A big wadge of this post is free but later on it’s for paid subscribers. If you want to get an idea of what’s behind the paywall, I made this free to read earlier this week:

Living in Rutshire

What’s going on with the energy around our cottage I do not know, but over the last week we’ve had a swarm of bees, a mum duck with two ducklings, a heron just standing the stream like it was a perfectly normal thing, and now yellow wagtails have taken up residence by the stream at the end of our garden. Can’t be certain but I think it’s because our neighbours have covered their new Tesla in a protective tent while they go on a three week cruise, keeping the bad vibes contained.

Wagtail watch:

The first best thing about the wagtails is obviously how they shake their asses, but how they fly comes a close second; flipping and looping and sometimes going completely vertical. They’re catching bugs in midair but it looks like dancing. They’re also brave as anything; I watched one start on a squirrel and win! Like honey badgers, that attack full grown lions for no real reason.

The accuracy of this made me howl:

It’s been just over a year since I moved to the Cotswolds from Hackney. I was always determined to find joy in London, but it the end it became a a daily quest and actual toil at times. Where things like yoga, breathwork, meditation, sound baths used to be fun things I did that enhanced my life, they became crucial for survival in a city that had felt increasingly hostile since 2020. Perhaps it had always been a bit of a mean place, I could just no longer be arsed with it.

I’ve not been lobotomised since the Gloucestershire move, not yet quite full Britt Ekland in The Wicker Man. My inner dial naturally hovers around neurotic in a way that I find charming, possibly adorable but that probably pisses everyone close to me off more than I realise. Monica meets Carrie Bradshaw, now with added birdsong.

For reference they film Rivals here, it’s that bucolic place. Rutshire minus the extra marital romping. Or rather if it’s happening they’re certainly not inviting me. Thank God actually.

The thing I love most about country living is that joy materialises right in front of me suddenly and often. I have found things like the light spilling across the valley and using the Merlin app for birds more mind altering than the mushrooms I accidentally took too many of when we first arrived, when Mother Nature spoke to me. Does anyone want to know more about that I wonder.

But yes pockets of joy save the day in that I can be thinking about (insert world horror here) and suddenly oh look there’s a robin with a twig in its mouth. It doesn’t always yank me from the depths of my thoughts, but it does blast me into the present and adds a filter of ‘God, I am so lucky’. On that subject, someone told me at the weekend that the reasons robins follow humans around is that we disturb the soil making it easier for them to find worms. I’ll tell you now what I told them: this can’t possibly be the case for me, it’s because I’m a secret princess and they love me.

I don’t love being a living cliché, a smug I-moved-out-of-London-and-it-worked person. I had my little freak out a few months in - what is my personality if not ‘London’? A year later I still find myself adding ‘It used to be Hackney though!’ whenever a stranger asks me where I live in order they know I’m fascinating, and I bought this wall plate (inspired by ) recently as a reminder to chill tf out about myself:

Still, it was a big risk moving somewhere on a completely vibes based basis and it paid off. If any of you were looking for a sign this is it. Jump and the net will appear.

Another great bird

The thing about my mate is she the funniest person to have graced Last One Laughing but she’s also an amazing writer. Her Substack is full of profound insight, it’s inspiring in its self awareness actually, and there were bits in this that made me laugh out loud in the Pret I was sitting in. I honestly screamed at this bit about her healer:

It's me, Lou Sanders.

I Ran Away From A Spiritual Pilgrimage

I’d been in a hot church all day with people wailing, singing and doing experiments that didn’t seem to work - none of it chimed with me. I’d just had a short session with the town’s magic lady, where, if anything, the pain in my heel had got worse. Funny that I have a pain in the place that is literally called heel. And it is not healing. Funny yes but…

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2 months ago · 156 likes · 33 comments · Lou Sanders

Rivals snacks

Things I love: crisps, 80s dinner party dishes, Rivals on Disney+. The new snack range from Waitrose was made for me, it’s funny and irreverent and entirely in the spirit of things. The Waitrose itself is down the road from where Jilly Cooper lived, and whenever I walk in it strikes me that she would’ve loved it.

Here I am in the car park, you need to imagine I’m naked:

Sophia Money-Coutts has done a far more comprehensive product round up than I will, I plan to take her warning very seriously and get the Peach Melba ice cream before it sells out.

The thousand island prawn sandwich gets four stars: saucy and spicy and the lettuce is chopped, which makes the experience of eating a public sandwich far less sloppy and repulsive. Not the best sandwich on this newsletter today, stay tuned! Boyfriend wasn’t so convinced by the Scotch egg one, which pertains to be posh but that he insisted tasted like a dirty Shell garage sandwich, exactly like Sophia said! I pointed out to him that perhaps the filthiness is the point, hello this is Jilly Cooper and perhaps it works on many levels, but his response was that it also had ‘tomato jam’ in it which makes any sandwich a write off. Sugary and stomach churning as one of David Tennant’s lascivious grins.

The best thing are the Bloody Mary prawn cocktail crisps, which is like saying Korean-Skincare-Nora-Ephron-cat, that’s how much it chimes with me. I don’t have a picture with a packet because genuinely no one can catch me when they’re in my hands. Tangy and decadent and so moreish I’ve been back three times for more.

A tool

I have never had a garden before that wasn’t cracked concrete and a rusty fire pit the people before us couldn’t be arsed to pack. So things that may be really obvious to other people - flowers growing back when I’ve cut them for instance - seem so extraordinary, almost alien-like. My energy about the whole thing is very ‘Richard E Grant' goes to the Oscars’, i.e. might pass out in wonder while everyone around takes it in their stride.

This weekend I spent hours taking up weeds with this. It cost less than fifteen pounds, works like a charm and is putting-finger-into-untouched-cleansing-balm satisfying. I almost want more weeds to grow so I can use it some more.

Cordial

This Gimlet Drinks offering is the ideal accompaniment to your Rivals crisps. Add sparkling water and lemon (and your creatine). Sweet, sharp and summery.

Dresses

I’ve seen three pieces this week giving wedding guest fashion advice. Below is my favourite, by . All lovely, all reasonably priced:

MUMISH

14 gorgeous wedding guest dresses

Much discussion about mum bags lately. In the FT style pages Monica Ainley observed that Call It By Your Name’s bandana print totes are what all the chic mums of Paris are using. Marie Claire has touted Minicoton’s stroller bag as the cult carry-all to know. I’d quite like to shove all of my mum stuff in…

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9 days ago · 28 likes · 2 comments · Frankie

I used to buy new dresses for weddings but I am wiser now and know I’ll never want to wear the dress again because too many people have seen me in it and put pictures on social media. Shallow!

Instead, I always rent something from HURR. You can hire for e.g. a Reformation dress - which is basically wedding guest uniform at this stage - for around £50, though some lenders will try to take the piss. No hun, I will not be borrowing anything for over a hundred quid that doesn’t also clean my carpets. Incidentally I prefer HURR to ByRotation as you can rent something that’s managed by the company. I’ve had a couple of experiences with ByRotation where the lender just changed their mind a couple of days before and their wrists were left unslapped.

J- Beauty

One of the best things about moving to the country was that I could finally afford to go on the holiday of my dreams to Japan. And dreamlike it was. We meditated with Buddhist Monks in the mountains. We griddled Okonomiyake in a restaurant by the river watching Geisha glide across the bridge. We watched Sumo, we did karaoke in skyscrapers, were buried under micro pigs and got served omelettes by robots. But mostly - we went shopping.

Japanese skincare makes me feel relieved. This is because the onus tends to be on preservation rather than transformation, skin health and resilience over expensive quick fixes. Like everything else in Japan, the ethos behind the products are gentle to the point of almost moving. I’m becoming increasingly frustrated with youth as a marketing tool, and the idea that there is skincare that doesn’t say ‘this will make time reverse’ rather ‘this will make what you’ve got look its best’ feels radically kind in an industry that feeds on low self esteem.

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This was originally a post from 2025 that I’ve updated and made free to read. Another fancy newsletter is imminent. It will be mostly for paid subscribers, so why not get one step ahead and….

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May Day happened, summer has been heralded. There is still time to prep before we are slowly pressed down into the pavement by the big hand of heat. Get your parasol, get your garden set, get your SPF and for God’s sake have your deodorant ready, think of the children.

I am someone who is sweaty all the time regardless of outside temperature. When it’s cold and I enter a heated interior - the tube, a shop, my house - my body yells ‘TF IS GOING ON’ and down it pours. When it’s hot it’s as though I am constantly emitting water, forever wet. Simone Weil spoke about resistance to reality as a useless battle, and how it’s a superhuman achievement to recognise reality and thereby accept. In the spirit of this, allow me to to exclaim that from late May to mid September I will look like Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids when she eats that grey meat and everyone is shitting in the bridal shop.

So what else was there to do but drop over £100 in search of the ultimate natural deodorant? I know I know, they don’t stop you sweating, what we need is some sort of polyfilla to close every pore in our underarms. But for me, antiperspirants don’t work well enough to justify the scariness of aluminium. I cannot stress enough that I am NOT a doctor and that nobody should listen to me about anything, ever. What I am though is someone who prefers natural things near her body. Cashmere, cats, nice salads, deodorants made from a block of white mush.

The trick is to manage expectations. A natural deodorant is not going to stop you sweating, it will just make it smell nicer when you do. But honestly, Mitchum or Dove or whatever won’t stop you sweating either because if your body is overheating it will just keep going until the antiperspirant slides off.

If you are presenting to your CEO in your £200 silk shirt that’s a different story. Wear the Driclor, it works. But otherwise, there are some lovely natural products on the market that don’t come with health concerns. Besides which some are very fancy, which is our remit, and many scents are now a leap up from ‘powder soft’ or ‘linen fresh’.

Least messy / most soothing

I bought Necessaire deodorant gel because I didn’t look at the pictures and thought it was an actual gel (interesting!) but it’s a roll on (boring). But figured hey, it smells of nice Eucalyptus and is very low effort.

I often get rashes and irritation on my underarms in the summer, and it wasn’t until months after I started using it that I realised how hydrated and soft they now were. This is presumably down to the hyaluronic and peptides. It clearly works. It’s also clear, so will not leave white marks on your clothes the way the others will.

The one with the best PR

Salt & Stone have a creamy offering in Santal & Vetiver. Every posh magazine wangs on about this brand because it looks so chic for something as undignified as underarms, and everyone loves santal (thanks Le Labo).

I don’t though.

It took a good long while for me to realise what the problem was, but when I did there was no going back. To me, this deodorant smells of BO. You won’t be able to unsmell that, even if you quite like it. When I was at drama school, the boys (not all, not all) used to do a physical theatre or dance class in regulation black clothing, then put them in the locker afterwards and not get them out again til the following week. This deodorant to me smells of that.

It also melts off very easily, so the santal will cling to all the underarms on your clothes and follow you around like a smelly wannabe actor.

The best thing about it is the price - £12 for a little one so if you do like santal they don’t listen to me and give it a go.

Best Scent

Unless you’re living on Mars, you’ll know AKT have this market in a chokehold. You can’t even search for their competitors on Google without this brand coming up first, it’s got a ‘pick me choose me’ energy which is hardly surprising given it was founded by theatre actors (I can say this, I am one).

The paste is claylike, intended to absorb perspiration, with a powdery finish. You have to blob it into your fingers then rub it on your underarm which is unnecessary drudgery.

The schtick with AKT is that it’s the darling of actors everywhere, everyone on the West End and Broadway uses it donchaknow! So I thought I’d wear it to an ADR session. ADR is when you stand in a sound booth watching yourself in a telly show that’s been made but hasn’t come out yet. So far so torturous! Then, you have to rerecord bits of your dialogue that the sound didn’t capture properly, making sure it syncs exactly, while people watch and scrutinise you. If you’ve ever watched a film or telly show & thought ‘god that sounds wooden’ it was probably ADR.

Fifteen minutes into the session and I was dripping, actually wet and had to excuse myself to wipe down in the loos. This is a deodorant that definitely works for a limited time only, but once it’s over it’s over.

If you keep topping it up it’s great. The scent is definitely the most expensive smelling one, a lot of Neroli coming through. There is no denying that the branding is gorgeous, the matte colours chic and cheerful.

Best all rounder

Last year Wild refillable deodorant was everywhere. But Wild is a nightmare to refill. After my fourth YouTube search of of ‘refill Wild deodorant’ I was curious to know whether Fussy is easier, and it is, you just push it in. You can now buy it in supermarkets or Holland and Barrett. I got mine in Waitrose while searching for the new Rivals snack range (to be discussed in a newsletter later this week).

It’s extremely reasonably priced. £12 for the case which has deodorant in it already, then when it runs out you pay £4ish for a refill. I think it’s the best in terms of actual sweat protection. It also smells great - I’m not normally a lover of a coconut scent but this smells natural and not at all like Malibu, which is how everything coconut usually smells to me.

And the ‘Don’t Bother’ award goes to…

Uni lists its ingredients as ‘Green Seaweed, Holy Basil and Lady Thistle’ who I think are all competing in Drag Race UK this season?

Not for me, this one. Sticky and uncomfortable unless I rubbed it in with my hands - not my job. Wasn’t noticeably better than any competitors, and at THIRTY TWO POUNDS I’m afraid someone in the Uni office is quite simply smoking crack.

Have I missed any? Pop it in the comments!

Interested to know any feelings on the antiperspirant v deodorant debate. And if you really can’t stand to live without aluminium - FINE - it’s Mitchum all the way.

Love,

Before I launch into my favourite subject - when celebrity culture meets the beauty industry - I wanted to shout out Beltane (Mayday) on Friday, something that I will be celebrating as a bona fide hedge witch show-your-butthole-to-the-sun person. (I’m not really the latter, I just obviously find it very funny, especially the people doing it indoors with sun lamps. I also see how they might be on to something! Thirty seconds is the equivalent to a full day of sunlight with your clothes on, that’s just good time management)

Annnnnyway in a world where it’s very easy to freak out about the robots taking over, I think it’s important to celebrate anything that goes 'nature is amazing, aren’t we lucky’. I’m not religious but Paganism, the most ancient form of spirituality, is the one that makes the most sense to me in 2026. Professor Ronald Hutton, the granddaddy of modern Paganism, wrote this fabulous piece about why it’s on the rise. I’ll break it down briefly:

• Feminism: Goddesses instead of or as well as Gods, Priestesses as well as or instead of Priests.

• Environmentalism: a divinity that comes from the natural world.

• An antidote to shame: Like many religions its messaging focuses on spiritual growth, but without sins or scriptures or commandments or deities that might turn malevolent and smite you. It believes in the goodness of people, and as a general rule the message is: if it doesn’t hurt anyone else, you should go for it, and if it doesn’t work, you can learn from it. Seek pleasure, indulge in sensuality.

People sometimes freak out about all this like I’m ordering them to strip and and run into the woods forever, but you can obviously also enjoy Space NK, have a job and live in the real world at the same time as appreciating these rituals and celebrations, you won’t turn into a tree. I would encourage everyone on Friday to celebrate in some way, even if that’s just getting outside and naming five things you can see that a person didn’t make. Kate Bush was into it!

If you really want to lean in, and why wouldn’t you, is here to remind us all that it’s peak Britain-is-mad season, with a tremendous list of the most eccentric events across the UK. Worm charming! Hedgehog rolling! I love it when people let their freak flag fly. I would add to this the Gloucester cheese roll on the 25th May, where scores of people chase a wheel of cheese (double Gloucester) down an almost vertical incline and quite a few break their legs. I will be attending though not participating thanks, I’d rather show my hole to the sun.

A few fancy bits this week:

’s piece about the key to a happy marriage being low expectations was utterly fascinating. I do so enjoy reading about people having a nice time in their relationships these days. As she puts it, marriage is ‘supposed to help you get the thing, not be the thing’. Did you know women file for around 70% of divorces? It makes total sense to me given how we’re conditioned to view marriage as fulfilment in a way that men aren’t.

The Remains of the Day was one of those movies that passed me by, so I watched it and was basically inconsolable afterwards (compliment). I think of all the human emotions, the one that devastates me the most is longing.

As a self employed person I love being told what to do and find it extremely relaxing. These hacks for life by really hit the spot, particularly the zip lock bags on holiday and the weekly mop up hour.

I always look forward to ’s Joy Parade, but gasped out loud at this week’s forget me nots.

And then there was this piece by , so generous and kind hearted it made me cry on the train. It’s about dating as a fat lady, which I am not. But I found myself reading it wishing that someone had told me all this when I was a teenager and yearning to be conventionally beautiful, painfully aware that I was not and perhaps would never be and assuming I would never be loved as a result. I know that’s not true now obviously, and I no longer see beauty in those terms. But teenage Rebecca cared, she really did.

And so to beauty business.

I don’t really know who Hailey Bieber is other than someone’s wife / a woman who always looks quite sticky. As I wrote that it occurred to me that:

a) I spent a significant proportion of my life being referred to privately and publicly as ‘the girlfriend of….’, then ‘the ex girlfriend of….’ so I should know better, and

b) perhaps my dismissal of Hailey B has to do with the fact that I still don’t view model as a proper job, rather a well paid privilege. I watched and adored The Super Models on Apple ok, I know the lifestyle isn’t all George Michael music videos and caviar on private jets (it is quite a bit of that though isn’t it). But I’m trying to be nicer to the pretty people, not least because my judgement is of course wafer-thinly veiled jealously. Hailey Bieber has got it and she’s flaunting it, good for her!

Celebrities launching beauty brands is to the 2020s what soap stars releasing a single was to the early 2000s. You groan at its inevitability until something comes along that truly slaps. Rihanna’s Fenty Gloss Bomb, Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty Positive Light concealer, Adam Rickett’s I Breathe Again.

In this, Rhode is the beauty equivalent to Holly Valance’s Kiss Kiss. Deliberately positioned as a cooler alternative, with the implication that if you don’t like it maybe you’re not sexy enough. Rhode’s branding is Y2K/Epcot coded, grey-silvers and curved futuristic edges. It’s all very ‘Millennium Bug’ and makes me wonder whether the brown bottles of Aesop are now, like many things I enjoy - winged eyeliner, selfies from above, avocado on toast, saying lol - pure millennial cringe.

While I was researching products to try, I noticed that for someone who is so thin Hailey Bieber sure uses a lot of food imagery. This is especially interesting as one of the range’s USPs is being gluten free.

I feel like this is a relatability thing, in order us normies consider buying products from a person who appears too perfect. Same vibe as when in the early days Britney Spears’ marketing team would get her papped all around town with venti frappuccinos. ‘Wow, I like those too!’

A meandering side note: I read an interesting theory about this once, the positioning of female celebrities as either just like us or better than us. It’s the PR move that separates Taylor Swift (friendship bracelet giver, ladies’ toilets over sharer, would be your bestie if you only knew her) and Beyoncé (goddess, possible illuminati, you know what she wants you to know, get that tacky bracelet away from her), and allows both to coexist free from competition. I find it really interesting that Hailey Bieber, whose aesthetic and Victoria Secret status so clearly belongs in the Beyoncé camp is positioning her brand towards the Taylor Swift ‘just like you’ one. Not only with the marketing but also the price point, which I was shocked to discover is extremely reasonable.

Anyway, this food imagery. Hailey’s Glazed Donut aesthetic is perhaps the most viral beauty trend of the last few years that’s not Kardashian adjacent. If you missed the Glazed Donut phenomenon, it’s basically appearing iridescent and dewy to the point you look like you’re covered in thin icing and would be bothered by flying insects. I’m being disparaging but am a sucker for it. Under the right circumstances it looks youthful and healthy, and is far less challenging to maintain at for e.g. a wedding than a full face of foundation and powder. It is everything I want in a manicure; clean looking, easy to achieve, goes with everything.

What I’m saying is, I quite like her, I quite trust her, so I dropped some dosh on it. Let’s go.

For new subscribers (hello!) the vibe with fancy is I buy it unless otherwise stated. Where applicable, I’ve provided alternatives around the same price point that I believe are better.

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I’ve woken up in a rage and had to write this, well, call to arms I suppose.

We’ve all seen that a public figure who shall we say actively hates women has been granted a platform on Substack. They are somewhere makes vague gesture over there in the pit of despair with the Nazis and fascists that we have to pretend don’t exist to carry on writing and talking about for e.g. creatine. In that way Substack is I suppose a microcosm of our world: if we thought too much about certain things, joy would cease to exist. God only knows what he’s writing about though I’m sure writing is a loose term and that Claude is pas de bourée-ing with him down the yellow brick road of his literary journey.

My point is not about him directly, whatever (being glib to avoid having a breakdown you understand). Nor is it about how we might deal with his being here, our space that feels very feminine in lots of ways. Maybe that’s my bubble/algorithm. No one has to leave on moral grounds, because it’s not our fault, because lots of us make a living on here, and besides if we took a moral stance over every product and service we engage with in our daily life we’d have to go live on a farm in Idaho and become Amish. We all have our own effed up relationship to the patriarchy and far be it from me to say something along the lines of ‘just ignore him’ like he’s a bee at a picnic and not someone who has been indicted with rape and human trafficking.

But.

A few pieces I’ve seen making the rounds suggest that the best way to respond is to challenge him. To get all up in his comment section and argue better than him. To write pieces that prove his arguments invalid, pen is mightier than the sword etc etc. Look, I’m as Maria Von Trapp as they come ok, all for stripping the curtains and making the best of a bad situation. But in this instance, the idea of women actually taking it upon themselves to do more work as a result of Substack’s thinly veiled late stage capitalist insistence on ‘free speech’ is abhorrent to me. Talk about a double, triple shift.

We all have justified rage about this and I can’t tell anyone what to do with it. I don’t know the best solution but I do know it cannot be women rolling up their sleeves and doing more work. If we start actively wading in, the only winner will be the Substack engagement figures.

I hate it when people tell me what to do without a positive suggestion so here’s mine - engage more than ever with everyone else. Leave comments for all your favourites, tell people you love their work, make new friends. A little heart on here costs nothing and is so meaningful to people putting their work out there, just give everyone a like as you scroll and a few restacks as well. Let’s direct the traffic to all the right places.

ANYWAY. It’s a shorter post than usual today because I’m workshopping a play and my brain feels like Julia Child’s turkey, being merrily chucked around, stuffed and with bits sticking out all over the place.

Creatine is on the cusp of being all the rage. Yes yes I know it used to be collagen, and omega 3, and Lion’s mane, and Ashwagandha. But I’ve been having a scoop a day for a few months now and my advice to you is: stock up before they hoik the price up to £50, because they’re about to.

But why do we need this Becks, isn’t it sold in Manosphere coded protein shops, the ones with the big black buckets of whey called things like ‘ass blast’? Well yes, it is sold there. However, owing to the fact that women have less creatine in their bodies than men to begin with, we see results from it much quicker and more potently. And the results are rich and plentiful. Creatine:

• improves cognitive function (laughing because I spelled that wrong), including brain fog and

• improves concentration

• mitigates a rapid bone and muscle loss

• improves mood

• improves sleep quality

And I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone here that all of this makes life before, during and after menopause significantly more manageable.

I started seeing results immediately because I lift weights. It really was as straightforward as: one day I was struggling with something heavy, the next day I took creatine and could lift it. Was it psychosomatic? Who cares? I’ve used it every day since. I don’t know whether it’s the creatine specifically, but I’ve had a very productive, very non-miserable start to the year.

On the subject of weight training - it’s something I resisted for years. This is, pathetically, because while I yearned to be strong of will and mind I did not want to appear strong of body. I did not want to look like Madonna with her tabloid-christened ‘man arms’.

But of course, I was stupid back then. Now having done weights for literally years I know doing so will not make you look like a man. I’ll say it louder:

doing weights will not make you look like a man.

In order to put on bulky muscle you need to be eating a LOT more than you are at the moment. All lifting heavy weights does is turn fat into muscle, it doesn’t add anything. In fact, after a heavy weight session your body carries on burning calories long after you’ve put the weights down, and when you’re resting, for up to FORTY EIGHT HOURS. Doing weights helps you lose weight while you sleep, not that that should necessarily be the aim.

A good way to start if you don’t want to go barging into your local CrossFit is to order these, and do this video with them. I like her because she talks you through it so you don’t need to keep referring to the screen. Sorry the weights are so ugly, kettle bells just are.

I like doing stuff with weights because it’s meditative, you work less hard than you would in a cardio session, and you notice improvement quickly = satisfaction guaranteed. And recently on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast I was delighted to hear queen Gwyneth - who was diagnosed with osteopenia at just 37 - respond to the question of what women should be doing for bone density (which begins to decline in your 30s) with ‘we’re gonna lift heavy weights. Lots of heavy weights’.

The rest of this post, which includes my creatine recommendation, is for paid subscribers. Next week the post will be free to read.

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First thing’s first - a big thank you to Brooklyn Beckham for making the internet once again a great place to be. Pop Culture is BACK people. Not since the Cats trailer dropped have I had so much fun. The difference? Now, Substack exists. Everyone has a hot take, and I for one have put on my big adult bib and eaten all of it up. My take: truth has an energy, and for me that energy was radiating from the words on Brooklyn’s statement. When he was a toddler he thought Hello magazine was their family album ffs. You must go into some sort of existential shock on becoming an adult and discovering that isn’t normal, none of it is. Of course you would be angry. All kids are at some point! Of course you would want to claim your own agency. All kids do!

Huge props especially to and , both of whom I was hoping to hear from and both of whom made me spit out my morning coffee:

Gráinne Maguire

Why Brooklyn Beckham Disowning His Parents Is Our 1969 Moon Landing

I read once that what really made the Moon Landing so important to America was the brief opportunity it gave a battered nation to come together. In a country still reeling from assassinations, protests and the disillusionment of a divisive decade, for a transcendent moment everyone could forget their problems, look up to the sky and unite in collectiv…

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4 months ago · 244 likes · 38 comments · Gráinne Maguire

The Sophist

On Brooklyn Beckham: When 2 Become Mum

David Beckham gave me the glad eye once. I was in a private members’ club in Los Angeles, about six months pregnant, spheroid bump, galactic boobs, little silk dress, I know how to live - but I’m getting ahead of myself here and will revisit that later. First things first: if Victoria Beckham gets cancelled for going a bit Oedipus Becks* then we all need to stock up on…

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4 months ago · 191 likes · 21 comments · The Sophist

On a more personal note, the scandal has caused me to joyfully reconnect with a male friend in LA who - in a move that was extremely pioneering for small town Norfolk - played Posh Spice in our year 5 tribute band. I was Ginger, and he has never let me forget that she went beige-head-to-toe Tory. The meme game between us this week has been extremely strong. Some highlights:

Listen, for what it’s worth, I don’t actually enjoy the concept of piling on the woman in this story. It reeks of misogyny that she’s the one being dragged. I just love memes. I definitely question how much being a nurturing parent was a priority within the Brand Beckham households (Holland Park, Miami, the Cotswolds). But for me, David Beckham is and has always been the worst, the most ick kind of celebrity, one who salivates over attention and has spent his entire career hounding it but pretends it’s embarrassing. This is nothing but SALACIOUS GOSSIP but more than one friend of mine has worked with him as a crew member, and all confirm that the second he stepped into the room he made shy but deliberate eye contact with them because he wants all the women in the room to fancy him. Sophie’s earlier article corroborates this. He deserves far more scrutiny in general than Victoria’s wedding dance, which we really need to hear from the guests about, because there is a high chance it was quite an iconic moment.

For this reason, I also include an important announcement:

Anyway. About a week ago we received a Dear Trowel from a reader who has a couple of family events coming up this year, and wants to ensure she doesn’t hate the photos that are taken. It’s not a makeup thing, she doesn’t need to look high glam. She’d just like the photos to reflect what she sees in the mirror, which at 46 isn’t bad!

I am the right person to answer this (brilliant) question, because I am both very good AND very bad at having my photo taken. Both things. I’ll start with bad because = fun!

I am terrible when it comes to photoshoots. I go to shoots semi often. Because of my work, this is, I’m don’t just randomly book them though if this is you, that’s fierce.

Anyway every time I go to one it shocks me how my entire personality is drained the second I step into the studio. I can be in a full suit and overcoat and will always be trembling like Coco in Fame when the director tells her to take her top off. They will then tell me where to stand at which point I will turn to wood, a tree person, a french dresser. Telling me to act natural is pointless because in that moment I cannot remember whether I naturally have a closed or open mouth, where my arms go or what my hands do. And that’s before you get to my face. The amount of times photographers have told me to be just relax. Dear God, how I envy the Emma Corrins of this world, who can just look blankly at the camera and appear gamine, delicate, appealing. If I look at any camera in a relaxed way, I look like Charlize Theron in Monster.

So photoshoots: a nightmare.

What I have become extremely good at is having casual photos taken and not disliking them. Notice my wording. I am good at having photos taken. “Looking good” is a different beast altogether. It’s also something of a bum steer, because I genuinely don’t believe it can be the objective. If you go in hoping to look good, you are setting yourself up for failure. But the opposite - I always look bad in photos - is just as self-defeating. That’s confirmation bias in a bad outfit. You arrive already convinced, and your brain obliges. Either way, you enter with a glass-half-empty mindset, scanning the evidence for your own disappointment.

Of course I could hand over a list of makeup recs that will help you feel your best. Like this powder on your t-section and around your nose if you’re prone to oiliness (or these blotters), or a bit of blush that gives you an instant healthy looking lift. But really, looking good in pictures rarely has anything to do with makeup. It has to do with vibe.

Look happy, not good

Have a clear objective about how you want to come across. ‘I want to look like I’m enjoying myself’ or ‘I want to look like I love my family’ is SO much easier to achieve than ‘I want to look pretty’ because you probably know how to do either of the former, and the latter is subjective. I’ve got a friend who does the same laugh in every single photo, she honestly can be standing outside a Paddy Power in the rain and look like she’s having a blast. I have never once seen her angle her face or body, or try to look anything other than happy. She achieves her objective in 100% of cases, and always looks fab.

Make sure the light is facing you

Everything is lighting, it’s a free facelift. Be opposite a window, or ideally the sun.

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Guys, remember 2025? The Pope’s funeral, Labubus, Katy Perry in space? We’re a week in and it all feels like very old news.

Worth saying upfront that if anyone is already finding January difficult, Claire’s brilliant piece from last year is deservedly doing the rounds again:

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A fab Dear Trowel came through a couple of weeks ago, and a challenge:

I’d like to get my husband some aftershave for Christmas and would love some recommendations!
He currently wears aftershave once in a blue moon and wouldn’t appreciate anything “out there”. Going along the classic lines.
There is a chance I’d be able to get to Liberty before Christmas t…

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by Rebecca

If you’re anything like me, nine times out of ten you won’t want to go to the thing you said you’d go to. Even the stuff I’ve been looking forward to for months I generally can’t be arsed with when the time comes! For instance I’m currently in Japan, a much awaited trip not least for the drugstore beauty paradise that is Don Quijote, and Cosmo, the Japanese Space NK. More on that to follow OBVIOUSLY. Anyway my point is, around five days before leaving my inner Baba Yaga started cackling and croaking ‘You don’t have to go!’ pretty much on the hour every hour.

The thing is you sort of do have to go, don’t you? On the trip you’ve paid for. To the party you said you’d attend. Sorry, I know there’s been a lot of discourse about free will, about preserving one’s mental health, both of which I heartily back because…well, course I do. What a heady time it was when I began to embrace my god given right to flake! How wonderful it felt to send the solemn ‘I need to do what’s best for me’ text, knowing full well I’d manipulated the situation and if the host was pissed off, they’d now look like the jerk!

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Of course, I could and should have just gone. Years later, there are many things that I still regret not attending. Not only because it hurt somebody’s feelings, but because I would almost certainly have had a great time once I got there. It’s good for your mental health to rest, but it’s also good for your mental health to, y’know, try new things and see people and realise things aren’t as bad or difficult as you thought they would be. And yes yes, there are extroverted people for whom this is easier, and introverted people for whom this is more difficult, and as humans in a world of chaos we adore these neat little labels and the chance to self-identify. The problem is that, as with most labels, they become a self fulfilling prophecy. The probable truth is that there is an introvert and an extrovert inside all of us, that are different sizes at different times like Alice in Wonderland.

There are exceptions obviously. If you’re legitimately head-in-the-bog ill or experience headaches the way I do. If you’re depressed. If it has been recently revealed that someone is going who you are not robust enough to see, like a recent ex or someone who is just always a bit of a twat to you and you fear they’ll have more allies there than you will. In which case stay away, get a takeaway.

I’m really speaking to those of us who, for no brilliant reason, have a tendency to not be arsed when the time rolls around.

If you are one of those people - the trick is making it work for you. Behold! The things I do that make dragging myself out of the house on a cold winter’s night a bit more bearable.

One piece of posh makeup

I am a magpie, and you probably are too, and so when makeup concessions announce their new sparkly sets presented in jewelled gilded Christmassy cases I start turning into Madame Bovary. It goes without saying that eleven months of the year they are simply no good, for once January 1st hits the absolute frothy mouthed need for glitter completely dissipates.

One piece of festive posh makeup though? That works, that feels like a treat. Something that’s deliberately for the season i.e. has a slight sparkle, a pow of colour or metallic edge, and that demands to be seen before the clock strikes 2026.

EYES: VB liner in Cocoa Pavé,Lisa Eldridge Lurex Eyeshadow, or my new favourite Jones Road Sparkle Wash in Midas.

LIPS: Trinny London Sheer Shimmer, Violette_fr Petal Bouche in Amour Fou (2 layers is pure va va voom plus it STICKS), and omg I’m sorry but if someone walked into a party in Westman Atelier’s Lip Suede in Lou Lou with fresh skin and minimal eye makeup I’d just think they were a model.

(Christmas is for) HIGHLIGHTER: Saie Glowy Super gel, or Haus Labs Bio Radiant Highlighter balm in Glassy Opal (the latter bounces right off the skin, it’s almost wet-look I love it).

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by Rebecca

Happy Halloween! Look, I know it’s not even November yet, but we all know the Substack gift guide flood is imminent. Me, I’m sitting on the front row, cagoule on - I LOVE gift guides because I love looking at nice things, simple.

It has to be said however that most things I see on gift guides I would never buy for another person. This is because the average cost of a Substack gift guide item last year was around eighty pounds. On one such list was a vase that was, admittedly, stunning and would make a beautiful present for someone provided you had a hundred and fifty actual quid spare.

So here we are, gifts in three categories - under £30, under £70, and £70+. Presented to you deliberately early, because we all know if you leave things til December 1st the 24th rolls around in about ten minutes. It also gives you time to percolate before Black Friday when everything on this list will likely have 20% off.

This post is too long for email but you can carry on reading it in the app or on your browser!

Under £30

friends, colleagues, secret Santas

This set of three sheet masks from Yepoda are a great way to dip into Korean skincare, as indeed is this brilliant Korean skincare edit from Cult Beauty - six products to try for £30, a bargain for a beauty lover.

The absolute failsafe in this category is a liquid hand soap - the perfect ‘I wouldn’t have bought this for myself’ gift and especially ideal for a boss or colleague. Everyone likes a posh hand soap they can show off to visitors. Aesop is the go-to (and still one of the best smelling), but ubiquitous these days. Unless it’s the exfoliating hand wash, which is a spin on the classic and therefore acceptable, although £33 so technically not for this category. Cheaper and just as lovely are Norfolk Natural Living, Austin Austin, Earl of East, Olverum.

Jo Malone have cornered a very niche market, and that market is: people you’d like to make a good impression on, but for whom beauty is not their language. If I bought my boyfriend’s mum a £68 Le Labo candle she’d be puzzled. But a £28 Jo Malone mini one and she’d be chuffed. And you know what? The Rowan-Atkinson-in-Love-Actually packaging remains stunning, pure theatre, the little ribbons across the corners, they do it so well.

The Moon Bath book teaches you how to create ritual baths for yourself according to the time of year using seasonal plants and herbs - I bought it for a friend with all the ingredients for the January full moon. Sali Hughes’ book Pretty Iconic is a beauty hall of fame picture book that’s great fun and actually makes me quite emotional. An Atlas of Natural Beauty is a beautifully illustrated and detailed guide to seeds, fruits, trees, oils, flowers, and herbs, which lists their properties in skin/haircare. Just look at this page about apricots!

£30-£70

close friends, relatives, people you want to impress

This is generally the price point where the prime beauty gifts live. I have a lot of agents, a lot of people to thank this year, a lot of gestures I want to make, and so it’s also the section I’ll get most of my gifts from.

I once quizzed a friend who was *exceptional* at getting gifts right. Her strategy was simple: she assumed by this stage in our adulthood that we had honed our own tastes and style and had bought most of the things we really truly wanted. We know the skincare that works for us, the fragrances, the makeup for the most part. So her gifts were all about elevating the basics, the stuff you’d usually pick up in Boots in a rush, in order that the recipient’s lived experience was that little more enhanced every day. We’re talking exceptional:

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by Rebecca

A shameful boast to begin, sorry if this is annoying but I’m ever so proud. My sequel to Sense and Sensibility Becoming Meg Dashwood is, at the time of writing, number one most listened to on Audible! Beating two Richard Osmans, a Bob Mortimer and a Mel Robbins. Here’s a behind the scenes movie we made about it, featuring Emma Thompson, Imelda…

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In July I was offered a part on a tv show right at the moment I had started to worry about my face. I had not two weeks earlier finished shooting a different show, where I’d done something I never usually do, which is look at the monitor behind the camera. Usually I pretend the filming never happened until months later when the thing comes out…

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by Claire

Coming to you this week from an extremely autumnal Lancashire, where on Saturday it rained for EIGHT HOURS STRAIGHT and all these poor people behaved like this was normal and not completely outrageous. Rain never bothered me much until I had small children: you could just put on a cashmere jumper, cup a hot drink with both hands and look wistfully out of the window. Now the rain means that I am trapped indoors with my two boys, who are like dogs in that they need to be exercised otherwise they go a bit crazy. I have watched so much Cocomelon on Netflix (demonic children’s sing song telly) that I am now having Cocomelon DREAMS. On the plus side, the cooler, wetter weather has seen the back of my red sweaty Summer face. I am rediscovering all my makeup, plus some new bits, gleeful that it is not sliding off my face upon application.

I’ve also been doing Rebecca’s Korean Skincare steps. She said I wouldn’t regret it and I don’t. Nor will you. A bit like a recipe, don’t let the long list of ingredients put you off: once you have your mise-en-place it’s very easy.

Also, you can slot things in and out depending on what you already have. Just to give you an example of how I’ve adapted it: I do Malin & Goetz resurfacing serum in the morning, which combines my AHA and vit C. Then snail, then moisturiser, then Biore watery essence SPF. I bought this because basically everyone recommends it, but I prefer the Beauty of Joseon one. it has a better texture, no eye sting (where the Biore does) and the packaging is much nicer: the Biore looks like one of those sports energy gels I kept finding all over the house when my husband got really into running that time.

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by Rebecca

Lovely Trowellers! Hate to kick us off with an apology but I’m going to anyway. Being as I am on the most horrendous of deadlines, and have only just finished filming, it would feel disingenuous to impart anything to do with beauty and wellbeing. Truly I am in full goblin mode and barely remembering to shower (when I am though, I’m alternating…

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by Rebecca

I begin this week with empowering news, and it is that I’ve made a new friend and she is 100 years old. I’m very good at making friends - it’s one of my strong suits - but I have never even met let alone befriended anyone of this age. I met her at her 100th birthday party last Sunday, which I was invited to because she is the great great aunt of my boyfriend. This is them together, reunited after 25 years:

The pearls! The brooch! Mollie has never worn trousers in her life, and tells her carers off in her strong Sunderland accent when they do. Fabulous! I spoke to her neighbours, who had lived next door to her since they were born, and they told me she was always in full glam even when they looked over the garden fence first thing in the morning. Mollie told me that she has used the same Boots cucumber face cream for sixty years. ‘£1.99’ she said sagely, though I did wonder when the last time she went and bought it herself was as that seems pretty cheap. Mollie has a Frank Sinatra duvet cover and matching pillows, and asked me how many women can say they sleep underneath him every night?

There was another woman there, Christine, who was a hundred and four years old. She still lives on her own, and walked to the party.

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As black and white photos of Mollie’s youth were passed around, including the most insane 1947 wedding where she was bridesmaid to her best friend, I thought about how many trends these women must have lived through. They were born when the flapper bob was in fashion. The wasp waists of Dior’s New Look arrived in their twenties. There’s been the boyish gamine of the sixties, the aerobics-toned eighties, heroin chic in the nineties, the Kardashians’ curves of the 2010s. A hundred years of rules about how to look, how to dress, how to shrink or expand your body to fit the decade. And now, none of it matters.

For Mollie, life is about the music of Frank Sinatra, the fact that the scones at her cream tea were still warm, her new pink jacket, but most of all, that her friends still showed up for her. Pleasures at that party were pared back to the senses: taste, colour, touch, song, companionship.

I suppose one gets to an age where age becomes undeniable, at which point you bypass the fear and start living for fun. After a century of noise about what women should be, Mollie and Christine are participating in a hundred year long act of resistance, and joy is their reward.

In honour of them, here’s an ‘oldie but a goodie’ list, my favourite products that have stood the test of time.

Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream, £24.80

Rescuing faces, elbows, and egos since 1930, when Arden herself whipped it up as a skin protectant so effective a client swore it healed her horse’s legs in, yes, eight hours. Its satisfying, faintly medicinal scent has been smeared across the faces of Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, Kate Moss and Princess Diana. Not even Prince Harry’s frostbitten cock can squander its legacy.

It’s the Swiss Army knife of the beauty cabinet: lip balm, cuticle cream, brow tamer, cheek highlighter if you’re feeling resourceful and more recently for ‘slugging’ - applying an insanely thick layer overnight for a moisturising shot. See also: Vaseline (1870).

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by Claire

I’m writing to you from the depths of packing hell: we move house on the 5th of August, and I am currently 40 boxes deep with no end yet in sight. My soundtrack is Radio 4, the screech of the tape dispenser, and the hours of Mermaid Magic my 5 year old is watching (which I have decided is basically a telenovela for small children). If you are g…

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by Rebecca

Firstly this is a very long and comprehensive post, so all of it won’t be available on email. Best read in the app or online!

Am I a celebrity hairdresser? No. Am I one of the L’Oreal scientists? No! But I have, it has to be said, a huge amount of hair and over the years have used everything under the sun to tame, shine, style and colour. I’ve spent a walloping amount of money in the process, including at The Hair Bros - you can read about Claire’s experience, and brilliant musings on why ‘hair is everything’, here.

I believe in hair. You wear it every single day. It always struck me when living in East London just how many branches of Paks there were, catering to black and Afro hair, the owners of which seem to understand the importance of treating, maintaining, conditioning, protecting. But in places like Space NK, the hair section tends to be tucked in at the back, an afterthought. It would seem that most of us white people think about styling, colouring and cutting….all very surface level. A bit like buying posh makeup and skipping skincare.

Summer is a great time to start looking after hair a bit more seriously, as it has a bloody hard time. It sounds obvious, but the harmful UV rays of the sun literally beam straight down onto it. If part of the aim of using SPF on your skin every day is to prevent ageing, it makes sense to do the same as - duh - hair ages too.

So here are my solutions, tailored for different hair types:

For all hair = UV

SPF is the most boring skin thing to spend your money on, but you’ll be grateful you did in the long run. Same goes for UV protectant. The best, most lightweight one is Aveda Protective Hair Veil, currently on offer. For a bit more styling, use Hair by Sam McKnight, which has a tiny amount of salt in it so you can give it a good scrunch.

Thick Hair

I have very thick hair, which by all accounts is a good thing, but the problem of course is that there’s so much of it that any problems are impossible to disguise. Split ends, dryness, flyaways, greasiness, it all competes for your scrutiny whenever I wear it down from June-September. And the effect of humidity, mein Gott, it’s like my hair doubles in size and starts to actually grow outwards like Krusty the Clown.

Deep conditioner is soooo boring to have on for 10-20 minutes before rinsing off, but your best bet is to slap it on one evening, put a shower cap over it, then get on with doing a different beauty thing that needs doing: shaving legs / painting nails / face mask. Sometimes I’ll clean the bathroom. The best deep conditioner I’ve used is Coco & Eve, but to be honest they’re much of a muchness and any of them will be better than nothing. For coloured hair though, it has to be Davines leave in serum.

Any time I am home alone for the day, I have taken to combing this bargain product through my hair, pulling it up into a bun, and getting on with my life. My old housemate used to do it with this oil and when she washed it out, it always looked sensational. Extra points for sitting in the garden - warm oil will get deep into your hair follicles. Shiny!

Silk pillows are exquisite for thick hair because the fabric doesn’t strip your hair of its natural, nourishing oil like cotton or linen is rumoured to do. Thing is, bit they have to go with your bedroom, and no one wants to decorate around a pillowcase especially not one that has that sort of Lawrence-Llewellyn-sexy-boudoir vibe about it. A solution is the Silke hair wrap, which solves the decor problem though not the problem of sexiness, unless your other half is a NormaDesmondphile. If you are single, don’t think twice, do it. You OBVIOUSLY will need a fan in your room in order to do this, or you will hot box your head.

Thin Hair

I needed some help with this, so I asked Honor Goodwin, who recently worked as my MUA on a TV job. In summer, working on a tv show is often like working in a sauna, as you will be dressed appropriately for the character and scene. This often means wearing cardigans during heatwaves while dancing the Argentine Tango, as a colleague and I recently demonstrated. Anyway, the makeup department’s job is to keep your face and hair looking exactly the same as when it was first done so that when it comes to the edit, all the takes look identical regardless of how sweltering it actually was.

If you’ve got very thin hair that’s prone to greasiness, it can go limp and get stuck to your scalp in no time. For this you need Bumble & Bumble Pret a Powder. Use sparingly. If you’ve very dark hair, lift a small section from the very top, shake it on the roots like salt, put the top layer back down and give it a good tousle. It’ll just mean if you miss any, you won’t have white marks on the top of your head.

Apply Amika Plus Size Volume Mousse when wet, as it gives the hair a nice volume and prolongs the style.

She also mentioned the viral ColourWOW Dreamcoat as it adds a protective coating, doesn’t weigh the hair down at all and is a heat protectant.

To add a bit of oomph, a dry shampoo. The best (according to her, a genuine expert) is Living Proof Perfect Hair Day. Doesn’t come out of the bottle in a great big white blast a la Batiste.

Fringes

In my opinion, a fringe is best thing you can do for your face, I would tell everyone to get one. They look youthful, disguise forehead lines (no botox!), elongate a small forehead (like mine!), and crucially in summer comes the magic trick: you can wash your fringe in the sink and your entire head of hair looks cleaner. The best thing for this is a shampoo bar, preferably this one, which is for thin/limp hair so makes it nice and bouncy. You’ll need to buy another in approximately five years, such is the cost effectiveness. You can do it in honestly fifteen seconds, then let it air dry. Definitely get the tin to keep it in.

For when you can’t be bothered:

The thing about summer is that there are points where it’s so hot one cannot think of anything other than how to survive. Skincare is reduced to splashing your face with cold water, dressing means wearing the lightest thing in your wardrobe for days, eating ice lollies.

When washing your hair, towel dry and spray through with aforementioned ColourWow. Hair type doesn’t matter, it works on all. I got this in the Space NK calendar and for ages I thought it was crap, then realised I was using it wrong. It’s a heat protector spray, stops flyaways and frizz, helps hair dry naturally without frizzing. I swear by it.

If you wanted to add a bit of oopmh, take four bits of your hair in rough sections, twist each one, and pin it up using 4 of these. Not all of your hair needs to be up if you’ve got loads of it. Let it dry in the heat/sun, then take it down. I honestly think that in summer slighty messy, lazy hair looks expensive and lazily chic in a Noel Coward sexy-female-protagonist way. As long as it’s clean, of course.

If it isn’t clean though:

Hats

Ever useful, protective, cooling, all of it. I love a baseball cap and think they look so cool especially when they’re a part of my favourite ‘summer black’ outfit; black strappy dress, a touch of gold jewellery, nice sandals.

However, one must remember the golden rule of cap wearing: once it’s on, it can’t come off. I have racked my brains to think of a product or hack that might mean you could wear a baseball cap on a hot day then take it off for a nice dinner etc. The only exception is if you’re taking a cap off to go into the sea, and then letting your hair dry in that gorgeous salty, natural way,

If not, after twenty minutes of cap wearing, your hair will be plastered to your head with sweat and taking it off will only make you self conscious and fiddly.

The best caps are by IDEA Books in my opinion, but that’s because I like a funny caption, sue me. They’re also insanely good quality. I have the Garden Centre and Tuna Mayo ones, and if the David and Victoria one wasn’t sold out I’d have that too.

I’m not very good with sun hats that aren’t caps. Because I am naturally qutie a flamboyant, expressive person, in hats I often look like I’m playing a character. Or perhaps, as it more likely the case, I just think that’s what everyone else is thinking where actually no one cares that much. A good lesson then, I guess, is just wear the bloody hat. Um, did I just solve my own problem by writing it down?! This is why they tell you to journal!

Alright fine so the hats I like are these!

Clockwise from top left: Free People, Me+Em, Hunza G, Phase Eight

Headscarves

I look stupid in these but that could well be trauma overhang from when I was in a youth theatre production of Fiddler on the Roof. Because I do think they’re really cool, and look gorgeous. Especially if you have either very long or very short hair, and especially if it goes with your outfit.

Case in point:

I promised something quite special with that clickbait-y headline, and here it is: the thing that, over the last three months, has totally changed my skin from the inside out.

As Trowel regulars will know, I am a huge believer in beauty from within. Supplements, saunas, all of it. Big list of such things here.

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by Rebecca

I always think of fruity things as being for children. Sun lollies, Fruit Pastilles, Chupa Chups. Fruity beauty too, feels a bit tweeny right? A gateway drug into the harder stuff (floral, woody, oriental). My feelings on this are likely down to the 90s Body Shop fruit soaps, followed by of course Lancome Juicy tubes, which once I could afford aged 14, coated both my lips and the inside of my school bag for a good couple of years.

However, last year I was invited to the Chelsea Flower show, where I was given the best goody bag I’ve ever received. It contained the Diptyque Citronelle candle and body spray, which both smelled like a lemonade lolly for adults. Worth throwing it that on the website it states the body spray ‘heightens the experience of the season', which I don’t think I need to say is nonsense, however it does heighten the experience of using the bathroom which is where it has sat impressing guests for the past year.

This entire post is actually inspired by a recent trip to Diptyque, where I was lured in by an abundant display of porcelain lemons and came across perhaps one of the most swoon worthy collaborations of our time, Diptyque and Susanne Kaufman. I haven’t been so excited since the 2010s when Beyoncé met Topshop. Anyway look they’ve done this lip oil which gives the sensation of having just eaten a sherbet lemon. I love it because it’s an oil in the truest sense, not at all sticky, truly nourishing. I still think £36 is a lot but I think everything is extortionate, I’m afraid it’s in my genes.

On the subject of lemons, my village of Nailsworth has the most fabulous shop that sells bowlfuls of these lemon soaps, an elevated throwback to aforementioned Body Shop fruit ones. I love soaps, I’ve written about my love for soaps, and the lemon one looks so charming in the kitchen (unrelated: I also like these napkins).

My love of Korean skincare knows no bounds and the latest is this Yuzu Erborian double lotion. What’s quite strange about it is there’s no clear indication what it is. A toner? A serum? I think it’s a bit of both, and so slap it on post cleanse and before a stronger serum. Another step to add to an already comprehensive routine, but too much of a good thing can be delish.

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by Rebecca

Becks here, emerging blinking into the daylight with the skin tone of a Victorian invalid. It’s officially that time of year when bodies are reappearing in the wild, and mine - pale, freckled, defiant - has the eerie glow of a chicken that’s just come out the fridge. The sun doesn’t bronze me, it simply highlights how white I already am.

I und…

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by Rebecca

I’ve gone right off Space NK since the kids descended. I feel the same way as my friend Joseph feels about drag, and how my boyfriend feels about Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing: I liked it first, before it was cool, no one likes it as much as I do, and I wish that it could ever go back to being something for the true fans.

My wishes (and their…

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by Claire

Last week was feet and this week it’s hands! I’ve been on a mission for months to get better looking hands and nails. You see, for a very long time, I had acrylic nails. Every three weeks I would dutifully go and have them infilled, every fifth time a fresh set was put on. I have had my natural nails drilled and soaked in acetone dozens and dozens of times, and in the end felt untroubled by their witchy condition because they were always covered by brightly covered shiny acrylic.

Various things made me want to stop: the price crept up to £50 (in a normal, high street London salon including a tip - I don’t think this is an unreasonable price given inflation and the kind of service btw, I just can’t afford it). Time constraints meant I really struggled to get the infills done regularly, and the longer I left it between appointments the more likely it was that one of the acrylics pinged off or cracked, leading me to peel them all off. Plus they suddenly just didn’t look right. They looked a bit basic, a bit dated, not chic.

I had them removed (read blasted off with a literal drill) and read up about nail care. I bought a little bottle of cuticle oil and kept it on my desk to blob on during the many dull moments in my work day. I bought strengthening polish, and hand cream, and a nail file. Weeks passed, but my nails were still discouragingly bendy and paper thin.

I have however tried something new that has really made a difference, and FAST.

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