully researched for a year with Dr Van Look in Belgium and thoughtfully considered — this one felt impulsive.
Chaotic.
The complete opposite of who I had been before addiction.
Cosmetic Surgery During Addiction
The surgery itself became one of the most frightening experiences of my life.
I remember waking unexpectedly with a tube still in my throat.
Not in recovery.
Still on the operating table.
My tolerance to substances had become so high that I remember needing heavy pain relief afterwards and feeling completely overwhelmed by the physical experience.
The pain was overwhelming.
Far beyond anything I experienced with my first surgery.
There were drains.
Blood collection bottles I had never needed before.
Hospitalisation.
And a recovery that felt endless.
Unlike my first surgery, where I recovered relatively smoothly, this experience was different.
Harder.
More frightening.
And eventually I needed further treatment because recovery — the part I had underestimated — is often the most important stage of all.
The truth is difficult to admit.
I was drinking heavily.
I was not caring for myself properly.
And my body paid the price.
The surgery itself had not been planned in the careful way my first one had been.
My first breast augmentation had involved research.
Patience.
A full year of planning.
The second felt fuelled by chaos rather than clarity.
Beauty After Chaos
Looking back now, I can see something I could not see then.
Beauty was never the problem.
I still love beauty.
Still love aesthetics.
Still love glamour.
But during alcoholism, beauty sometimes became camouflage.
Lipstick armour.
A polished exterior protecting pain I did not yet know how to face.
And perhaps that is why this subject feels so personal to write about.
Because behind the Lady Danger lipstick, the Botox, nails and the glamour…
there was still a girl quietly struggling underneath.
Photos of my first boobjob at 400cc…I had 800cc in Thailand which was the largest size available and ended up a 32G when measured at Marks and Spencer however I do not wear bras that large.
SO BEAUTIFUL & your back story will take anyone’s breath away and has nothing to do with your undeniable physical beauty…
There are A-List actors , actresses and models around the world that seek out SOBER Coaches that are paid upwards of $1000 a day and once your story gets out there, let me tell you Kimberly your phone is going to ring off the hook. Though there is a stigma in the AA program we do it all for fun and for free?
Only the real truth is there’s a component that comes along with finding someone like you and people are happy to pay to be restored to sanity.
Has anyone heard of Tony Robbins? Hello, you deserve to be paid especially as a SOBER/Spiritual Healer & Adviser 😇🙏🏻❤️😇