If January was a poem, it'd go something like this: skint, spotty, gym-sore and sweaty; smarting liver, sodden weather, surviving on spaghetti.
Luckily, it's possible to avoid this alliteration abomination by following our handy guide to avoiding the January blues.
Here's what to pack to get through the month.
1 Some decent snacks
Want to know the only thing more depressing than doing a January sugar detox? January itself. Let me extol the ways that this is the worst month of all: it is almost never light, and when it is it's possible to see what the previous month of rich food and lack of nutrients can do to the skin. Small children back away at bus stops from your dry, peeling face; local tanorexics gather to bask in the reflected moon beams that shine from your few uncovered parts. It may seem like a prudent solution to ban all sugar from the diet, but what happens then is that you find yourself snapping at colleagues over them deviating from the office Pantone chart of preferred tea colour when making a round of beverages. Don't be a hot drink Nazi. Have a Snickers. (Other chocolate bars are available.)
2 Blisters patches and/or plasters
A perennially popular Christmas gift choice is shoes, but this doesn't mean that we learn every year that 'roadtesting' them to work/school/run errands/chase around maniac children in January is impractical at best and up there with tooth- and ear-ache as the Worst Body Pain Ever™ at worst. Combine this with the battering feet take over the party season from high heels and you've got some yourself some sorry looking trotters. If you don't have a overindulgent parent willing to sit next to the fire over a number of evenings massaging shoe leather by hand until soft - which is just a fable What To Pack For has heard of and absolutely didn't happen to her as a bratty child - then plasters are your best friend. Which beats being forced to discard shoes and pad around in just socks at work, picking up the fragments of souls lost in the building over the years in the process. Party Feet, from Scholl, should do the job.
3 A suit-pyjama hybrid
The thing about trying to return to normalised eating after pure Elvis-ing it over the festive is that not only is it really boring but the stomach has been fooled into believing that it's perfectly acceptable to scarf a full selection box before 9am. Lunch, once something to look forward to, is now a complex matter of balance: a sandwich isn't enough, but add something else and the snowball snack effect comes into play and the result isn't quite death by long-term peanut butter sandwich addiction, but it's close. Allay feelings of guilt about weight gained over the festive by wearing something to work that won't constrict every day activities, like the glorious Legendary Suitjamas - silk blend pyjamas that double as a suit. Even better, the company has pledged to plant a tree for every pair sold, which brings a whole new meaning to the term 'got wood' when wearing these bad boys.
4 A fake fur jacket
An item of clothing that feels like hugging a bear in the face but without the danger will never go out of fashion. And much like a bear, the fur jacket has evolved over time considerably from using the animal pelt (never not a funny word) of the '50s, to last decade's synthetic stuff that needed brushing after wet weather to avoid clumping, to the current clutch of pieces inspired by Sully from Monsters Inc (probably). If a lime green shaggy coat doesn't appeal, then take a long hard look in the mirror at yourself because you're dead to What To Pack For, then compromise with this grey version from ASOS which is more wearable thanks to its cropped length and neutral colour but will still add the required Gruffalo zjooz to proceedings.
5 Make-up for hair
In times of red, luxuries are the first to be compromised. So along with sandwiches from Prêt-a-Manger costing over £4 and new stationery, trips to the salon shuffle down the priority list. An alternative is a product new to the market, Hair Wow, which is kind of like make-up for hair - powder in multiple colours to be applied directly on to hair from a brush covering greys and harsh roots. The desired effect is pretty good (though use sparingly - think VIP guest rather than David Gest) but the eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that this substitute for hair-dye costs approximately three times more than a box packet of dye. Please remember that What To Pack For prides itself on being a high-end style column and takes its civic duty of bringing expensive and largely superfluous goods to the attention of the masses* extremely seriously. *Excluding redheads, who are inexplicably not catered for in Hair Wow's shade chart.
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