The 2017 UK Blog Awards: Please Vote for Not Dressed As Lamb

I have to start this post with an apology and say that yes, I am a hypocrite… A year ago I vowed I wouldn’t enter the 2017 UK Blog Awards.

But here I am, asking if you, my dear readers, would be good enough to vote for me yet again. Your support earlier this year for the 2016 awards was amazing – I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciated it (especially as I was shortlisted as a result of your voting and wore my dream Cinderella-style outfit to the awards ceremony and felt like a fairy princess for a night).

So why the change of heart?

When the voting opened for the last UK Blog Awards, it allowed for daily voting, and many of us [bloggers] were really cross (and embarrassed) about it. It meant you either had to badger people every single day for nearly three weeks in order to stand a chance of being nominated – or you didn’t, and were then up against bloggers who were prepared to badger people for votes every day.

I’m glad to say that this year, it’s changed – I’d like to think that myself and another nominee at this year’s awards, Michelle of The Barefaced Chic, had something to do with the change… We spoke to the organiser at the ceremony and begged her to change it to one person, one vote.

And our intervention made a difference – it’s now one vote per email address, which is more than fair. A year ago I said I wouldn’t enter in 2017 as I wasn’t prepared to badger people to vote for me every day again, but the new voting system made me change my mind, as did one other thing…

The awards ceremony was so much fun, and such a great celebration of blogging in the UK (not just fashion but all genres from travel to arts & culture, dating, health & social care and more), that we said it would be a shame not to attend again in 2017.

And so I was made to promise on the night (a champagne-fuelled pinky swear, I hasten to admit) that I would enter again, if only to get at least one 40+ blogger shortlisted, to support them on the night, and to have a great evening out.

So if you’ve been good enough to read this far and wade through my pathetically (un?)apologetic ramblings as to why I’ve entered again, could I possibly ask that you please vote for me here to get shortlisted again? It’s super quick and easy.

If you’re feeling generous, you can vote once with every email address you have. And if you need a good reason to vote for me, do it not just for the fact that you like my blog (which I hope you do, and if you don’t, well… why are you still reading?!), but to ensure there’s some representation of the 40+ community in the fashion and beauty category.

Many brands whose market is the older woman still use younger bloggers to promote their products, and we need to make sure older bloggers are recognised as being on equal terms as the 20-somethings. A few of my fellow Over40Collective members have entered as well – if we can get just ONE of us shortlisted it’d be a great victory for 40+ bloggers. We want to show more brands that older woman can achieve great things in a youth-biased industry.

And if one of us were to actually win… Well, I’m not quite sure what we’d do. We can’t do it without your support though – so please, please, show everyone that older women rock and VOTE FOR ME!