Real life Miss Universe...

Hi lovelies. I know it's been 2 months since my last blog post, I was so enthusiastic about it in the beginning and really wanted to post as often as I could but then a lot of exciting things happened in such a short space of time that unfortunately my wee blog became less of a priority.

So as most of you may know, the most exciting thing that happened to me in 2015 and was being crowned Miss Universe Ireland, then just 4 days later jetting off to Vegas to compete at Miss Universe (or real life Miss Universe as I've been calling it) ha! Now, a month on it all feels like a dream, so I'm just going to do a short post on what I've gained from the whole experience in the hope that it encourages any girls thinking about entering a pageant, to do so!

SO- On the third of December, after having only 4 days to prepare, I jetted of to Las Vegas to meet the other 80 girls competing for the title of Miss Universe- when I say prepare I mean I spent most of my time in the bath scrubbing off a spray tan and the rest of the time trying to convince myself that this was all actually happening. (On that note, if anyone has any tips for removing fake tan- PLEASE let me know, it's the bane of my life!!)  

At first when I arrived I felt completely overwhelmed by it all, I was going to spend the next 3 weeks sharing a room with a complete stranger and the rest of my time would be spent with literally the world's most beautiful girls. Thoughts going through my head were, am I going to have to wash my hair every day now in case my room mate judges me? Are my pyjama's pretty enough? Do I snore? What if she kills me in my sleep? Haaa.

But as the days went on I realised that those girls I had felt intimidated by on that first day, would be the same girls I would tear up saying goodbye to on the last.
The main point I'd like to get across in this post is that the 'pageant' girls we see in films like Miss Congeniality are in fact NOTHING like the intelligent, strong minded women I met, every one of them had their own personal statement and reason for being there, the roster was made up of doctors, teachers, journalists and models to name a few.

I have to commend the Miss Universe organisation for that, the whole team are set on reforming stereotypes and making sure that their Miss Universe is one of substance, with inner beauty being seen as just as important as their physical beauty.

This seemed to be the influence of the organisations new owners, WME IMG- this year was the change over year, the pageant will no longer be owned by Donald Trump. Obviously I hadn't been at Miss Universe before so I couldn't fully appreciate the change but the feeling amongst the long term staff and crew was that it was the best possible thing to happen to the pageant. Which is another reason I would encourage girls to enter, IMG is the biggest modeling agency in the world, so even if you don't consider yourself 'pageant material' you never know what it could lead to!

Finally, although I wish I had more time to prepare, I wouldn't change my experience! It was amazing from start to finish, I got to work with so many talented photographers, stylists, choreographers, I was interviewed on E! News, Access Hollywood, Fox and for Marie Clare. It really was a dream.

Through it I've learned to be confident and comfortable in myself, I went over feeling extremely conscious of my height, (being one of the smallest girls ever to make it to the final) but I soon learned that even the 5'9/10 amazonian goddess' all had their own insecurities too.

Oh and I also learned the green tea and lemon must be good for something because it is literally all we drank over there haa.

I hope this helps anyone considering entering Miss Universe, and doesn't bore everyone else to death. X

Two of the world's most beautiful girls, inside & out X