If I have been conspicuous by my absence of late it’s because I’ve started a job.  A rather lovely job as it transpires, providing maternity cover for the Beauty and Health Director at Vogue, Nicola Moulton.  I’m not going to write too much about it - otherwise every day at work will feel like another [...]

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Today I said goodbye to a dear friend.  The fact that she was 96, although an incredible achievement, was in some ways neither here nor there because Alicia Symondson was never defined by her age.
We often think as a society about how we can grow old gracefully; look younger; act younger, as if it’s some [...]

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Just got back from a week in LA - with a hacking cough and possible sinus infection.  ”You can’t be ill,” said my son on the phone.  ”It’s really sunny there!”  But I was.
I can’t blame it on LA.  Two days before I arrived I had a rather suspicious sore throat which came and went [...]

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Spa reviews.  Allow me to let you in on a secret.  The spa reviewer starts with the best intentions.  She vows that this spa review will be different, devoid of cliches, she won’t even go near the word “relaxing” let alone that bete noir of spa reviews: “pampering”.
But somewhere between the therapists’s hands landing on [...]

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We were in Paris, the six of us, myself and the beauty editors from ELLE, Grazia, Stylist, The Times (Saturday) and of course VOGUE, waiting for the MAC spring summer 2011 make-up presentation, a huge event that involves jetting in make-up artists and 115 beauty editors from all over the world, a veritable United Nations [...]

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A while back, in a rash moment of introspection and self-absorption, probably somewhere between reading Mariela Frostrup’s problem page and a little over-sharing at my hairdressers,  I decided I needed to give up some of the fantasies that have motored me through life so far.  If I hadn’t already achieved them and wasn’t about to [...]

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Vidal Sassoon is that rare thing, a presence in our lives whether we had the good fortune to go to one of his salons or not.
Aged four, I had a short bob with a wonky fringe, probably cut by my mother, probably inspired by Mary Quant.
Then there were the brown shampoo bottles with the silver writing [...]

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Perfume launch.  Yawn.  At least, that’s how I used to think, back in the day when I had several a month to go to.  Being freelance means you get to pick and choose as you’re not under any pressure from advertisers to attend on behalf of your magazine, duty-bound to write the requisite number of [...]

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I splurged recently. As in, actually went out and parted with cash on moisturisers, which as a beauty writer still privileged enough to receive a regular supply of samples through the post, is probably the first time .. in a long time?  in years? Possibly EV-AH?
It all started with my friend’s skin: Sarah had a [...]

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We were never allowed to use the word “nice” at school.  It was tantamount to using the word “lovely”, a lazy way of saying, well, “nice” things, when there was a whole world of adjectives out there just dying to be picked in its place.  ”Nice” was boring, when you could use, say “pleasant” or [...]

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