There’s a very specific kind of person this make up list is for.

It’s not for the person who loves make-up and has spent hours perfecting their eyeliner wing. It’s not for the person who hates make-up and doesn’t want to wear it (just don’t wear it, job done.)

This list is for the person who wants make up to be easier. It’s for the person who has stuck with the same look they used in their teens and twenties. It’s for the person feeling intimidated by the endless technique advice on social media. And it’s for the person who at some point, just quietly decided that, as they got older and life changed, make-up wasn’t for them anymore.

The make-up industry and internet, in its current form, can feel like a lot. It’s become an endless maze of steps and seems to require a huge amount of effort just for something that’s meant to read as effortless. I’ve heard that from women in their twenties and upwards; everyone just seems to be super overwhelmed by it all. And at the heart of it - everyone wants to know how to look good, like an elevated version of themselves, quickly.

I’ve always loved doing my make-up, so much so I trained in it at London College of Fashion back in the 2010s. But recently, I’ve felt exhausted by the sight of my own make-up bag. It’s become a neverending chore; using three products on my brows, perfect that Nina Park lip that’s currently trending, and then to create my face using a million base products. I’m fed up with blending eyeshadows and trying to make my eyeliner last. I just want it to be simple, expressive and effective.

So, this is a handful of products that I go back to when I want a quick make-up look without requiring much effort (and very few brushes.) You don’t have to ‘trust the process’ or anything here; these are products that you can apply half-distracted, in bad lighting, possibly running late - and still feel like they’ve done their job.

So, if easy, effective, make up is what you’ve been looking for, this is what I’d recommend…

1. Essential Prep

If you don’t prep your skin, your makeup will look patchy and dry. Honestly this is half the issue. Do your usual: cleanse, a serum, moisturiser, and SPF. Then - and this is the bit everyone ignores - give it 10-20 minutes to sink in so your SPF doesn’t pill. Then use a primer. I know it seems like an extra step, but it makes a huge difference.

If your skin feels dry, tight, slightly uncomfortable, like no amount of skincare ever quite hits. Then use Charlotte Tilbury New Magic Cream. I liked the original, but this update feels lighter, sinks in faster and grips makeup without feeling heavy. It’s annoyingly good.

If your skin is oily and makeup slides, disappears, or just refuses to stay put
then L’Oréal Paris Infallible Grip 24H Primer has that slightly tacky “grip” texture that holds everything in place without making your face feel like it’s been laminated.

If your skin is dehydrated or normal - and just looks a bit flat or like you’ve not had enough water, then try Mixsoon Bean Essence. Technically a serum, but makes a brilliant primer. It just makes your skin look a bit more alive.

2. Eyes (do these first - trust me)

I know this feels counterintuitive, but do your eyes first. It saves so much time on clean-up later. No fallout ruining your base, no trying to fix things with a cotton bud - nobody has time for that. Also: keep it simple. One colour and no eyeshadow brushes.

For an easy, wearable, slightly cool brown
Try: NARS Total Seduction Eyeshadow Stick in Strip Down
This shade is that perfect tea-stained brown that somehow makes you look like you know what you’re doing, even if you absolutely don’t. Just scribble it on and blend quickly with your finger. If your skin tone is deeper, go for Mambo - that’s a bit richer and darker. It has a build in shadow primer, and lasts all day. This works for all lids too, so if yours is a little crepey, or yours are hooded, a matte easy shade like this is super easy to wear.

For a soft, smoky, slightly goth/alt vibe
Try: Violette_FR New Plume Eyeshadow
These have literally just launched. They’re sheer, slightly undone and look best applied with fingers. Tap onto the lid, blend up and out into the socket. I like the dark brown and smokey grey matte shades best.

For easy definition
You don’t need eyeliner, but for more definition then ditch the liquid liner and go for a pigmented pencil. Pencil is faster, softer, and far more forgiving IMHO.

Try Estée Lauder Double Wear 24H Waterproof Gel Eye Pencil
These are the best I’ve tried. The dark brown shade Espresso is perfect for subtle definition - run it along the lash line and smudge in. The black shade Onyx actually stays in the waterline (rare) and works for more alt-leaning looks. They set quickly though, so don’t hang about.

3. Mascara (that does it all)

You want one that just does everything without you having to think about it. I use an eyelash curler first - Suqqu are good for all eyes, especially wide or deep set eyes and Koji, a japanese brand, has a great one for hooded eyes. Then pick a mascara you like that does everything you need. Here are my daytime mascara picks:

Lancôme Lash Idôle Mascara
Length, lift, definition without clumps or spidery lashes. This is my go-to daytime mascara.

Urban Decay Tube Job Mascara
Tubing mascaras coat each lash in little “tubes”, so they come off easily with warm water. This one is the most dramatic/impactful tube mascara I’ve tried. If you have shorter lashes that are hard to reach then Kulfi has one with a wand that actually gets to those tiny corner lashes to add impact.

Note: You don’t have to have more than one mascara, I just like saving my favourite Fenty Hella Thicc mascara for evenings because it’s so dramatic.

4. Brows (done quickly)

If you’ve got naturally full brows, honestly, you can get away with anything (or a bit of Glossier Boy Brow). If you don’t, you want something that gives colour, hold and a bit of volume all in one step. These are the best products I’ve tried.

Kosas Air Brow Tinted Volumizing Treatment Gel
Adds hold, colour and a bit of fullness in one swipe - brows look lifted and lightly filled and natural.

MERIT Brow 1980 Volumizing Pomade
Soft, natural definition with just enough hold to shape - gives that “put together” effect without looking like you’ve done anything. I try to get a bit on my skin to fill in the gaps.

EXTRA! If you feel like you want added definition I’d recommend the Gucci brow pencil - it has a powdery finish that blends in easily - and great colours too. It’s the best brow pencil I’ve tried.

5. Base (keep it minimal)

The biggest lie we’ve been sold is that foundation goes all over your face. I get it, covering your whole face in foundation feels easier and intuitive, but I promise you’ll never see a (good) make-up artist ever do this. Just dab a little foundation onto your face where you want the coverage and then blend that into your real skin. It looks way better and saves product. Here’s what to use:

MERIT The Minimalist Perfecting Complexion Stick
Genuinely brilliant. It forces restraint because you’re applying it exactly where you need it. Dab onto redness, under eyes, around the nose - then blend out. If your skin is on the dry side Dior Forever Skin perfect Foundation stick is excellent and a little more hydrating.

If you do want extra concealer - apply it now. I love these three - go a shade slightly lighter under the eyes if you want that “awake” effect.

Makeup by Mario Surreal Skin Awakening Concealer - great for dry skin.
Charlotte Tilbury Beautiful Skin Radiant Concealer - lovely on oily skin.
Shiseido Synchro Skin Self-Refreshing Concealer - great on everyone.

Colour correcting (optional, but useful)
If you want to colour correct, then mix a tiny bit of the corrector into your concealer rather than applying it onto the skin directly or before concealer - you’ll use less product and it’ll look less cakey. I’m a big fan of Morphe Wakeup Artist Under Eye Correcting Concealer.

Powder (use strategically only)
All skin types can use Laura Mercier Translucent Ultra Blur Loose Setting Powder - it is the best out there. Oily skin? Try MAC Blot Powder Pressed
Removes shine without adding heaviness - makeup artists love it because it doesn’t leave a layer of powder on the skin. If you’re on the go and want a compact, Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless Finish Powder is great. I love the mini version

6. Lips (for everyday vibes)

Start with a lip liner. The new gen of Lip stain liners are excellent for this. I use Huda Lip Contour Stain in Rich Brown and Sephora Lip Tint Felt Liner’s are great too. Pick a shade one darker than your lips that isn’t too red/bright. Pinks and browns work best for a chilled neutral vibe.

Then add something easy in the middle - mid-tone pinks and browns = easiest, most wearable, hardest to mess up. Here are some options with different textures that I rate for colours, texture and staying power.

Glossy lipstick: Too Faced Lip Injection Extreme Plumping Clicks - Feelin’ Spicy
Gloss: Fenty Beauty Gloss Bomb Universal Lip Luminizer
Matte balm: Violette Bisou Balm in Betise.
Lipstick: MAC Powder Kiss Velvet Blur Slim Stick in Stay Curious.

7. Cheeks (to balance it out)

This is the one step that makes you look instantly alive. I always do blush lash because it’s what ties your look together - if the lips and eyes are looking a bold, you know the blush has to be more subtle etc. Let me troubleshoot a few common blush issues and give you my best recs:

If your blush doesn’t last:
Use Milk Cooling Jelly Water Tint Blush - it’s the most long-lasting blush I’ve tried. You can also top it with powder blush for extra staying power.

If your blush looks flat/doll-like/dry:
Saie Dew Blush Liquid Cream Blush is slightly dewy, slightly sheer, but highly pigmented.

If you just like powder blush
Dior Backstage Rosy Glow Blush has ridiculously good colour payoff and the best shades. I love Cherry and Pink.

8. Highlighter (the only one you need)

Chanel Baume Essential Multi-Use Glow Stick
I’m only recommending a single product because this is the one I’ve used for years and nothing else quite does the same thing. It’s a translucent balm, so it makes skin look fresh rather than sparkly. Powder highlighters can emphasise dryness - this doesn’t. Apply to your cheekbones and brow bones and you’re done. I get a lot of compliments on my skin - this is usually why. All the colours are lovely but the shade Scintillement has a loveliest iridescent sheen to it.

9. Set it (and go)

Finish with setting spray. There’s a lot out there but for everyday make up Laura Mercier Translucent Pure Setting Spray 16HR has a slightly blurring effect, is not too alcohol-heavy (ie drying) and doesn’t feel like you’re laminating your face. If you do want that sort of hold though the best two are by One Size and Loreal.

Ok we are done. Want to know anything else or share your faves? Let me know below…

Shop the whole collection here x

Much love and a happy make-up bag…

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Around the 90s and early 00s, there was a very particular kind of silence. It followed comments about women’s bodies in the public eye - directed at those that didn’t meet the prevailing beauty standard of the era. It wasn’t approval, nor was it outrage - it was something more insidious. A kind of collective shrug that said; this is unfair and unkind, but this is how things are - and we all understand the rules even if we don’t like them.

I hadn’t felt or seen that silence for a long time. But seeing a clip from the current season of the British reality TV show I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! definitely showed how far we’ve regressed.

Boxer David Haye seems to really dislike reality TV star Gemma Collins from TOWIE. He makes comments about her weight and appearance in a way that is both staggeringly stupid and completely pointed. He hates that she’s loud and takes up space - because she’s doing so being in a larger body, without remorse.

The exchange itself is almost banal in how obvious it is - the kind of thing you could easily dismiss as throwaway if it didn’t feel so loaded. Another contestant makes a comment about her thick hair, as he chimes in with “it definitely ain’t thin.” Dumb, childish, schoolyard stuff. (Watch it below…)

@thesunFans of I’m A Celeb have slammed David Haye after he took a savage swipe at Gemma Collins over her weight. Tap above to read more. #ImACeleb #GemmaCollins #DavidHaye #TVDrama #BreakingNews

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But there it is, sitting in plain sight, the joke that isn’t really a joke, but rather a reminder of how quickly women’s bodies can be pulled back into public scrutiny and framed as fair game. And what’s striking isn’t just that it was said, but that it landed without the kind of cultural recoil you would expect. Even five years ago, this would have triggered a pile-on, a cancellation cycle, some visible consequence. Now, it barely registers. He’ll just carry on. He’ll probably get more work and some awful brands will pay him to promote their wares. There is no consequence anymore.

That’s when you realise that maybe we haven’t moved on at all, we’ve actually taken a step back.

For a while, it genuinely felt like we’d moved past all of this - or at the very least, that we’d developed a shared discomfort around it that made those kinds of comments harder to land without consequence. But so much feels like a regression to those times where life was hard if you fit the beauty standard because you had to maintain it at all costs. And if you didn’t fit the mould; then every waking moment would be spent obsessing about calories, your body shape and how to look prettier.

If his unveiled hatred of Gemma, and her body wasn’t enough, he then doubles down, describing his girlfriend Sian (above) as having “the personality of a proper ugly bird.” That’s his pseudo-evolutionary theory of women, that “ugly” women develop personalities to compensate and that “pretty” women don’t need to, which is why they’re dumb. It’s so regressive it almost feels surreal, like a script lifted verbatim from a 2003 lads’ mag and dropped into a crap 2026 tv show without anyone stopping to question it.

This is where the shift really reveals itself, because it isn’t coded language or concern-trolling dressed up as wellness or health, it’s just a blunt, aesthetic judgement about appearance and societal value. It’s blatant misogyny. And the most unsettling part is how easily it all slides by now, how quickly it’s reframed as entertainment and how little friction there is.

I keep thinking about why this backslide has happened, because, honestly, it’s felt like whiplash. Maybe we are all just tired? I feel that sometimes, the constant rallying feels exhausting when it falls on deaf ears. Maybe it feels futile in this climate, because what can you do when the overlords that are capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy feel so threatened that they need to regain control of every narrative. I’ve seen this extensively in the beauty industry, particularly with who brands are aligning with. A beauty influencer friend of mine told me her social agent said that work is slow because what the industry wants now is ‘young pretty white girls,’ which she isn’t. Honestly, for that to be true is awful - but to say it out loud is beyond bleak.

The thing is, that fatigue creates space and that space is being filled with a version of culture that feels harsher, more comfortable in its cruelty and elitism. But beyond this, it feels like such a tragic cultural backslide. Because there was a moment - brief, imperfect, but real years where it felt like things were opening up, where the body positivity movement, for all its flaws, pushed beauty outwards, where brands diversified, where women were, at least occasionally, treated as people rather than surfaces. That moment now feels fragile and worse than that, reversible.

It doesn’t exist in isolation either. It sits alongside a broader coarsening, where racist language re-enters mainstream discourse under the banner of “free speech”, where prejudice is reframed as opinion, where being offensive is recast as bravery. Body shaming follows the same logic: it’s just a joke, just a preference, just honesty - except it isn’t neutral and it never has been. It reinforces hierarchies that run deep, where thinness signals moral discipline, attractiveness signals worth and anything outside that is treated as failure.

When that thinking is broadcast on platforms as visible as television, it doesn’t just reflect culture, it shapes it, it gives permission. It tells audiences what is acceptable to say out loud again. And it lands unevenly - the women who don’t fit the mould absorb it cumulatively, not as one-off comments but as a constant reminder that their appearance is meant to define their entire existence.

That’s why it feels like déjà vu, why it feels like a return to something we were supposed to have left behind; the casual cruelty of the 90s and 00s, the tabloid takedowns (see above), the red carpet autopsies, the before-and-after narratives that positioned women as problems to be fixed.

So the question isn’t just why this is happening again, but what we lose when it does. Because every time we return to this narrow, punitive vision of beauty - where anyone outside of being Barbie-doll/Kardashian-shaped is ugly - we shrink the space for everyone else and we quietly re-establish the idea that a woman’s value is still, fundamentally, something to be judged at a glance and commented on, publicly, without consequence.

Have you noticed these sorts of comments more and more? I’d love to know…

Much love and exhaustion…

I was naked recently (this isn’t going where you think it is), standing in front of the mirror and looking at the tattoo on my ribs. It’s one of the few I have that hasn’t aged particularly well. The lines have softened, the ink has bled a little and unless you already know what it says, it’s not immediately obvious. For the record, it reads: Stay with me, let’s just breathe - a lyric from a Pearl Jam song.

I rarely look at this tattoo, just as I can’t bear to listen to that song. It played at my friend James’s funeral in 2012, and every time I accidentally hear it it takes me back to the blur of a day. None of it felt real.

I got the tattoo not long after, in Vegas of all places, which in hindsight feels both chaotic and entirely appropriate for grief at that stage. Looking at it now - faded, slightly blurred, but still there - pulled me straight back to that time. Not the sharp, engulfing pain I felt when my phone rang delivering the news, but something quieter. More of a deep residual ache.

This week I was nominated for two Jasmine Awards - the highest accolade for fragrance writing. Those nominations also reminded me of a fragrance feature I wrote a few months afterJames died, back when I was at Stylist magazine. I haven’t thought about it or revisited it since. Partly because I can’t bear to re-read it - the grief is threaded through every line in a way that makes me relive it. But something about that tattoo, the way it’s softened rather than disappeared, reminded me of it, and about how we carry memories with us. They change form, but nothing ever really leaves.

I’m sharing that feature now (which was also nominated for a Jasmine, back then.) It’s about scent and the strange way it holds onto people, places, versions of ourselves we thought we’d moved on from. It’s about how grief can live in something as intangible as a smell - and how, sometimes, that’s the closest you get to being able to hold someone again.

I think I’m ready to read it again now - and if the smell of somebody or something has ever pulled you right back into a moment, I think you’ll enjoy it too.

Much love and scented memories…

From Stylist, Sept 2013

Last year, Anita Bhagwandas suffered the loss of one of her closest friends. Here she reveals the role fragrance played in recalling precious memories...

We think we pick our own scents, but we don’t. They hold all the cards, choosing us when we least expect it, then burrowing deep into our psyches and staying there impenetrably.

When I was growing up, my mother had a predilection for heady Eighties power fragrances so my affection for heavy floral scents chose me from infancy. As an admittedly precocious child, being able to identify Lou Lou, Trésor and Poison before being able to spell my own surname was a given (I still struggle with the latter at times) and being enveloped in those heady, narcotic aromas felt closer than my own skin.

While my teenage contemporaries wafted about in any number of watery concoctions (hello CK One and L’Eau D’Issey), I near enough bathed in some of the sickliest, civet-heavy scents known to the olfactory world – Joy by Jean Patou, Coco by Chanel and the original ‘power player’, Jicky by Guerlain. Those cloying fragrances announced my shuffled arrival when my gentle presence wasn’t imposing enough. They became a coat of armour during a crisis in confidence, protecting me through a particularly taxing relationship, comforting me when he dumped me on MySpace – delightful chap – and seeing me through a displacing move to London from south Wales. Wearing those three fragrances – my fragrances – gave me the strength to tackle any feat and triumph. Or at least, they did.

On recently receiving Maison Francis Kurkdjian’s latest nectar Aqua Vitae (above) a dormant olfactory recollection sprang to mind as soon as I removed the golden lid and spritzed. The ardent masculine undertone of guaicwood – an earthy sawdust-like scent – was so intoxicating it forcibly made me gasp, flashing me back to my student years. We were walking back to my house in the twilight hours after one of many spontaneous nights of drinking, dancing and listening to records. My first editor and close friend James was older and achingly cool (he’d laugh at that), echoing Jordan Catalano’s untouchable allure in My So-Called Life, including those ferociously intense azure eyes. But his geeky, encyclopaedic knowledge of music and obscure facts had bound us instantly as friends when we first met some years before.

As an only child, James was the big brother I’d never had but always longed for. As the Welsh winter nights set in, he’d bundle me up in his thick navy coat as we continued home, jovially putting the world to rights. Each time he threw that heavy coat around me, I’d burrow my face into its scratchy woollen fibres and the scent of his skin always lingered: musky, slightly salty, woody and masculine but without a hint of cologne. A scent strong enough to embed in my mind, but gentle enough to offer reassurance. I genuinely believed I’d always be OK if he was around. His scent was a security blanket of the most instinctive and natural kind.

THE SCIENCE OF SCENT

We’ve used scent to soothe and offer respite for aeons. In the Neolithic period, fragrant ointments were used to cure a variety of maladies, while aromatherapy is so-called for its ability to offer solace in a moment of discord. Lavender-infused smelling salts were the go-to Victorian remedy for the plant’s ability to reduce a soaring heart rate and placate levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Studies also show that frankincense, which was traditionally burnt in homes to bring about good health, is proven to soothe the respiratory tract, slowing our breathing and evoking a sense of calm.

Smell does more than just offer a little cursory consolation; it can change our behaviour entirely as fragrance expert Roja Dove discloses: “Scent is our first response to encroaching stimuli, whether that’s sniffing sour milk before we drink it or smelling a fire before we see it, often making us anxious. It’s the same with soothing scents – they have a cocooning effect that relaxes us.

When scent enters the nose, it travels through the cranial nerves straight to the olfactory bulb which helps the brain process smell. This bulb is part of the limbic system and can easily access the amygdalae, a group of nuclei which play a vital role in our emotional memories. “That’s why scent isn’t just an accessory or a device to mask odour, it’s a brain-altering cocktail of ingredients,” Dove continues.

It’s curious, too, that when areas of the brain connected to memory are damaged, the ability to identify smell is also impaired, while studies into the brains of those suffering from depression have shown that their sense of smell is significantly reduced. Fragrance can uplift us in other ways, too. In an Austrian study, researchers wafted the smell of oranges and lavender in front of participants, who felt less anxious, more positive and calmer compared with participants who were exposed to no fragrance at all. And a study at Wheeling Jesuit University in the USA found that peppermint increased motivation and confidence – at one point, Reebok even built a peppermint smell into some of its sports bras to play on this effect during athletic activity.

A MOMENT IN TIME

But as powerful as scent is, it can’t turn back time. Last August, while Stylist was creating its art issue at the Saatchi Gallery, my phone raged non-stop before becoming a messenger of the cruellest kind. James had been hit by a car less than 500 metres from my home in Wales; he was killed instantly. In a fleeting moment, I’d lost the person who’d defined so much of my life; the person who gave me my first journalism commission aged 15, helped me choose my university, who convinced me I was smart despite my caustically low teenage self-esteem and told me I was just as beautiful without the piercings and rainbow-coloured hair as I was with them. That nanosecond of pain was unforgettable; it should be bottled, purified and given as a form of punishment to the vilest of villains. I felt like every organ in my body was slowly starting to putrefy inside me as the world drained of its justice and meaning.

It has been over a year since that day but the weight of losing James still bears down on my chest like a colossus. It’s not until somebody you love passes away that you realise how entwined they are with your neurological being. ‘Things’ aren’t the same anymore. Flannel shirts and certain band T-shirts make me think of him, and if any Pearl Jam songs play on the office radio, I have to go outside and take a moment. Other facets of my life have subconsciously evolved too, since his death my once-cherished gregarious power scents sit relegated on a display shelf, like tarnished, once-adored religious icons. My heart just can’t relate to their asphyxiating heaviness any more. They smother me, like a velvet cloak in the arid desert heat and the very hint of their syrupy-sweetness catches the back of my throat, flicking a switch in my brain that says, “these heavy scents aren’t you any more.”

I’ve got all the confidence I need now, and so much of that I owe to his unending belief in me. Now, I want something that complements and blends with my inner essence, not something that masks it. Something I don’t need to hide behind. “When you’ve been through a life-changing event, you don’t always want scents around that are reminiscent of the past,” Dove explains. “Many women change their entire fragrance preferences after break-ups, divorce and menopause – anything that’s a big milestone in their life.” For me, the bold statement I used to make with my fragrance isn’t the statement I want or need to make anymore.


FINDING SOLACE IN SCENT

The only thing that does inspire a sense of peace now, post-James, is the smell of skin. Not necessarily his smell or any kind of falsified ‘clean’ scent, just the smell of salty, honeyed, musky skin – like nature heightened and taken to the next level. It’s half a spritz of Carnal Flower by Frédéric Malle (above) a scent that invokes the smell of his rolled cigarettes during the balmy summer of 2005, or the hope that the exotic allure of Le Parfum by Carven will transport me away to somewhere he could maybe be. Immediately after the accident I found myself wearing these fragrances to bed to provide midnight reassurance – it seems to be the time your mind wants to race to needlessly distressing places. “Scent can absolutely act as a form of therapy, connecting to your moods and feelings via the limbic system,” explains perfumer Azzi Glasser. “That’s why children often sniff their teddies and blankets; certain smells bring us comfort.” Being enveloped in scent is a cognitive and fragrant hug of the most cushioning kind.

It’s ironic, and heartbreaking, that I’m writing this in memory of the man who published my first piece of writing, but surrounding myself with scents like Aqua Vitae reminds me of how pure-hearted James was, and starts to shed a flickering light upon that irretrievable sadness. It’s the only thing that even attempts to eliminate an unrelenting and unmerciful loss, and for that, scent should be both rewarded and recognised as a uniquely powerful healing entity. It’s the only thing that anchors us both now, between two very distant worlds

In memory of James Kinloch McLaren, 1978-2012.
Etched into my skin and heart forever.

I’ve just come back from a press trip to Okinawa, Japan - home to one of the world’s so-called “blue zones”, regions where people are statistically more likely to live longer than average - and it was quietly life changing.

Before anyone says it, I know the Blue Zones narrative has been debunked. But Okinawa is the outlier - the data holds up, and that’s why scientists keep coming back to study it. Inside Okinawa is Ogimi village, often referred to as the “village of longevity” and it’s exactly as you’d imagine - lush, slow and abundant. A place where people routinely live into their 90s and beyond.

Before I went, I thought I understood longevity. I’ve written about it, reported on it, sat through panels on it. It’s one of the biggest beauty and wellness buzzwords of the past few years, usually packaged alongside biohacking, supplements, cutting-edge tech and a vague promise that we might be able to outrun ageing entirely.

But within about 24 hours of being in Okinawa, I realised something slightly uncomfortable. What we’re being sold as longevity, is often just anti-ageing in disguise.

I know this because of a snap judgement I made on the trip. We met a couple in Ogimi - Mr Rikio and Mrs Etsuko Yokota, aged 83 and 78 (above). They showed us their home, cooked us lunch and let us ask unending questions about their lives and habits And my first, instinctive thought - the one I’m not proud of - was surprise: they don’t look that young. Not in a negative way, it was just evident; lined skin, greying hair, bodies that had clearly lived.

Longevity, in its simplest definition, is just the length of life. The word itself comes from the Latin longaevitas - longus (long) and aevum (age). It has nothing to do with smooth skin, lifted cheekbones or how closely you resemble your 30-year-old self at 65. But culturally, we’ve fused the two together so tightly that they’re almost indistinguishable.

Spending an afternoon with people who are actually living this “longevity lifestyle”, though and that illusion of looking youthful meaning you’re healthy starts to fall apart. Mrs Etsuko is a village elder, someone people seek out for advice and guidance. She had a role, a sense of purpose that extends beyond herself. Mr Rikio worked various jobs throughout his life but now runs a small farm. He’s active, and grows produce like wood ear mushrooms that he sells locally. (See the vid below)

There was no sense of “retirement” as we frame it in the West - the abrupt stopping point where life narrows. Just a gradual shift in pace and focus, but still with purpose. Their days weren’t sedentary, but they weren’t extreme either. Just constant, low-level movement: gardening, cooking, cleaning, walking, sitting cross-legged on the floor and getting up again without thinking twice.

And crucially, they were well. Mentally sharp, physically capable, engaged with the world around them and (seemingly) content. If you stripped away appearance entirely - if you removed the sun-dappled skin texture, wrinkles, all the visual cues we use to assign age - you could easily place them decades younger.That, I realised, is what longevity actually looks like. Not the absence of physical ageing, but the presence of a balanced life.

Honestly, it was a real wake up call. It made me think about how skewed our expectations have become. A hundred years ago, global life expectancy hovered somewhere between 30 and 40 years, largely due to infant mortality and infectious disease. Now, the global life expectancy is double that. Yes, we’re living longer and less of us are dying young, but we’re also so plagued by the malaise of modern life; depression, loneliness and health issues. So a longer life yes, but a better one? I’m not so sure.

And yet, instead of asking how we make those extra decades meaningful and exciting, we’ve become fixated on how to make them invisible. At 42, I have to admit there’s a low-level dread that hums in the background when I think about approaching 50. It’s not necessarily about how I’ll feel, but more about how I’ll be seen. Old, or at least older. Less relevant. Less visible. Less cool. Less attractive. It’s not really about the ageing itself, but the social meaning we attach to it.

And that’s what struck me so sharply about Mr and Mrs Yokota. They were full of life in a way that felt completely disconnected from both their actual ages and how they looked. There was no sense of shrinking, just energy, purpose, community and presence. It made me realise how much of what we fear isn’t ageing, but the story we’ve been told about what ageing looks like - and who we’re allowed to be once we get there.

You can see this most clearly in the way we talk about “longevity” in the beauty and wellness space right now. It’s all expensive retreats, biomarker testing, oxygen chambers, red light panels, sleep optimisation, glucose tracking. The language is scientific, futuristic - and all of it is, of course, expensive. The very best of health and longevity tech is usually afforded to those who can afford it. People like tech bro Bryan Johnson, 48 (above) who has become the poster child for this ultra disciplined approach. According to an interview in The Guardian, his entire life is structured around slowing his biological ageing: waking at 4:30am, eating all his meals before 11am, taking over 100 supplements, subjecting his body to a battery of treatments and measurements on a daily basis.

His motives could be anything; although the interview points to a fear of death or illness. Descriptions of his routines seem pretty joyless, but maybe they’re paying off; he’s reportedly achieved health biomarkers equivalent to an 18-year-old, with tests indicating his body ages 31% slower than average. And like my reaction in Okinawa, the common public reaction to Johnson is telling. Because for all the optimisation, the data, the cost - financial and emotional - the conversation around him often comes back to one thing: he doesn’t look as young as people expect.

That’s the giveaway. We say we want to live longer, but what we often mean is that we want to look younger for longer. Ideally indefinitely.

In an era of almost undetectable cosmetic surgery, where the benchmark is looking a decade younger, ageing has quietly become something you’re expected to manage. Which means that when that doesn’t happen - when you simply look your age, no matter how healthy you are - it can feel like a kind of failure.

In Okinawa, that framework just doesn’t exist - and that’s perhaps what I’m most envious of. Physical ageing, and looking your age, isn’t treated as something to correct or conceal. The focus is on how you feel, how you move, how you live. Feeling physically capable, mentally well, and connected to the world around you is the goal - not whether your face tells the truth about your years.

If I’m honest, I know I’ve internalised the opposite a lot recently, with so much deafening discussion of celebrities like Denise Richards (abive) looking visibly younger, reported due to surgeries costing upwards of $250,000. I’ve caught myself thinking I look older, and letting that thought spiral into feeling less confident, less like myself and honestly, less well. It all comes down to the western mindset of thinking that looking younger than our age is a reliable measure of vitality, when it really isn’t.

Because if Okinawa taught me anything, it’s this: ageing well has nothing to do with looking young - and everything to do with how fully you’re still living.

What I learned in Okinawa - and am now trying to practise…

1.Connection is non-negotiable.
In Ogimi, community is crucial. People are woven into each other’s lives at every stage - there’s a sense of being needed, of contributing, of belonging. It’s not just families, it’s friends too. Lately, I’ve felt a shift - some friendships (mostly friends with children, honestly) have felt very one sided and it’s forced me to ask who really shows up for me. It’s uncomfortable, because often you have shared history and whilst you can allow time to readjust to life’s changes, friendship is reciprocal. So, I’m gently looking to expand my friendship circles a bit. Love to know your thoughts on this…

2.Looking young is not the same as living well.
I’m trying - actively - to separate those two ideas, but the obsession with looking young in beauty culture right now makes that almost impossible. It’s everywhere you turn; and I’ve seen that anxiety creep up in conversations with friends who have mentally assigned themselves to a facelift in the next decade. Watching your face change against this cultural backdrop can really mess with your head. I don’t have a neat fix for this, but I suspect it starts with less scrolling and therefore less comparison. And more time doing things that make you feel like yourself again. That’s my plan, anyway.

3.Have a reason to get up in the morning.
In Japan, they call it ikigai - your reason for being. In the west it’s often reduced to a cute concept in gift shops, but seeing it lived out is different. Purpose doesn’t have to be grand or career-driven. It can be tending a garden, helping neighbours, showing up for your family. Just something that makes you feel useful, connected and part of the world. How do we achieve that in our busy lives? I’d love your take on it.

4.Eat out way less.
The Okinawan diet isn’t complicated - lots of vegetables, fibre, plant-based food like tofu, some fish and pork - but it’s always home made. I probably eat out - including lunches at Pret, work dinners and socialising etc at least 10 times a week. It’s expensive, and not ideal for my health. So, I’m trying to be more mindful of this and make meet ups with mates less food based and more activity based - this one is definitely a work in progress.

5.Supplement better, not harder.
I want the kind of energy the Yokota’s had, so I’ve made a lot of dietary changes. And one thing I did was to cut a few supplements out of my routine (probiotics and digestive enzymes, I’m replacing those with fermented foods instead like they eat) and I added an NAD-precursor into the mix. NAD is a naturally occurring molecule in the body that supports energy production and general cellular function which depletes as we get older. There are two kinds of supplements you can take here, one is pure NAD which has large molecules that the body can’t always absorb fully. The other is an NAD precursor which helps your body make more NAD naturally - and from everything I’ve read, that’s the better choice.

Full disclosure: I travelled to Okinawa with supplement brand Solgar. I’ve been taking their supplements for years because after decades of interviewing formulators, dietitians and chemists, they’re one of the brands that consistently stands up for both quality and value. So now I’m taking Solgar Cellular Energy, which is an NAD precursor with added B vitamins and vitamin C to protect against oxidative stress of our modern lifestyles.

I’d love to know your thoughts….

Much love and (real) longevity…

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I’ve been offline for a while - apologies loyal readers (imagine that in a Bridgerton-like posh British accent.) Partly because I was working on a book (details to come), a big exciting consultancy project (a legit gamechanger) and because I’m also a travel writer - so I was doing just that.

As part of my travels I spent two weeks in Japan and one of my suitcases was almost entirely beauty products. Not an exaggeration at all, and yes, borderline concerning. I KNOW.

I did what I always do before a trip like this - obsessive, forensic research. Lists, screenshots, cross-referencing Instagram, Reddit, beauty editors, dermatologists. And still, I didn’t fully trust it. Beauty recommendations via algorithm can feel a bit like booking a restaurant off TikTok - overhyped, underwhelming and a rip off.

Still I bought it all. And a month on, I’ve worked out what was worth hauling home, what was just good marketing and what I’d actively tell you to avoid.

Japan does beauty so differently. It’s not an indulgence, it’s woven into daily life in a way that feels closer to brushing your teeth than to occasional “self-care”. Every hotel I stayed in - from functional to luxury - had a full routine waiting: cleanser, toner, lotion, moisturiser. It was so surprising, but also telling about how much more advanced they are about skin care (and skin health) than we are. Unlike K beauty aka Korean beauty, Japanese beauty isn’t about laborious 12-step routines, it’s about consistency, minimalism and the whole sensorial experience. Products are designed to feel good, look good, work quietly and slot seamlessly into your life.

Then there’s the tech side. In Tokyo I spent a day in Akihabara, the electronics part of town, because Japan has been leading on beauty innovation for decades - and it shows. Some of the tools genuinely look like they’re from 2050, but more importantly, they solve problems and really do work.

I love the look, elegance and performance of so much of what I tried out there and the haul I brought back with me. Some of what I bought has completely changed my routine and I’ll be buying again without a doubt.

So this is my Japanese beauty edit. What I’d buy again, what I’d skip, and what’s actually worth your suitcase space.

SKINCARE

DHC Deep Cleansing Oil (Above)
If you want to understand double cleansing properly, start here. This olive oil-based formula melts SPF and long-wear make-up instantly without stinging eyes or leaving residue. It’s lighter, cleaner and more refined than most Western oils - a foundational Japanese skincare product that just works.

Hada Labo Premium Lotion
This is packed with multiple forms of hyaluronic acid for that plump, glass-skin effect. Press it into damp skin and everything feels instantly juicier. It’s one of Japan’s most famous products for a reason and I was already using this, but it’s cheaper to pick up there.

Curél Deep Moisture Spray
A ceramide mist that actually hydrates. Ideal for sensitive or eczema-prone skin, and brilliant on flights. The ultra-fine spray supports barrier repair rather than just sitting on top of the skin. One of the hardest-working products I bought - it’s so brilliant.

Rohto Melano CC Vitamin C Essence (Above)
This was one of those things I thought was a bit of a con initially. But this genuinely is an affordable, stabilised vitamin C that targets pigmentation without irritation. The formula is super lightweight and really lovely to use.

Lion Pair Acne Cream
A cult spot treatment that focuses on calming inflammation rather than aggressively drying skin out. Especially good for hormonal breakouts - it reduces redness quickly without leaving skin flaky or compromised. Small tip - use it on cleansed skin - not after the rest of your skincare.

d’Alba First Spray Serum (Above)
I’ve just bought another one because this is so good. This bi-phase mist (give it a shake) delivers a quick hit of hydration and glow without disturbing make-up. It’s one of those products that makes skin look and feel instantly fresher. Just to note this is a Korean brand, but was everywhere in Japan. It’s so good I wanted to include it here.

Takami Skin Peel
This brand, created by a Japanese doctor, has just been acquired by L’Oreal. And this little blue bottle is the reason why. The watery serum supports natural skin cell turnover, helping with texture, pores and dullness without irritation. It’s a very gentle daily exfoliant that leaves your skin glowing.

Shiseido Vital Perfection LiftDefine Radiance Mask
One sheet hydrates, the other sculpts the jawline. It’s an indulgent buy, yes - but it’s also the closest thing to a facial in a sheet mask. I use them sparingly - usually twice within 24 hours to get the most out of them. And it goes without saying; they’re cheaper in Japan so get them there.

Clé de Peau Beauté Softening Cleansing Foam
A small amount of this cleanser lathers into the softest, densest foam that cleans thoroughly without ever stripping the skin. It leaves your face feeling cushioned, not tight and it’s expensive, but is also one of those products that makes everyday routines feel quietly indulgent. There’s something about the softness of this lather that is unbeatable.

WHAT TO SKIP!

Keana Nadeshiko Rice Pack
A wash-off mask made with rice extracts that’s meant to smooth and refine the look of pores. People rave about this - I didn’t see any difference sadly.

Suppin Whitening Powder
A very Japanese concept: a powder you can wear with nothing else. It lightly blurs, mattifies and makes skin look more “done” without looking made-up. It’s a mix between a face powder and a skincare product, and people say you can use it as ‘night time makeup’ but I’m too low maintenance for that. I don’t really understand why you’d need this if I’m honest.

SPF & SETTING SPRAYS

Anessa Brush-On SPF (above)
SPF in powder form that doesn’t dry you out or leave a cast. I use it over make-up for reapplication - it mattifies while protecting, and actually works on deeper skin tones unlike the ones we have in the west. Get a few of these and stock up.

Biore UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence SPF 50+ (above)
The SPF that ruins all other SPFs. Watery, invisible, and completely weightless - no white cast, no pilling, no heaviness. Japanese sunscreen technology is simply better, and this is the one to stock up on. You’ll actually want to reapply it.

SKIP

Kose Make Keep Mist
A cult setting spray that says it locks make-up in place through heat, humidity and long days. I didn’t think this was any better than any others I’d tried (Laura Mercier’s one is my current favourite). But it’s cheap, so if you just want a nice enough setting spray, then have at it.

Biore Acqua Mist Face Mist SFP 50
Skip the spray SPF versions from Biore - they’re convenient, but you’ll never apply enough for proper protection, especially on the face. And I found this one smelt of alcohol a lot - I prefer the Elf one.

HAIRCARE

Orbis Essence Hair Milk (Above)
Lightweight, smoothing and never greasy. This cream softens dry ends, adds shine and makes hair feel smooth without weighing it down. It’s the kind of everyday product Japan does exceptionally well and I wish I’d bought loads of these, honestly.

Tsubaki Premium Hair Mask (Above)
A deeply conditioning mask that makes hair feel instantly silkier. Rich but not heavy, it smooths damage and dryness without flattening volume - ideal if your hair’s feeling a tad overprocessed.

Ululis Pink Me Water Control Hair Oil
If you have very fine hair but can’t use serums and oils you need this. It’s surprisingly light for an oil but adds gloss and controls frizz without that oily, separated look. It ‘s good for humid weather or smoothing ends without overdoing it.

& Honey Melty Matomake Stick (Above)
This is by far the best thing I’ve tried for slicking down flyaways and baby hairs. No grease, no flaking, no stiffness - just clean, polished hair. Perfect for fringes and partings too I’d say. Again, why didn’t I buy more?!

ReFa Heart Brush
Yes, it’s very cute - but it’s also genuinely good. The three-tier bristle structure detangles quickly while distributing oils more evenly through the hair, and the anti-static tech helps reduce frizz and flyaways. It leaves hair smoother, shinier and just generally more “done” with minimal effort. It’s also very cute - did I mention that?!

WHAT TO SKIP

Fino Premium Touch Hair Mask
Popular, but not for everyone. It’s protein-heavy, so while it can help very brittle or damaged hair, it’s easy to overdo and leave lengths feeling stiff or coated. I didn’t see much payoff - there are better, more balanced masks in Japan. (See above)

Utena Matomage Hair Stick (Super Hold)
A cult flyaway tamer, but quite heavy. On my fine hair it felt a bit greasy and weighed everything down. Better suited to thicker, coarser hair types that need/want slicked down stronger hold.

Cheap Hair Gadgets (straighteners, curlers, etc.)
Tempting, because Japan is AMAZING for gadgets, but not worth it. Voltage differences mean many won’t work properly back home and the quality can be hit or miss. If you are buying some, go cordless (lots of gadgets look cordless but need a USB connection to use) and travel-friendly. I wish I’d skipped the cheap options I bought and gone straight for something like the ReFa Finger Iron instead.

MAKE-UP

CANMAKE Petit Palette Eyes (Above)
Tiny, nostalgic and genuinely useful. Soft neutral shades in a compact that feels very 90s-coded - almost like it came with a Barbie doll or something. Did I mention that it’s tiny? That’s all you need to know. And that the quality is pretty good.

Brow Mascara (Kate Tokyo, Isehan, Kiss)
Japan understands brows better than anywhere. Slightly lighter brow shades soften your entire face - almost a subtle “bleached brow” effect without commitment. So pick up some colours when you’re there for a speedy way to shift your entire make-up look.

Takako Ultra-Fine Eyeliner (0.01mm)
Precision on another level. These ultra-fine liners create definition that’s almost invisible but transformative. Deep black, long-wearing and smudge-proof - once you try them, nothing else compares. If you have hooded eyes, these are a must-have - and this particular one is the finest I’ve ever seen.

False Eyelashes (clear band) (Above)
Japanese lashes are unmatched - lightweight, natural and easy to apply. Look for clear or ultra-fine bands for that “are they real?” finish. Brands like Koji, Manga, Alice are worth looking at.

Rephr Make-Up Brushes (Above)
If you’re into make-up, these are so worth it. Handcrafted using traditional Japanese techniques, they’re incredibly soft, blend beautifully and make everything - especially eyeshadow - look more seamless. Expensive, but the quality is obvious from first use and they last for years. I’m so obsessed with mine.

WHAT TO SKIP

Heroine Make Speedy Mascara Remover
If you’re really into make-up removal, or a make-up artist get this brush on mascara remover. But if you’re a normal person - don’t bother. Who has the time?!

CANMAKE Blur Powder
It looks pretty in the pan, but it can sit oddly on the skin rather than melting in. If your skin is darker than a light tan - don’t even bother. Not quite sure why it’s so viral.

KATE Lip Butter
I don’t know why this is viral either. It’s nice enough, but nothing special - the hydration is fairly average and the colour payoff can feel a bit flat.

MISCELLANEOUS

Muji Pre-Loaded Make-Up Cotton Buds
So clever. Each bud is pre-soaked with remover, making them perfect for fixing liner flicks or mascara smudges on the go. One of those small, practical buys Japan does brilliantly.

Razors (Above)
Genuinely sharper and better quality than most UK options. They give a closer, smoother shave with less irritation. Just remember they need to go in your main luggage. This included mini razors and face razors. Get them all in Japan.

Toothbrushes (Above)
Japanese toothbrushes are smaller, softer and more precise - they just seem to clean better. I’m really into dental stuff so I bought about 50.

Propolinse Mouthwash (Above)
A bit of a viral one, but it works. It lifts debris you didn’t even realise was there, leaving your mouth feeling incredibly clean. Slightly gross, but very satisfying.

I’m truly obsessed with Japanese beauty. Can you see why I needed the extra suitcase now? You can also see the entire list here!

Any questions let me know - I’m happy to answer them all.

Much love and an empty bank balance…

PS: I’ve kept this free as a thanks for still being here. Normal service is now resumed….

Click here to read the first instalment of my essay on dirt!

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Class, money and dirt….

I was sitting in a café recently in a posh bit of London, as a woman came in with her three little kids. She was white, wealthy - not obvious just from the heirloom fur coat, but from the accent, the confidence and the way she took up space. The children wore mud-smeared trousers, grass covered wellington boots, had snotty noses and wild hair. They tucked into their avocado on toast (!) and left with food around their mouths. She didn’t reprimand their noise (which went down really well with everyone around them) and she didn’t clean them up, or clean up after them. Watching her, it struck me how there’s a very fine line between the freedom from judgement that comes with sitting at the top of the food chain - where rules stop applying, scrutiny dissipates and ‘dirty’ gets reframed as “a lifestyle choice” - and what can, from the outside, look uncomfortably like neglect.

I’m wary of my recount seeming judgemental; I only noticed her because she waltzed into a room full of people working on laptops and made loads of noise. But the more I watched her, I realised how quickly the reading would change if this family weren’t white, or of a high social class. There’s a phrase in the UK - “too posh to wash” - that originally referred to university-educated nursing students who reportedly considered washing patients beneath them, thus they were branded by the tabloids. Over time, though, that phrase has shifted into shorthand for a cultivated air of zero fucks hygiene, associated with certain upper-class types, complete with eccentric, unkempt nonchalance.

I’ve actually had first-hand experience of this. An ex of mine came from a British, upper-class family, and I was genuinely shocked by how poorly house-trained he was in his 30s. He’d dump shirts straight into my laundry basket without asking, sniff-test gym kit instead of washing them and move through life with the casual entitlement of someone for whom mess had always been someone else’s problem.

He’d grown up with labour - cleaning, washing, tidying - all quietly absorbed by women or paid help, rendered invisible. What struck me wasn’t just the behaviour, but the confidence with which it was performed: the assumption that care, cleanliness and maintenance would simply materialise around him. Perhaps that is what privilege smells like; not soap, not the most expensive cologne but the absence of responsibility for all kinds of dirt.

I’m not entirely sure what drives this, because historically the upper classes had the greatest access to hygiene. They could afford soap, fresh linen - and crucially - labour: servants to heat water, carry it, wash clothes and dispose of waste. They didn’t need to make the trek to public bathhouses, which in the Middle Ages were frequented by those with the means to pay, often a couple of times a month.

Those spaces and washing eventually fell sharply out of favour across all strata of society during Henry VIII’s reign. Why? Bathhouses became associated with moral danger and disease, particularly syphilis, while religious thinking increasingly linked nudity with sin. Henry feared people were meeting at bathhouses to plot a coup and even water itself was treated with suspicion; many believed bathing could weaken eyesight or allow illness to enter the body through open pores. Cleanliness was achieved through avoidance.

The Royal courts were often among the dirtiest spaces of all. Palaces were densely populated, poorly ventilated and notoriously difficult to clean. Chamber pots overflowed; waste was disposed of haphazardly. Accounts of Louis XIV’s (above) (1638-1715) court at Versailles describe overwhelming smells of unwashed bodies and stale clothing, despite the extravagance and power on display. Although this was also, veiled when possible by perfume.

Instead of washing elites relied on frequent linen changes, powders and heavy perfume to mask bodily odour. Hair was rarely washed; lice and fleas were managed with fine-toothed combs rather than soap. Louis took perfumery to the next level; he commissioned his perfumer to create a new scent for every day of the week, which he probably needed, having reportedly only taken three baths in his life. The stinker.

The situation deteriorated during the early Industrial Revolution (1760-1840). Rapid urbanisation crammed workers into overcrowded housing with no sewage systems, clean water or waste removal. Human and animal excrement was dumped into streets and rivers, particularly affecting the poor. Cholera and typhoid swept through cities. The stench became unavoidable - most famously during the Great Stink, when the Thames grew so polluted that Parliament was forced to confront sanitation reform.

In Britain, the approach to hygiene only really began to shift when Beau Brummell - an aristocratic influencer of his day - made cleanliness fashionable among Regency gentlemen during that time. Brummell promoted washing with soap and water, rather than simply disguising smell with scent. His famously intense beauty routines involved spending hours at his toilette; he set a new benchmark for personal upkeep. He helped make regular washing (of the whole body, not just the hands and face) desirable and socially expected among fashionable men. Eventually, this began to filter down the class hierarchy, although these levels of cleanliness certainly weren’t available to everyone. For anyone who couldn’t afford to bathe daily, weekly bathhouse trips were the only option.

This history lesson matters because it exposes a persistent myth: that dirt equals ignorance or poverty. In reality, it was often wealth and status that enabled people to avoid washing while outsourcing the consequences. The upper classes could afford cosmetics to conceal smells, servants to manage waste and social insulation from judgement. Their poorer counterparts could not.

Today, you can be “too posh to wash” and it’s fine. No one objects. You sit beyond scrutiny. You can afford not to care about the optics of personal hygiene because it will never be read as moral failure or social deficiency - it won’t be weaponised against you. That kind of nonchalance is a form of privilege - it’s about who gets the benefit of the doubt, who is afforded ease, and who gets to control both the conditions and the narrative of their own body. And for many, dirt still remains a complex issue; often avoiding it isn’t a choice at all, but a necessity.

Fat means dirty…

One of the most persistent beauty myths is the idea that fatness equals dirt. Not just uncleanliness, but moral failure: excess, laziness, lack of discipline. Fat bodies are routinely framed as being out of control, unhygienic, even animalistic - just take terms like ‘fat pig.’ None of this is accidental. It’s all from a historical narrative that is deeply entangled with race and class.

The roots of this thinking stretch back to the 18th and 19th centuries. Early European colonial writing often oscillated between fascination and curiosity - an gaze that oscillated between fascination and curiosity. But by the 1800s, that curiosity had curdled into contempt. Colonised peoples started being described as gluttonous, undisciplined and ruled by appetite - in contrast to the supposedly restrained, rational European self. Body size became shorthand for who was civilised, and who wasn’t. And thinness was reframed as a Western virtue: evidence of self-control, beauty and moral superiority.

At the same time, fatness was racialised. Black and brown bodies were portrayed as excessive - too large, too fleshy, too sensory - and therefore closer to nature, animality, depravity and filth. These narratives were political; if a body could be framed as dirty or undisciplined, it could also be framed as deserving of domination. Scholars have since traced how these ideas fed directly into later medical and social discourses that positioned fatness as deviance rather than difference.

By the Victorian era, self-control had become a prized virtue. Appetite wasn’t just unhealthy; it was interpreted as a visible failure of character. From there, the association with dirt almost writes itself. If you cannot control what you consume, how could you possibly control your body, your hygiene, your own mind, or your place in society?

These ideas didn’t stay in historical texts; they filtered straight into popular culture; and they still endure. In Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, the character Fat Bastard (above) is a cartoonish embodiment of the “dirty fat person” trope: constantly eating, sweating, flatulent, framed as grotesque and contaminating. Likewise, in Matilda, Bruce Bogtrotter’s forced consumption of an enormous chocolate cake becomes public punishment. His size and the messiness of eating are fused into humiliation - fatness is staged as the spectacle that everyone can jeer at.

None of this is just harmless fun. Research consistently shows that fat stigma is associated with dehumanisation, social exclusion and poorer health outcomes - not because of body size itself, but because of how fat people are treated. A widely cited review in Obesity Reviews found that weight stigma increases stress, disordered eating and avoidance of healthcare, reinforcing the very outcomes it claims to prevent. Why do we still - in some circles at least - endorse the ‘tough love’ attitude to fatness? Because it serves to make some feel virtuous and some feel out of control and a moral failure - it’s a way to divide and control. It’s a social label, applied unevenly, used to sort bodies into those deserving care and those deserving contempt. Fat bodies are read as public property, open to judgement around hygiene, correction and ridicule in ways thin bodies are not.

Dirty women…

Women and dirt have always had a complicated relationship. Clean women - or, more accurately, clean-looking women - can roll around in dirt to sell perfume, fashion or rebellion, and it reads as cool. Erotic, even. During the Dior years under John Galliano, dirt was framed as being sexual, disruptive. In Spring/Summer 2001, Angela Lindvall appeared in Nick Knight’s campaign (above) slicked in grease and car oil. The grime gave her an edge - she was play acting dirt, not really filthy which appealed to the male gaze.

The same applied to Christina Aguilera’s Dirrty in 2002 (above)- the video for was strewn with sweat, mess and sexy noises - all packaged as rebellious spectacle. Like the pop-cultural equivalent of women’s mud wrestling: it’s designed for the male gaze, with a clear understanding that everyone will shower afterwards.

What’s not allowed is autonomous dirt. When women genuinely refuse grooming norms, the response turns hostile. In 1996, a US high school student, Michael Lucid, filmed Dirty Girls, a lo-fi documentary about a group of girls (above) who deliberately rejected conventional hygiene and beauty practices; one reportedly hadn’t showered since Kurt Cobain died (fair play to be honest…). It’s been going viral recently because of its nostalgic charm. But what’s striking isn’t how they look, but the panic it provoked. Classmates call them “trash”, “filthy”, “unacceptable” and the comment section from modern times echoes this. The message is clear: women - even young ones finding themselves - who refuse beauty upkeep aren’t rebels or cool; they’re just dirty.

We’ve seen this before. Feminists in the 1970s, Riot Grrrls in the 1990s, any kind of rejection of shaving, polishing and traditional prettiness were swiftly labelled dirty, smelly, disgusting. Any deviation from looking and performing clean - unless it was curated for the male gaze - is still met with the same assumption: that you must be failing. I know that well; as a teen with piercings, shaved eyebrows and blue hair, taunts of ‘dirty mosher’ were rampant. The word used in Newport, my home town for anyone looking for an alternative looking, was ‘Sweaties.’ That’s pretty telling. If you’re different, if you disobey the norms, you’re gross.

That’s why today’s “dirty girl” aesthetic remains so tightly policed. Mud-splattered festival girls at Glastonbury (see Kate Moss, above) are fine and cool. Women growing body hair, refusing deodorant, rejecting constant maintenance? Framed as a disgusting moral lapse.

Which brings us back to Sofia Isella. Sure she fits that beauty norm, but the way she uses dirt is confrontational rather than sexy, and that’s precisely why it unsettles. In our Clean Girl era, even when the dirt is curated, it still tests the limits of what we’re allowed to find beautiful.

Much love and dirt for all…

PS: If this made no sense but you’d like it to, read the first part here

Pick up my book UGLY: How The World Became Beauty Obsessed and How To Break Free for more beauty culture thoughts to help you navigate this batshit world we find ourselves in.

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I’ve become mildly obsessed with singer and artist Sofia Isella (above).

In case she’s not yet on your radar, she’s astonishingly young, barely in her twenties with her lyrics feel feral and furious in the best way. She carries the air of somebody who’s lived a million lives already, or at least paid close attention to those ugly bits most people look away from. Sonically, she’s like the lovechild of Alanis Morisette, Tori Amos and Kathleen Hanna - and she’s brilliant.

Isella is also - by any conventional measure - a beautiful girl. Pretty, young, desirable through the very recognisable Eurocentric beauty standard. And yet, rather than use it, she deliberately obscures it. She smears herself in makeup made to look like dirt, and chooses silhouettes that hang rather than hug her body. She sings about patriarchy, refusing to present herself as its preferred object and performs a kind of cultivated dishevelment that feels almost radical in our sanitised worlds.

After years of glazed skin, slick buns, Pilates bodies and algorithm-approved femininity - Isella is a real culture shock. And when a woman who fits and could benefit from their pretty privilege chooses ‘dirt’ as her visual, aesthetic, symbolic representation, it unsettles something. When women in the public eye defy a beauty standard and enter the ‘dirty’ category, it’s always newsworthy. As Amy Winehouse stumbled around the streets of Camden prior to her death, the tabloids zoomed in on her matted hair, and grime-laden, bloody ballet pumps. Back in the 90’s when Julia Roberts revealed her hairy armpits the cries of outrage were about how unhygienic and unfeminine she was assumed to be - she was aligned to the word dirty.

All of it makes you think about what dirt really signals. I always remember my mum trying to make the collars of my white school shirts pristine; because they’d have a ring of brown around them every day. She’d say in Tamil, ‘what have you been doing? These are so dirty’. I hadn’t done anything and I wore a fresh one every day. She didn’t realise this - because nobody was wearing white, high-neck shirts and ties to school in India where she grew up - but it actually wasn’t dirt, it was just that my skin cells were dark and left a mark. But I always remember that feeling of thinking I was dirty because of it. To this day I’m a bit scared of using white towels and wearing white shirts. Feeling like you are physically dirty is such a loaded term.

Who is allowed to be dirty?

Messy chic, heroin chic, shabby chic has always been the height of stylish insouciance. The kind of styles you’d see on Mary Kate Olsen, Katie Holmes, and even JFK Jr, are all known for having perfected the art of slobby chic. What does it look like? The sort of curated neglect and intentional messiness that hovers just shy of slovenly, all to appear too cool to care about perfection or grooming - and it’s always been high fashion adjacent. Trying too hard has never been cool, after all.

In beauty and fashion, dirt is only romantic when it’s worn by the right people - definitely thin, always white, often wealthy, mostly women. And that’s because not everyone gets to perform unkempt. It only works when the body wearing it is already deemed ideal in the first place. You seldom see celebrities of colour dressed down to the point that they look dishevelled, because they know that to do so poses a very real risk. That risk ranges from being pulled over, stopped in the street and harmed, through to being treated like a lesser human as you go about your everyday life.

I’ll raise the obvious point here; of course nobody should be judged on what they’re wearing. But, in reality they are. We all are. It’s how we navigate the world, by consciously or subconsciously making judgements that are linked to information that’s been given to us. But how does one group get to be aligned with dirt - even romanticised by it - while others have to work so hard to distance themselves from it just to be taken seriously?

Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, pseudoscientific theories claimed that different racial groups had innate biological smells, and white people were the top of this olfactory hierarchy - of course they were. Gradually, cleanliness was constructed as a ‘white only’ virtue. In Europe, “Jews, Roma, Irish, workers, and peasants were said to have distinctive smells that situated them outside of a civilized group.” What’s curious that prior to aggressive colonisation, Native Americans were described as smelling sweet. But by the 18th century, they were giving off an ‘outward stench,’” as historian William Tullett notes. Something had changed.

These ideas weren’t observations or scientific in any way - they were tools of the empire. Colonised and enslaved people were framed as foul, contaminating, and dirty, justifying distance, segregation and control. Plantation design literally reserved clean air and pleasant breezes for white households, pushing Black labour and living quarters downwind. “Beauty was connected to an odorless white body that could then be perfumed, whereas non-white bodies were said to have an odor that could never be overcome, that no bath could erase,” Francois Verges says in Making the Clean World.

The irony, of course, is that while European colonisers cast people in Africa, India and elsewhere as “dirty,” many of those colonists were, in reality, far dirtier than the communities they encountered. Indigenous communities in the Americas bathed regularly; daily bathing in India dates back to antiquity and is culturally ingrained. I know this because when if I can’t be fucked to shower in the morning, the disdain from my parents is palpable. Meanwhile, full-body washing in Britain didn’t become commonplace until the mid-20th century - centuries after other nations were doing it. But that didn’t matter. If dirt is avoidable, then being dirty becomes a personal failure that you can project on people. Over time, superiority and morality became attached to cleanliness and whiteness.

That colonised logic is still very present today. There’s a huge backlash against Indian and South Asian people on social media right now - particularly from visitors who arrive, recoil at the chaos, the smells, the visible sanitation issues, and feel entitled to broadcast their disgust. What’s always missing is any kind of historical literacy. The chaos they’re horrified by didn’t materialise out of nowhere. European empires systematically pillaged wealth, infrastructure and resources from the subcontinent, extracting value on a scale so vast it left lasting economic and civic disarray. To recoil at the aftermath without acknowledging the cause is not just ignorant - it’s a continuation of the same colonial logic that equates whiteness with order and everyone else with disorder.

Meanwhile, the current Gen Z look is built around hair smoothed into clean-girl buns and “scalp health” rituals involving things like hair syrup. But Indian bodies are still read as “greasy” when hair is fragranced with jasmine oil and slicked back into a bun - the kind my grandmother wore her entire life. The very same act becomes luxury on white bodies: aestheticised, sanitised, and sold back as self-care, even as it remains dirt-adjacent, suspect, or excessive on others.

For many people of colour, being ‘presentable’ is a central part of our upbringing, and invisible anxiety. My parents hate it when I dress too casually or don’t wear make up despite them not really caring about those things at all. But me wearing tracksuit bottoms, sans make-up, hair in a messy bun to a restaurant isn’t read the same as a white person doing it. That subconscious fear of judgement always lingers, and there is undeniably a higher standard of cleanliness and presentability for people of colour in western countries - even if you were born here.

A Black friend once told me she was slathered in moisturiser as a child so the neighbours wouldn’t think she was “uncared for”. When she later asked her mum about it, she learned that her grandmother - part of the Windrush generation - had done the same to her mother before her. The habit had been passed down, not as vanity, but as a form of vigilance. To this day, my friend still worries about ‘looking ashy’ and what that might signal. That’s where that fear of dirt comes from - a learned awareness that being read as “dry” or “unkempt” was something that could invite judgement, scrutiny, or worse.

Cleanliness has always been power. Dirt has always been a risk. But to choose it - and be praised for it - is undeniably a privilege. And that tension is where this new “dirty girl” energy gets really interesting - because it exposes so much barely veiled beneath a grime-ridden surface…

I’ve split this deep dive essay into two parts because it’s so long. Part two - covering class, body size and other aspects of dirt - will be with you next week.

Much love and dirt until next week…

PS: This is long-read is free because I want as many people as possible to digest it. But I am a professional writer, and these pieces take TIME. So if you enjoyed it then please upgrade to a paid membership. And if you cant, then please share it. Thank you!

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Hi frens

Happy new year! Or Blwyddyn Newydd Dda as we might say in Welsh. (I’d do it in Tamil too but the Tamil new year is like in April or something - anyway…I digress, massively)

This year is shifting shape for me. I spent 2025 trying to recover a bit from burnout (still a work in progress) and reignite my love for life after a couple of years of feeling flat and drained as I’ve spoken about before. I hate this state so much - I’m always excited or obsessing about something, so to not have that doesn’t feel like me, at all. But I think I have made a little progress. And by far the best thing I did in 2025 was to fall back in love with music.

You may not know this, but my first life in journalism wasn’t beauty at all - it was music. I started writing for national music magazines at 15. Music was everything to me: a language for feelings I didn’t yet have words for, a doorway into identity, style, and belonging. I was drawn to goth and alt bands not just for the sound, but for the way those scenes used beauty, fashion and symbolism as collective self-expression.

I wrote for Melody Maker (above) until it folded, was a music columnist at the South Wales Echo, contributed to Sony fan zines, university papers and radio. I spent years writing for Kerrang!, Rock Sound and NME - and it still knocks me sideways when I see quotes from albums I reviewed promoting records by Metallica or Pearl Jam.

I stopped writing about music a few years ago (the fees were too low to continue, despite my passion for it) but I loved the duality of it all: fashion weeks and polished beauty launches, followed by sticky-floored gigs and aftershows. That tension always felt like home - even though they seem so different. What’s interesting is that the most creative people in beauty often came up the same way. The cool-looking skater boy hairstylists backstage, the goth-leaning make-up artists - many of them were moving between the same worlds. Beauty by day, subculture by night. That’s when I realised there are really two types of people in this industry: the glossy ones, and the gritty ones. I’ve always been the latter.

But over the years I think that side of my life has felt less and less prominent. And I can’t help but think that alongside burnout, overworking, trying to constantly fit into neurotypical, mainstream boxes in the beauty industry, it’s partially why I’ve felt a lot less curious. Less playful. Less inspired. Not very me. I’ve always had some kind of batshit side-quest on the go - some niche obsession, historical rabbit hole or creative fixation - and I quietly let a lot of that fall away. I want to bring it back and reclaim a bit of that in 2026. And, most likely, some of it will land here too, because this space works best when I’m bringing all of myself to it.

I love writing about beauty and beauty culture and I’m proud to be one of the more critical voices in that space. But I’m not a one-note person, so I’m opining up what I cover to reflect that a little more. I’m currently obsessed with the way hair is such a big part in Regency mourning rituals (a post is coming, see above) but I’m also enamoured with Marc Bolan’s make-up, which feels long overdue for proper cultural analysis IMHO. And, I think we’re also due a conversation on looking dirty - something I’m seeing in pop culture and on social media, and the constructs around that are fascinating when you cross examine them with class and race.

The topics I wrote about in my book UGLY still live here (see the latter) but instead of forcing myself to find things every week, I’ll be doing less posts a month and making them more considered and juicy. I’m also working on a new skincare book, so I’ll shout when I can tell you more about that, too.

So this is me gently re-arranging the furniture for the year ahead. This Substack is shifting to reflect where I actually am now, rather than where I thought I was meant to stay. I hope you’ll stick around and see where it goes!

I’ll be back next week with a long read. But in the meantime, here are a few pieces you might enjoy…

Much Love and here’s to a magical 2026…

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FURTHER READING:

• I wrote about the death of skin positivity for Marie Claire - here.

• The Guardian asked a bunch of their long time writers what they’re ditching in 2026 - so I wrote about how I’m no longer people to come to gigs with me , I’m going alone - here

• Want to read about painful fashion and history trends, I wrote about them for Sky History - here.
  
  
  PS: You can also buy UGLY here - she’s only £8.99 right now! Or listen to me read it on Spotify and Audible.

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Christmas is meant to be about rest, family, food and switching off. But for me, it’s also a bit of a reset where I’m not constantly fighting the 300 beauty press release emails I get a day, or trying to be in 20 places at once. A pause where I take stock of what I’m carrying - mentally, emotionally, digitally - and decide what’s no longer coming with me into the new year.

We usually think of decluttering as a physical act: clearing cupboards, donating clothes, binning junk. And yes, that definitely matters. But in a hyper-digital world, the real clutter also lives elsewhere. In our feeds and our notifications. In our quiet habit of consuming content that leaves us feeling worse, not better. Algorithms don’t have morals; they optimise for attention, they’re riddled with bias and if we don’t edit them, they will gradually start to edit us. And sometimes that means feeding us comparison, insecurity and fears we never consciously opted into.

There’s also a need for a pause away from it all, I think. Logging off can feel risky. We worry about being forgotten, losing reach, disappearing from the conversation. Plus WTF will our hands do if they’re not scrolling incessantly?! But sanity has to count for something too - and I’ve definitely noticed that my brain hasn’t been feeling great on social media recently; all it takes is for me to open an app and see a perfect smiling unlined face of an influencer, that makes my brain spiral into utter panic. I don’t want it and I don’t need it. Neither do you.

So in the spirit of autonomy - not self-punishment - here’s my own clearing plan for starting the year feeling lighter, calmer and more in control of my own beauty space. I’m sharing for anyone else wants to start 2026 feeling like they’re more in control of what they’re consuming and how it affects them.

STEP 1 - DIGITAL CLEARING PLAN

Halve your following list - It’s so easy to click follow, but you’ll quickly notice who you actually miss and who you don’t. Unfollow anyone who makes you feel bad about yourself - gloating, comparison, “aspirational” misery - none of it is mandatory and it’s making your life worse. It always surprises me how many people ‘hate’ follow people too, so stop that and delete them. I’m planning to do this on boxing day ( a weird British name for the day after Christmas for any internationla readers), watching a film with a cuppa.

Curate support, not perfection - If you’re struggling with something - anything from ADHD, to acne to body confidence - then follow smart people who talk about it thoughtfully and realistically. Use them as your inspiration, and their presence in your feed to normalise anything you’re struggling with. I can’t emphasise enough how much of a game changer this is - it really works if you follow enough of the right people.

Audit your platforms - If an app consistently makes you feel worse, ask why it’s still on your phone. I hated X when it was Twitter, let alone now. So in 2026 it’s gone, the same for Facebook. Less is more.

STEP 2. PHYSICAL CLEARING

Blitz your beauty stash - if it’s old, unloved or expired, let it go - recycle, donate, pass it on. You keeping it and not using it isn’t helping anyone. But do make note of why you bought it. Was it an impulse buy on Tik Tok that failed to deliver? (I just bought that stupid collagen stick and it doesn’t work - none of us are immune to this stuff, so no judgement here.) Whatever the case, clear it out and implement a rule around only buying things you know you really want/need. I did this for ages and felt so much better. So, I’m going back to it in 2026. I can only buy beauty/fashion bits at the end of the month, and i’ll pop anything I want on a note on my phone to come back to. Impulse buys are NOT allowed.

Create ease, not aspiration - I always think I’ll be the kind of person who has enough time these multi step routines. In reality I was to just shower, smear a few things on my face, feel great and get on with it. I always think i’ll do some morning gua sha, or use those cold ice globes. I wont and I don’t. So choose products and routines that work on tired days, not imaginary ones. Keep the things you like using, and that you do use - and remove the rest. And less choice = less mental load, so keep everything you can to a minimum.

How can I enjoy beauty more - Make a pinterest board of what looks styles and vibes you’d like to try this year. Do you want to wear more colour this year, maybe try a lipstick, or hairstyle? That state of evaluation, joy and pleasure is the smartest way engage with beauty. Print it out and have it stuck next to where you get ready, and start trying them to reclaim your autonomy from being sold trends/stuff you don’t really need or like. I do a fashion version of this too.

STEP 3 - REWIRING YOUR BRAIN

Curate what you consume - Your feed shapes your self-talk. Load your social spaces with people who make you feel good, curious and expanded - not inadequate. I know i’ve said this already but it needed repeating. It’s so crucial. We’re in a hypnotic brain state using social media, which means we’re taking in a LOT more than we realise.

Follow voices that reframe beauty - Seek out creators, writers and experts who challenge perfection and add context, humour or history to beauty, rather than selling you insecurity. A few I like who are have excellent Substacks are: Flesh World, All Left Turns, Burnt Toast. Get that hit in your inbox, to give your brain a reboot. Share any others you rate and I’ll get a list going to share.

Name the triggers, then set boundaries - Take 10 mins and write down what makes you feel bad about how you look - this could be social media, a parent, a loved one, a friend, a brand, a celebrity, honestly anything. Once you can see who is keeping you stuck in the loop you set boundaries. Mute or unfollow them online, if they’re close to you, have a word and say how it makes you feel, if they don’t stop, come up with a few ways to swiftly change the conversation. There’s always a way to deal with these things - we just have to stop tolerating it.

Here’s to a 2026 filled with self love, beauty that doesn’t harm us and all the good things. I’m following my own advice and having a few weeks offline - so I’ll be back in January. In the meantime, subscribers have a whole wealth of long reads, pep talks and curated beauty lists (without the BS) to delve into.

Much love and have a wonderful rest…and let me know if you try any of the above, too!

PS: A HUGE thanks to all the subscribers - really means a lot. This platform is changing a lot and it’s tricky to navigate, so you being here means everything. Stay tuned for a bit of a rebrand in the new year.

PPS: grab a copy of UGLY here.

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If the gods of internet culture could grant me one teensy wish for 2026, it wouldn’t be better algorithms, fewer filters, or a return to chronological feeds. All I’d ask is that we ditch a word that truly boils my blood on every level; aesthetic. And when I mean ditch it, I mean obliterate it from our lexicon with so much fervour that it would never dare return.

‘Aesthetic’ might just seem like another bit of gen z slang - used to describe a viral ‘look’ in the way that we used to use words like trend or style, but it’s much worse than that. Using the word Aesthetic is indicative of the root of so many of our current cultural issues - there’s no depth, substance or connection, it’s just for show on social media.

“Aesthetic” culture is shallow by design. It prioritises looking like something over actually being a part of something. It’s costume over building community and optics over true identity. It allows people to pluck a subculture off the shelf - goth, cottagecore, clean girl, coquette, whatever TikTok’s decided this hour - and wear it like a fast-fashion accessory. No history, no roots, no understanding, no responsibility. Everyone is just here for the fleeting ‘vibes’ - and when it’s gone, you’re left with…nothing.

Somewhere along the way - in our gradual creep towards conservatism and right-leaning beauty trends - the word aesthetic stopped meaning “a theory of beauty” and became internet shorthand for “a pile of empty vibes glued together with no cultural context.” These “aesthetics” are usually set by celebrities - Hailey Bieber being the reigning mascot for this era of surface-only beauty, fronting everything from the sterile clean-girl look to the truly cringe glazed-doughnut phase - all of which her beauty brand Rhode, touts, naturally.

When I first became a beauty journalist, finding out about trends backstage at fashion week was the best part of my job; we’d speak to the make-up artists (see above), hair stylists and clothing designers themselves about inspiration. They tell us about a piece or art they were inspired by, a historical movement or a film they wanted to embody in their collection. Many of the people behind the scenes at those shows were creative, boundary pushing and defiant - all chasing originality and feeling. Now those making the trends online do it chase viral clout and sell us something, without there being anything of substance behind it.

I know this risks sounding like millennial nostalgia, but those of us who grew up analogue and came of age online occupy a rare vantage point. We’ve lived in both worlds, which means we can see the incoming problems more clearly - the rising loneliness, the blandness, the eerie sense that everyone is together online but no one is actually with each other or having fun. Yes, it’s a wider societal issue but beauty and fashion are where it shows up in real time. Strip away the filters and moodboards and that’s what an “aesthetic” actually represents now: disconnection dressed up as self-expression.

When trends used to emerge it was from something alive - a movement, a music genre, a political manifesto, an underground art scene - it was symptomatic of our messy human existence and need to belong. Now it’s been reduced to matching outfits, vibes that often centre Eurocentric beauty standards and a link to go direct to Tik Tok shop. At its worst, it’s pure cultural cosplay: a parody of the cultures and subcultures it steals from and proof that it is designed for virality, rather than real life.

But here’s the thing: when you reduce parts of culture to an “aesthetic,” you flatten all the meaning and leave only the visuals. You turn subcultures - communities built on shared values, politics, pain, joy, rebellion - into something that can be bought, consumed, and disposed of like a trend cycle. That’s why we’re seeing twenty-year-olds dressed head-to-toe in y2k mall-goth attire (see above) with none of the spirit, none of the anger, none of the weirdness that made that moment in goth culture matter in the first place. It’s not about being a part of something, it’s about cultural cosplaying it, minus the connection that comes from finding your people.

And this truly is why social media feels utterly vapid and awful right now. It’s not just the ads, the annoying algorithms or the endless churn; it’s the saturation of people mimicking identities they’re not actually part of. The internet is flooded with surface-level versions of things that once had depth, so no wonder it/we all feel so hollow.

The tragedy is that belonging is still possible - even online. Reddit communities, Discord servers, forums - people are still forming real connections around shared passions and histories. But the mainstream platforms have taught us that looking a certain way is enough to give us the same cultural value we’d get being part of something. The dark academia aesthetic might be a nice autumnal style to follow, but does it give you the same multi-level boost as being a part of a book club or going to an actual lecture? Absolutely not.

So here’s my 2026 prophecy: if we want the internet to feel human again, we have to let aesthetic die and replace it with something like expression - a word fuelled by community, context and curiosity. Instead of curating a look, maybe it’s time we start participating in the world again by making choices - in beauty, fashion…life - that feel more analogue, more off-grid, and vitally, more alive.

Because when you engage in something for real - learn the history, feel the politics and find your people - it stops being an aesthetic and becomes more like a place of safety and joy. And wouldn’t it be nice to have the internet feel safe again, instead of a never-ending fancy dress party where the ‘theme’ changes every 5 seconds.

So let 2026 be the year we finally stop dressing like things and return to truly belonging to them.

Much (real) love and not aesthetic love…

PS: The Powder Room is where I pull back the curtain on beauty: the good, the bad and the gorgeously weird. Join for subscriber only content….and to support my work.

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I’m OOO this week for a very unglamorous reason: I’m having another round of egg extractions - my third.

For the uninitiated, yes, it’s exactly as painful as it sounds. Yes, it costs the same as a small car (or a Jumbo Chanel 2.55 bag, which is my money metric.) And yes, it’s emotionally fraught in all the ways you’re imagining plus a few you probably aren’t.

I’m trying to hold onto the “it’s insurance, and I’m lucky to be in a position to do it” mindset which is true, but honestly that feels pretty far away when you’re pumped full of hormones, bloated like a sad goth pufferfish and feeling like warmed-up dog shit.

So, here’s what I wrote about the process the last time I went through it. Sharing it again because someone else out there might be in the same boat, or thinking about it, or just curious about what actually happens behind the polite euphemisms of “fertility treatments.”

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I have to be fully honest: I didn’t really want to write this post.

Partly because I’m in the middle of it, which means everything feels raw and unprocessed. And partly because I’m now doing another round of egg freezing immediately after the last one - no breather, no emotional intermission, just straight back into the injections and the scans and the quiet, creeping dread of another crap result.

And if I’m really honest, I’m scared. Not in the big cinematic way - more in the quiet, persistent way that sits in your chest like a stone. I’m scared of going through all of this again only to end up with the same disappointing amount of eggs. I’m scared of pouring more money, more time, more hormones and more hope into something that might not even work.

What makes it harder is the deep unfairness threaded through the whole process. You endure the bloating, the bruises, the tears that appear out of nowhere, the hormone fog that makes your brain feel like cotton wool and still, you’re left with numbers and outcomes you can’t negotiate with. There is no “working harder” at this. There is only surrendering to biology and hoping it decides to be kind.

For those who haven’t experienced it before you’ve begun you’ll be told about the status your own fertility, the decline in eggs 35, and how you’d be better off a) getting knocked up naturally or b) freezing embryos. Cheery stuff, if you’re single and over 35, let me tell you.

Then the egg extraction process entails the weeks of hormone prep along with almost-daily trips to the clinic for vaginal scans. Depending on the clinician you get, they’re either careful or shove this perspex probe into you and wield it around your nethers like it’s a bloody joystick from the 90s. The actual injections themselves are tricky to administer, but you do get quite blasé about injecting yourself in the stomach several times a day. But I wasn't prepared for the low moods, month-long extreme PMT, painful stomach cramps, emotional outbursts and exhaustion that comes along with it. And that’s before you’re sedated to have the eggs extracted by a surgeon with a giant needle and then sent home to recuperate in agony on your own.

People have been well meaning when they cheer you on during the process, in a sort of “well done you for taking control of what you can” kinda way, but in truth as a single person, it feels like yet another thing to do on your own, up there with paying your bills, making sure you don’t die alone in your flat (I think about this way too much) and spider catching (up the hoover, zero fucks given.)

Everything rests on your shoulders, an invisible pressure that coupled up friends who are now a ‘we’ so easily forget, or just haven’t experienced. At my worst moments I’ve even found myself jealous of the nervous couples in the waiting room at the fertility clinic. Though their journey is so tough too - at least they’re huddled together in their anguish. When you’re single, that misery is yours alone.

I genuinely thought the hard bit was getting down to the weight limit, which has been a source of conflict for me (read more about that here) and finding the extortionate amount of cash needed to do it, which I also recognise is a privilege. But it turns out, there was much more doom to come, namely that all of the negativity that I’ve tried so hard to keep out of my mind has decided to group together and plan a sneak attack on me. In more rational times I’d remind myself that it’s better to be alone than with the wrong person, I'd be lying if I said that part of me has started to think that maybe I should have just picked somebody ok and gone for it.

I keep catching myself thinking about the alternate timeline - the one where I stayed with the gorgeous “I just want a simple life” ex. The one who found so many things about me intimidating that I slowly, almost imperceptibly, started dressing down around him. What would life look like the ex who maintained that he wanted somebody smart and independent, but married the exact opposite. Or the one who just can’t seem to make enough space for me in his life, despite the love letters and heartfelt declarations. The searing loneliness of this process isn’t helped by so many friends being pregnant and having kids (including an ex who said he didn’t want kids and now does - ouch.) It’s a seductive fantasy - the parallel universe where everything is easier, neater and feels more aligned. At least in my mind.

And then, right behind the wistfulness, comes the anger - the part of me furious that I put up with all of that and let my own time slip through my fingers. I’m also angry at the things that contributed to so many poor relationship choices. My own Indian culture for not allowing me to feel worthy unless I was top of the class (I never was). I’m angry about the missed ADHD and dyslexia diagnosis that leads so many neurodivergent people to have deep-rooted feelings of low self worth because we’re trying to exist in world’s built for neurotypical brains.

I’m both furious and heartbroken that the beauty standards of my early life imprinted so deeply that I spent years believing thin and white were the only ways to be attractive. That belief convinced me no one would ever want to date me, and it’s taken a long, painful, ongoing journey to unlearn that and actually see my own beauty and value. And on top of all that, I’m exhausted by the men I’ve dated who are perfectly happy to waste your time - men who never seem to feel the same pressure of a ticking clock.

None of these are cute thoughts and I don’t want to sit in them for so long that they become my default setting - or worse, my armour. Perhaps the antidote is being surrounded by the love of your chosen family (animals, pals, Real Housewives, KFC) and keeping hold of any hope you can muster, even if it feels exceedingly fleeting. Right now, I’m so hormone addled I have no idea. But if you’ve got any thoughts or experiences to share, I’d love to hear them.

Much eggy love….

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People always tell me I’m “hard to buy for,” which isn’t entirely untrue. It’s not because I have everything (I do love shopping though…) it’s mostly that I’m very particular about everything. I like practical but beautiful things. Thoughtful stuff but not clutter. Goth things that are macabre, not kitsch. It’s a very narrow remit.

I’m grateful for every gift I get, of course - but will I actually use it? Chances are… maybe not. A big part of that is living in a tiny flat where everything has its place. Space is precious and anything extra has to earn its keep by being genuinely useful or something I love so much I’d never part with it.

So, with that in mind, I’ve created a list of the gifts I genuinely rate, would happily receive and may or may not already own for this very reason. Basically if you’re stuck for gift ideas, have a tricky person to buy for or need some self-gifting inspiration - then this is your list.

Screenshot, circulate, leave this “accidentally open” in someone’s browser….;)

1. A nice book

If in doubt a simple book is an excellent festive gift. Hardbacks in particular feel luxurious, are easy to wrap and give us something we all need; an excuse to just sit down and do something without tech.

On my list is:

Signs by Dr Tara Swart – one of the few “synchronicity” books that feel grounded in the perfect blend of science (Dr Tara is a neuroscientist) and unconventional thinking.

Mudlarking – I own this already, it was a gift and it’s gorgeous. A love letter to London, history, and all things found-object. A beautiful book on something your giftee is geeky about always wins.

Cindy Sherman Anti Fashion - I love CS, and this book accompanied her exhibition in Belgium earlier this year. If there’s an artist your friend likes, a nice book on their work is a real treasure.

PS: If you want a better relationship with how you look, you might like my book Ugly too. Hint. HINT.

2. A Beautiful Cosmetic/Travel Bag

We’re grown adults - the freebie makeup bag from a gift-with-purchase is no longer cutting it. It’s something we might use daily, so having one that’s practical and chic makes a great and useful gift. These are the two I rate:

Elizabeth Scarlett Sun Goddess Flat Lay Bag – this one opens completely flat so it’s easy to rummage in, it comes in pretty witchy designs and can be personalised.

Smythson - If you’ve got a substantial budget, then Smythson is the way forward. They’re classic, forever, quietly expensive and beautiful quality. I’ve got the plain black one and love it - but there’s a leopard print version that is such a vibe. They’re gender neutral too and last forever.

3. A “Functional Thing” that’s also fun/pretty

I love a practical gift - so very Capricorn of me - but it also has to have a bit of personality too. Here’s a few ideas.

Stanley cups - get one for your pal in their favourite colour and style. There’s various add ons and ways to personalise. It’s one of those things you’d like but can feel a bit unnecessary, which makes it a great gift.

Ottoto Garlic Peeler - this brand is so fun. This garlic peeler was gifted to me and is so useful, and I’ve gifted others stuff from this brand too.

Labour and Wait - anything from this store that deals in beautiful hipster homewares. I love this candle holder, which would pair well with a coloured candle.

4. A Scented Candle

Speaking of candles - IMHO a scented candle is a great festive treat but MUST check these three boxes:

1. Beautiful vessel you can reuse.

2. A cool vibes (ie be a bit aspirational) and feel like a joy to use.

3. Have a strong scent - it should smells beauts, even if you only light it for five minutes. What are you paying for otherwise?!
   
   My faves are Jo Malone Pine and Eucalyptus - it smells like a Nordic forest in the very best way, any Neom candle - the scent lingers for days and Wildsmith’s Bothy Candle which is so relaxing I have to keep it for those evenings I need to physically destress.
   

   ---

5. A Handmade ‘Comfort Box’

Is it just me or has 2025 been unequivocally rubbish? The antidote? I’m making comfort boxes for my pals this year filled with lovely things. Just save any nice boxes you’re given and fill them with stuff you think they’d find comforting. It’s like an adult stocking TBH. Here’s a few ideas of bits to add in:

• Kungyokudo incense - this Japanese incense crisp is elegant and utterly transportive. In London/Japan you can get it at Nakagawa 1716 (in shoreditch) or online here.
  

• The softest socks you can find - White Company does some great ones. Cashmere is lovely, but any nice socks will do.
  

• A beautiful notebook + pen. More on that shortly, but whatever is their vibe.
  

• Some chai - nothing is more comforting than proper milky chai with warming spices. My fave is by Chai by Mira.

Next is one of my coolest discoveries - music and art fans will be very interested in this….

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This last week the internet did what it does best: spiral about beauty. But the way it did it, was so telling. First came the Louvre “hot criminals” - a viral picture of the above ‘art thieves’ who were so alarmingly attractive they were memed into minor celebrity status before police had even finished their briefing. The comments were quickly filled with thirsty reactions to the photos. “They are both works of art!” “Are they single?” “These guys are also stealing hearts.” Spoiler alert - they didn’t commit (this) crime, somebody cobbled these together from this Buzzfeed piece on the hottest people ever arrested.

Then Big Brother Australia aired a fascinating debate (below) about pretty privilege. One contestant Holly (white, female, straight sized) claiming that being too beautiful was “traumatic,” another Abiola (black, plus sized, lesbian) explaining what it feels like to be constantly overlooked because of your looks.

Who suffers more on the beauty spectrum? The beautiful or those who are damned by our ever narrowing beauty standards? Here’s the uncomfortable truth: both sides have valid points.

We’ve been trained to treat beauty not as a social construct but as a moral ranking system - a leaderboard where empathy gets rationed out according to how pleasing your face is to the world. If you’re considered conventionally attractive, your struggles are dismissed as delusion or diva-syndrome. If you’re not, your pain is treated as predictable, inevitable, and barely worth mentioning. But in both cases, the world is responding to your appearance first and your humanity second.

When you’re deemed “not beautiful,” - created by the hierarchical beauty standards, centuries of colonisation and patriarchy - you don’t get the luxury of being misunderstood - you’re simply unseen. You fade into the background in bars, in classrooms, on dating apps. You learn early how to contort yourself into someone less demanding, less noticeable, more tolerable. You become the friend taking photos, never the one in them. Perhaps the flip side, a hard-won bonus, is that if you let yourself move past the pain - you develop the kind of character and strength that sees you through the ageing process and gives you a sort of freedom to never be defined by your appearance.

But when you’re seen as “too beautiful,” the problem isn’t invisibility - it’s hypervisibility. Every room becomes a stage; every interaction, a performance. You’re sexualised early and often, statistically you’re both disbelieved often and blamed for the behaviour of others. As Holly (above) on Big Brother learned, calling your own attractiveness “traumatic” is enough to send the internet into a full-body rage.

And thats the part no one wants to say out loud: the benefits of being attractive are… real. Material. Measurable. Statistically, pretty people are afforded qualities they haven’t necessarily earned. They don’t have to prove competence - it’s assumed. They don’t have to demonstrate likability - it’s projected onto them. Studies show attractive people are perceived as kinder, smarter, more trustworthy, and even morally better, simply because of their faces. They’re hired faster, promoted quicker, forgiven more easily and yes, they make more money too. Beauty opens doors long before talent, effort or character ever get a chance to knock. So while being objectified is dehumanising - absolutely - the benefits of beauty aren’t exactly hard-fought-for. They’re baked into the system and that’s the imbalance we should be interrogating. Different ends of the same hierarchy. Different symptoms of the same sickness.

Yes, being objectified is awful - demeaning, frightening, dangerous. But is it the same as being ridiculed, ignored, or treated as less-than-human, without any benefits? Pretty privilege exists because it gives the chosen ones a sort of soft-power shortcut through the world. People assume competence, kindness, innocence, even moral purity based on cheekbones, age, race, skin lightness, weight, hair colour and symmetry. You’re forgiven faster. Trusted quicker. Desired more loudly. It is not the same as being treated as “ugly” - a word that still functions like a deeply loaded cultural slur. Meanwhile, the men ‘accused’ of robbing one of the most famous museums in the world get declared as “too handsome for jail.”

The trick of beauty culture - the thing my book UGLY keeps screaming about - is that it convinces women to argue horizontally instead of looking up. We debate who has it worse instead of asking why our worth is measured in the first place and how it’s keeping us small. We fight each other instead of fighting the system that says our value comes from our appearance.

The Louvre ‘thieves’, the Big Brother contestants, the TikTok face-card girls I’ve spoken about here, they’re all symptoms of the same machine. In a beauty hierarchy, nobody wins. Some people just get better consolation prizes. So maybe the real question isn’t who has it worse, it’s why we’re still letting the mirror decide.

I’d love to know your thoughts on this. Have you experienced either side?

Much love…

PS: If you liked this piece, you might also enjoy….

Is she pretty or is she just white?
Are you hot enough for a dating app?
How far will good looks get you?

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I used to think 40 was ancient. A stone-roll into a slow fade of sensible shoes and quiet nights in (for eternity.) But the truth is, 40 feels less like ageing and more like a kind of recalibration. The noise that once felt urgent - who likes you, what they think, whether you’re “on track” - is still there - particularly in my youth obsessed industry - but I’m trying to actively let it dull to background hum. There is a clarity that comes at 40; the dial turns inward and suddenly you can hear yourself again - at least that‘s how I’m starting to feel. But it’s not easy.

This is a really tricky time - particularly if you’re not in the position you imagined yourself in. I’m not where I hoped I’d be and whilst that’s endlessly tough especially in a world that feels geared up for couples and is so dismissive of women without children (whether by choice or not) and at times the weight of societal and internal expectations has been devastating. I definitely don’t want my 40s to be more of that chaos and anguish I felt in my 30s. Though some of this I have little control over. what I do have control over is how I frame being 40 and for me, so far, it’s been about re-assessing everything in my life for this new decade. From what I want to do, what I care about, where I want to live and who I want to be around.

I can save my yeses for the things that make me feel expansive. My twenties were beautiful sleep-deprived chaos that I wouldn’t trade for hours of working out/girlbossing the way younger generations might be. My thirties were correction; unlearning years of programming. Now, forty feels like the after-party - the one where the playlist’s perfect and you can actually hear yourself think. And maybe this decade isn’t about being small - and hating myself for the things I haven’t achieved yet - which, undeniably does creep in a fair bit, it’s about blowing up the rulebook entirely, on everything from how I should look, to how I should live.

Women are trained to fear this visibility, to sandpaper our edges and call it maintenance. But 40 is where maintenance turns into authorship. You start writing your own narrative again. So I’m reframing this decade as rebalancing - recalibrating who you are after years of being what the world asked you to be. If your twenties are the audition and your thirties the hustle, then maybe your forties are gearing up for the headline act. And it’s our time to step into the spotlight.

Let me know if your experiences on this. Maybe you’re in your 50s and have stories to share or you’re in 30’s are are scared of 40? Let me know below…

Much love…

PS: Use the images I’ve as you like; print and stick them to your mirror, save as your phone screensaver, send to a friend. They’re on instagram too.

PPS: AND If you liked this post, check out more in the “Read this…” series, a beauty culture pep talk every month…

On ageing
On your mirror image

This post is a little off topic, but I mentioned it briefly on Instagram and I had so many messages about it that I wanted to share more, almost as a safety piece. And after seeing the note about that David Harbour sent Lily Allen, I thought I should as a warning.

A couple of months ago, I went on a date with a man who, in hindsight, I think could have been quite dangerous.

He was interesting, had a great job and was classically handsome. We had a long phone chat beforehand (for an hour and a half) and I walked into the evening excited, believing I had loads in common with him and with my guard down because we’d bonded a little. As far as I was concerned - no red flags, and I’m looking for them, trust me.

I arrived just a little late due to a meeting that ran over, but I’d messaged him repeatedly, told him where I was, kept him posted and that I’d be 15 mins. Being late is annoying I get that, but in big cities there’s a unwritten 30 minute late window because you never know what the tube/traffic etc is doing. I arrived, thinking I’d meet the golden retriever human I’d chatted to a few days before, but the vibe couldn’t have been more different. He was quiet and clearly annoyed that I was 15 mins late, despite the constant contact. It was a nice day, he was sat at a picnic table with his laptop working - so I couldn’t see what the issue was. His reaction put me entirely on the back foot and I found myself over apologising and overcompensating by getting the first round to try to turn the vibe around. I felt like I’d done something wrong and had to make up for it.

That shift from “nice-chat guy on the phone” to this person - wordless and seething was stark. My brain kept trying to reconcile the person I thought I was meeting with the one in front of me. But he lightened up a bit as the date went on and I apologised (several times) for being late. He seemed smart, confident and interesting - although spoke about himself a lot. As he spoke my brain was still trying to work out what was going on; when we’d spoken on the phone he’d been engaged, interested and self aware, and it meant that I didn’t clock some of his comments that were gently tinged with misogyny until the next day. He said something about women being too picky on dating apps, but he veiled it as a joke. He insinuated that I was the kind of person who would put my career before my romantic partner because I was ‘obviously ambitious.’

This was done so subtly, I can’t even tell you - a comment about how pretty he thought I was, alongside a small, almost invisible dig. I know about negging - a put down that’s mixed in with a compliment to manipulate you - and what to look out for, but despite that because of the safety of the phone convo it made me doubt myself: was I just oversensitive? Was this a nice complement or not? Maybe I’m just too focussed on red flags. During the date my brain was in this weird overdrive, trying to reconcile the person I’d spoken to on the phone with this guy; the one who said ‘maybe it was because I wasn’t very tactile or affectionate’ when we spoke about breakup’s we’d both had, then sort of used that as a way to force a sense of physical intimacy by holding my hand, before it felt natural.

During the I found myself trying to smooth things over, feeling confused and the clever stream of compliments, subtle negging and manipulation meant I didn’t uphold boundaries the way I would normally. He ended up coming back to mine - something I do keep blaming myself for, as it’s something I so rarely do - and every time I set a physical boundary he’d push through it, until I finally asked him to leave. I wasn’t harmed, but boundaries were definitely crossed.

Even after the date I was so confused about what had happened, and he send me a message I now see was another manipulation tactic to praise me for essentially being compliant. But despite all of this, I still felt bamboozled and confused; I honestly couldn’t work out who this person was, or why I felt like I wanted to see him again. Luckily I spoke to friends, regaled the entire date and they reinforced that this guy was dangerous, and manipulative. I reported him to the app, and blocked him because I didn’t want any fall out - he knew where I lived, after all. But it stayed with me for weeks; I didn’t trust myself, men or feel very safe.

I thought this sort of ‘incel lite’ behaviour was perhaps a one off I’d never encounter again - that this was some kind of gross one off. Then, last week, I found myself chatting with another man (in my industry, no less) who was a handsome boyish-looking hipster type. Humour was his weapon. Witty convo, peppered with slightly mean jokes, dismissed as “I’m just joking, lighten up.” At one point I questioned myself; am I too serious on dates, maybe I do need to lighten up? It was mixed messages galore. I’m a terrible replier on most forms of communication, but he took days to text back so I brought it up gently, just asking if he was very busy at the moment. Instead of explaining, he deemed me ‘high maintenance’ but said it was fine because ‘I was hot,” - again all of this was passed off as a joke. I gave it an amber flag and carried on chatting to him

Then, a comment popped out of the blue that felt less funny, deeply misogynistic - again, veiled as a joke. I probed, still in a gentle way but then he exploded, insulted me, used my age (I’m like four years older than him) and race as a put-down. The same pattern: a veneer of charm, followed by a sharp sting if you question their behaviour.

We tend to think of misogyny in dating as extreme episodes - shouting, violence, blatant abuse - that you can weed out from profiles early on. But what I experienced - and what many women I’ve spoken to have said - is that there seems to be a rise in this sort of more subtle but very manipulative deeply insidious behaviour. And it’s not from the men you’d expect it from. We’d usually associate it with men who haven’t been lucky in love, or who find dating hard, perhaps because of their appearance or jobs. These were both conventionally attractive, successful men; but both seemed to have a covert hatred of women that revealed itself slowly, but surely through the passive-aggressive behaviour, the subtle undermining, the “just kidding” sneers.

The ways they put women down are often appearance based, because they value that as our currency, and think that’s how we value ourselves too - and often we do because that’s how we’ve been conditioned. Both of these guys made a point to say they thought I was hot, and then also tried to undermine that in some way too when I wasn’t compliant. Like giving somebody a present, and then snatching it back because they’re not grateful enough to you.

I don’t know enough to give them a label a such; maybe they are a form of Incel, maybe they are narcissists, maybe they’re just bad dudes - who knows. The labels aren’t as important as me sharing the tactics they used, or the story, because they are so, so slight, that even someone highly attuned to red flags, who dates intentionally, can be taken in. I spent weeks blaming myself for being stupid and naive, but having spoken to experts, therapists and friends about it, this could happen to anyone. And it seems like - from the stories I’ve heard from other women - they do get a kick out of doing it to women who they deem smart and successful.

So, this column - a deviation from the norm - is just a reminder that if you’re on a date and those feelings arise, go to the loo call a mate and trust those feelings. If your inner voice is quietly shouting no, you don’t owe anyone an explanation, don’t overthink it, just leave. And please for the love of satan, stop telling women - especially those over 30 - that they need to settle, they should be less fussy and that time is running out. Nobody needs or wants to hear it - keep your conditioning and BS to yourself because it has consequences.

Much love, normal service resumed next week - but please do let me know if you’ve seen any red flags you’d want to add to this, so that other people are aware too.

There’s something in the spooky season air. The goth beauty aesthetic - long dismissed as “too much,” “too dark,” or “too teenage” - has risen from the underground once more. Why? I’m unsure. Maybe it’s Netflix’s Wednesday taking hold of everyone imaginations, perhaps it’s the sombre mood of the world feeling chaotic, unfair, and upside down. Either way, everyone’s talking about “soft goth”: the moody, romantic backlash to the “clean girl” vibe.

What is soft goth? Think soft-focus burgundies, blurred blacks, and bruised berry tones rather than sharp contour or glazed doughnut shine. It’s a vibe shift, sure - but also a cultural one too. After years of beige minimalism and quietly-luxury sameness, there’s something rebellious about smudged eyeliner, messy berry lips and having fun with make-up again, rather than trying to emulate the poreless perfection of shiny-faced nepo babies, or child-influencers telling us - grown bloody women - how to look like glazed doughnuts, cinnamon buns or strawberry bumholes or whatever the fuck is next.

Soft goth is something we can all get on board with - and honestly some of us (me) may NEED to out of desperation. Autumn in the UK isn’t as gloriously ghoulish and halloweeny like it is in the US; it’s just rainy, cold and bleak. Nobody does anything. Everyone stays inside (even in London!) and frankly I need something to get me through it - and this vibe could be it.

For those of us who’ve always felt more Nosferatu than no-makeup-makeup, it’s less a trend and more of a homecoming. Goth beauty has always been about identity - about self-expression through artifice, defiance, and glamour in the face of conformity. For those who prefer lighter shades, I challenge you to find your soft goth alter ego.

Here are 10 soft-goth essentials that go beyond cliché black lipstick; each one equal parts eerie, elegant, eerily dreamy and everyday-wearable. Even if this isn’t your thing - indulge me and have a read because I’ve worked VERY HARD on getting as many goth gags and creepy references into this list as possible. And these are all products that are genuinely in my beauty kit.

1. Pat McGrath Labs Mothership V: Bronze Seduction Palette

A masterclass in moody glamour. There’s an inky black, a vampy burgundy and a clutch of molten metallics that layer beautifully over cheaper shadows to create that luxe, smoked-out depth. It’s pricey BUT it’s a way to update your current make-up so very easily - it’s one of my most used palettes.

2. Heretic Parfum x Nosferatu Eau de Macabre

Peak goth, bottled. Inspired by the iconic vampire, this limited-edition scent blends wilting lilacs, ambrette, and the metallic tang of petrichor. It’s delicate, hedonistic, and charged with the electricity of a storm about to break

3. Dior Addict Lipstick in Blackberry

Looks black in the bullet but melts into a bruised blackberry stain - the perfect halfway point between romantic and dangerous. One swipe gives soft rebellion; two gives full vamp - and I always use a dark brown lip liner to gently anchor and keep it in place.

4. Rituel de Fille Metamorphic Highlighter in The Faun

I love everything this brand does - it’s an otherworldly, iridescent wash of alien pink that shifts under light - less “glow from within,” more “glow from another dimension.” I get so many compliments wearing this.

5. MAC Lip Pencil in NightMoth

A goth secret weapon. A deep burgundy black liner that instantly goth-ifies any lipstick - even turning a classic red into a dark bloody ombre.

6. NARS Total Seduction Eyeshadow Stick in Fated

Swipe-and-go haunted glamour. This blue-burgundy shade is my go to for adding a little goth to any look. Use it on the lower lash line as a smokey shadow to look like you’ve been ‘dug up’ in a really chic way and smudge it in, just you’ve been crying prettily to The Cure.

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Last week, I went to two Diwali parties back-to-back. That’s impressive because I’m now 41, but also impressive because I tried a new look. I threw on a black sari, lubed myself into a latex corset and fake bleached my brows for a look that was part brown goth, part 90’s Vivienne Westwood fever dream. My jewellery was a mix of Camden market’s best and Amrapali’s finest molten silver with chunky gems and maximalism as sacredness. I carried a patent black and silver Dior bag that matched my bindi - until I sweated it off in between events clambering into the back of a black cab (that part was far less chic, tbh, forget I mentioned it.)

It sounds like something I moodboarded for weeks, but it was really just a panic pivot born of having a stack of Diwali invites (a joy) and a lack of budget for glamorous designer outfits (abject fear). But somewhere between pleating the sari and buffing latex gloss onto the corset, between tradition and defiance, I realised I’d accidentally merged two sides of myself that had always sat uneasily together: my Indian heritage and my lifelong gothic sensibility. That’s no small thing - I picked goth over being Indian for so long that feeling connected to my heritage again, alongside the alt culture I love feels quietly radical.

Diwali and goth culture share a strange, poetic kinship. One celebrates light; the other worships shadow. Both are, at their core, rituals about power; about what happens when darkness is acknowledged rather than feared.

In Hindu mythology, light doesn’t erase darkness; it transforms it. The goddess Kali, for instance, isn’t evil as such - she’s destruction as creation, chaos as a catalyst. That’s peak goth energy if I’ve ever seen it. The Hindu fascination with death, decay, and rebirth - the very thing Victorians fetishised through their mourning couture - has long existed in South Asian spiritual tradition. We were doing existential macabre centuries before the West put it in a corset.

So when I wore that latex corset as a sari blouse, it wasn’t ironic or an attention-grabbing stunt, it was more a personal reclamation. A small act of owning the power and duality I’ve spent years trying to reconcile: the light and the dark, the sacred and the subversive, the parts of myself that were never meant to coexist, but finally do.

I spent most of my teens - and a good portion of my adult life - rejecting my Indian heritage in every way I could. Growing up in South Wales in the 90s, in a mostly white community, fitting in wasn’t just about wanting to look like the girls in Just 17 or Mizz magazines; it was about survival.

Fear created by The National Front still lingered in the cultural backdrop, and “Paki” was the slur that echoed across playgrounds and high streets alike. In small-town Wales, being visibly brown felt like walking around with a target on your back. So I made a choice, as so many of us did back then - to be as British as possible. But that came with its own kind of loss. In rejecting my heritage, I’d also rejected a part of myself. What replaced it wasn’t belonging, but a kind of restless, beautiful anger - the kind that eventually found its outlet in heavy alternative music, and eventually I developed a more gothic sense of style.

I didn’t have the language for what I was doing, veering towards black felt instinctual. All I knew was that black eyeliner, crushed velvet, and listening to Clan of Xymox made more sense to me than bronzer and The Spice Girls (although, I did also love them too.)

But looking back on that period, I realise that I was also rejecting the pressure to be perfect; both in an Indian and a western sense. Goth was my first act of rebellion against the western beauty standards and Indian cultural conditioning I’d already swallowed enough of. I knew I’d never fit the profile of what a “good Indian girl” was meant to be like: lighter-skinned, slim, well-behaved, elegant, Bollywood-adjacent (see above). So why even bother when the benchmark was so out of reach?

By western beauty standards “pretty” meant one thing only: thin, straight-haired, and white, as well as being girlish, sweet, agreeable - the kind of docility that gets mistaken for desirability. Those were boxes I’d never managed to tick either - so few ever could, no matter your race.

At times wearing traditional South Asian attire has felt a bit like I was in a costume. Because I’d opted out of the culture for so long, I knew so little about what was cool or in style. So at my first Diwali party a few years ago, I panic shopped in London’s Green street and turned up in something I probably would’ve worn at 18 - completely unaware that South Asian fashion had evolved while I was busy avoiding it. That’s what makes this new phase of my style - the merging of goth with South Asian - feel like closure and integration and it’s genuinely exciting to carve a new path here.

Many of the big South Asian designers already flirt with the gothic, whether they mean to or not. Rahul Mishra’s pieces (above) have a kind of Maleficent grandeur - sculpted shapes and shadowy embellishments feel straight out of a fairytale gone deliciously wrong. And Sabyasachi’s black-and-white heritage collections? They’re like the soft-focus cousin of goth - ornate, melancholic, and endlessly romantic. Exactly my kind of mood: sari-clad sorrow with couture-level precision. It’s a reminder that “fusion” doesn’t have to mean dilution. There’s something deeply empowering about using adornment not to prettify, but to signify lineage and rebellion in the same breath.

I’ve realised that getting dressed for Diwali isn’t just about celebration anymore. It’s about ownership. For years, I approached it half-heartedly - haunted by that teenage instinct to downplay my Indian-ness, and then not feeling like I was Indian enough to know what was cool, and wear it with confidence. But now, I want to play with it, exaggerate it, make it cinematic. And I’ve managed to find allies who subscribe to the same ethos; of doing Indian their own way - something that’s only spurring me on to experiment in the area between both worlds.

When I showed up at the Creed party in black latex and a sari, people smiled, complimented, took pictures and videos (like the one above with my friend Vithya.) But more than that, they understood. It was a look that said: I can honour tradition while rewriting it. The more I think about it “aesthetic refusal” is the ultimate stand off in a world that still prizes smoothness, gloss, and glow. To be a goth amidst our current conservative beauty standards is still bold and is still some 30 years later, a visual protest against the pressure to be palatable and mainstream. When you’re a brown woman raised under the double weight of Western beauty ideals and your own cultural respectability, that act of defiance means so much more.

And maybe that’s why goth never really really leaves you. You rarely hear of people suddenly embracing fluffy pink and rejecting their previously haunting ways. You seldom ‘grow out’ of being a goth. You might stop wearing the uniform, or adapt it to your own style, but the instinct - to challenge, to expose, to question beauty’s moral codes - ultimately always remains.

That’s exactly what I felt this Diwali. Between the marigolds and martinis, the latex and laddu, I wasn’t trying to fit in on either side anymore. I was finally expressing beauty on my own terms and it looked like both rebellion and confidence; one part Kali, one part Morticia. No longer begging for acceptance; just existing - uniquely and defiantly.

Much love, Happy Diwali and Bandi Chhor Divas…

PS: My full Goth Beauty Edit drops next week the best black liners that don’t smudge, the only metallics that show up properly, and the products that make rebellion a fine art….(if it’s not your vibe, then tell a gothic pal!)

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Lately my brain feels like it’s buffering: too many tabs open, too many pings, too much social media static. Excitement flips into panic, curiosity into comparison, and the scroll feels less like discovery and more like existential doom.

So I’m trying something different. Giving myself back a bit of wonder, a bit of inspiration - letting myself tumble down the rabbit holes I actually like: culture, beauty, history, shopping. The stuff I naturally obsess over but, recently, have been shoving aside in favour of consuming more, producing more, scrolling more.

If you’re looking for a lunchtime read or just something to peruse over the weekend accompanied by a cuppa, here are a few things I found fascinating this week - maybe you will too.

On Substack

• Loved this piece by Priya Joi - on the ‘girlbosses’ being bank-rolled by their partners, rich pals or their families - it’s setting up so much fake expectation. Coming from money is totally fine, but pretending it’s not giving you a much easier ride isn’t.
  

• As somebody who snaffles a handful of supplements every day (the days I remember anyway) I found this piece on The Shift with Sam Baker a timely read.
  

• Beautiful, smart thoughtful reflections on growing older with this piece by writer Laura Kennedy. It was a lesson to myself too that not all great writing has to be 63863273 words long.
  

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To Read

• This piece on Sky History about the most painful beauty and fashion trends of yore - spoiler alert, I wrote it. (above)
  

• The Guardian’s feature on unsung women scientists in history - not new but I randomly stumbled on it and enjoyed it.
  

• If you’ve got a bit of time to get really immersed this V&A page is filled with videos, reads and artefacts from the history of Indian fabrics. I learned a lot!

To Watch

• Trainwreck: The Cult of American Apparel (Netflix) - the rise & fall of an iconic brand. Sharp, messy, genre-bending.
  

• I hate the name, but the banal, nothingness and teenage drama of The Summer I Turned Pretty (on Amazon in the uk) has been the perfect watch for me. The boys are cute, the main character - the annoyingly named Belly - has zero personality which is a shame. The most interesting character is Belly’s mother; would love to see a spin off with her!
  

• Adam Curtis’ Can’t Get You Out of My Head (BBC iPlayer) is a hypnotic dive into power, beauty, identity, and the myths that shape modern life - part essay, part fever dream.
  

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To Listen

• Articles of Interest - the episodes on uniforms are absolute treats. Even if clothes are not your jam, you’ll find this fascinating.
  

• Goth, raver, anything in between? I’ve discovered the US collective Not A Toy (above) and this track Doomsday Holiday is SUCH a banger. If i was still djing at goth clubs I’d have this on repeat!
  

• Emma Grede (CEO of Good American/Kardashian related brands) seems to be having a moment. Loved her podcast ep with financier Mellody Hobson who talks about entering the industry in the 90’s as a Black Woman.
  

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To Buy

• I’m deep in Diwali season. This isn’t my colour because orange scares me, but I love the style of this Saree-meets-blazer vibe by designer Miku Kumar. I’ve actually done a LOT of research for cool Diwali looks that feel a bit different - so if I get a few comments I can do a post on them perhaps?
  

• This corset from Hasanova is a gothy autumnal delight.
  

• This Saie blush is such a vibe - it’s glossy, translucent and bold. It makes me look alive when I feel like death warmed up - I’m a big fan!

Please do comment with anything you’ve read/listened to/watched etc and loved too, let’s share them all!

Much love and happy clicking….

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A pal announced she was running a marathon for charity. Almost instantly our WhatsApp group lit up - all heart emojis, clapping hands, and cries of “You’re amazing!” We all expected to updates on her progress during her training of course, but what nobody expected the change in her moral compass. Gradually she morphed from a fun-loving sardonic friend who eye-rolled at any obvious displays of, well anything cringe, to radiating the quiet moral superiority of someone who thought they were single-handedly saving the NHS with one 26 mile jog.

Maybe this sounds harsh; I’m proud of her, of course. Any kind of tough challenge we overcome - be it one we choose, or don’t choose - is worthy of celebration. But there is an odd way people talk about big fitness challenges in particular, like marathons, lengthy triathlons and hikes up various snow-capped peaks. That shift was palpable as her Instagram became unbearably pious; every protein shake was “fuel for the cause,” every early wake-up was a “sacrifice.” By the end of it, her JustGiving page had raised £800, but judging by her captions, her tone and her shift in self perception - you’d think she was Mother Teresa in Lycra. She’d become the kind of person she used to post memes about.

The Strange Origins of Muscular Faith

What really struck me was the almost religious undertone in how she spoke. I’ve seen it many times, and maybe you have too, but whenever someone embarks on a big fitness quest - a marathon, a weight-loss mission, an endurance challenge - their language and approach starts to have a moral bearing attached to it. Suddenly it’s not just about exercise; it seems to be about virtue. Their blisters become a sort of symbol of their hardship and toll, like a stigmata. The Strava screenshots they share online are almost like declarations of worship. Once you clock it, you can’t unhear it because the fitness and wellness industries too are rife with this sort of rhetoric.

My friend’s behaviour took me straight back to something I uncovered while researching my book UGLY: a Victorian obsession called Muscular Christianity.
It started, like so many bad ideas do, with a bunch of Victorian men getting anxious. In mid-19th-century England, a group of clergymen and writers decided that Christianity had become far too soft. Too emotional. Too… feminine. The pews were filled with gentle souls praying and doing good for all, instead of conquering and being brutish. So, in an effort to toughen up the faith, they created something new: Muscular Christianity.

Charles Kingsley - a clergyman with a flair for moral panic - and Thomas Hughes, who wrote Tom Brown’s Schooldays, began preaching that a true Christian man should be vigorous, brave, athletic, and honourable. In modern terms, they were basically saying: “Stop being a bunch of pussies and pick up a dumbbell, or you’ll go to hell.”

Hughes spelled it out clearly: the body, he wrote, was “given … to be trained; … brought into subjection; … then used for the protection of the weak; … for the advancement of all righteous causes.” Translation: conquer your flesh, master your instincts, and then use your muscles for moral warfare. It was a theology of testosterone, one that conflated physical dominance with divine duty. And it didn’t stay confined to sermons or sermons either; it changed our entire culture; schools introduced mandatory sports; churches built gyms; the freshly-founded YMCA became a temple of both sweat and salvation. The legacy? It elevated the athletic and denounced those who struggled as weak and immoral; something that I certainly felt the echoes of when I was at school, a mere hundred years later.

Like all bad ideas, it spread fast. By the late 1800s, this gospel of strength had crossed the Atlantic and American pastors embraced it as a cure for the supposed “feminisation” of religion. President Theodore Roosevelt cited Muscular Christianity as a personal inspiration, turning his own workout routine into a political metaphor for national toughness. From pulpits to playgrounds, the message was clear: holiness required hardening. Weakness wasn’t just unmanly, it was now un-Christian.

The Dark Side of Muscularity

To attach a moral value to your muscle mass feels dark enough, frankly. But this was an era when empire and expansion shaped everything, including what was considered a “good” body. In the late 1800s, as Britain and America tightened their colonial grip abroad, there was growing anxiety that their own societies were becoming too soft, too civilised, too effeminate to rule with an iron fist. A “flabby” body wasn’t just unattractive now; it was a political liability, a symbol that the moral and physical fibre of the nation was weakening.

Alongside this, a view began to emerge in which colonised nations were cast as savage and undisciplined. Bodies outside the European/American ideal - fuller, less “controlled” - were framed as evidence of moral inferiority. Texts that had once exoticised the physicality of colonised peoples now turned hostile, condemning their bodies, appetites, foods, and lifestyles as signs of gluttony and laziness - stereotypes that still endure today.

The path to becoming “civilised,” then, was through bodily control: to be lean, restrained, and relentlessly disciplined. This wasn’t just self-improvement, it was sanctified domination. Muscular Christianity turned physical control into a moral virtue, recasting mastery over the body as evidence of spiritual superiority. In doing so, it offered a tidy moral alibi for empire: to rule others, you first had to rule yourself - and remaking them in your image was framed not as violence, but as virtue.

Writers of the time genuinely feared that if white men lost their physical hardness, they’d lose their right to dominate. As historian Carolyn de la Peña notes in her essay How Colonialism Shaped Body Shaming, strength and slimness became tied to imperial power - a way to prove superiority over both colonised peoples and the influx of “foreign” immigrants arriving. By the turn of the century, American clergy were even warning of “race suicide,” terrified that softness and moral decay would dilute the nation’s virility. It’s terrifying how that rhetoric is still present today, right?

The Enduring Legacy of Morality and Fitness

Male body trends seldom shift as much as women’s ones do, but when they do change it’s a sure signal that the patriarchy feels its stronghold is weakening. In the 1980s bodybuilding and larger muscular male bodies became the beauty standard, in part a reaction to women seeking more financial freedom, and finding roles in the workplace.

In our current period of conservatism both US and gym rates have rebounded and male muscularity is on the rise. There’s lots we could attribute this to; changes in beauty standards, the effects of social media filters and shifts in gender roles. But we might also be seeing more of a focus on muscularity and extreme fitness regimes as a learned reaction to the current perceived threat in the West that mirrors attitudes a century ago; immigration.

Though Muscular Christianity might sound like a dusty footnote from the Victorian era, I can’t help thinking that its spirit is alive and well. We’ve inherited the idea that to be good - or at least disciplined, worthy, impressive - we must constantly master the body. Workouts aren’t just a health routine anymore; they’re a moral report card we seem to want to share online. The people who can 6am-gym, green-juice, and “crush it” daily are the modern saints. Those who can’t - or won’t - are quietly marked as lacking, something I know I’ve felt.

But here’s the catch: the body becomes a battlefield, not a home. It’s no longer something we inhabit with curiosity or care - it’s something to conquer. If you’ve ever felt like skipping a workout feels like a failure of character or you’ve felt uneasy even taking a rest day? That might just be the influence of muscular christianity, rather than some innate inner drive to push yourself harder, lift heavier, and eat cleaner.

When our bodies protest - with fatigue, injury, or pain - we don’t see it as communication; we see it as defiance. And we punish it with more reps, more control, more denial. The more we endure, the more righteous we feel. Weakness, in this moral framework, isn’t just physical. It’s spiritual. That’s why we don’t just fear getting unfit, we fear becoming soft. Fatness, fatigue, rest, even aging - all of it becomes coded as moral failure. “Softness” isn’t just a texture; it’s a shame.

And in all of it, we lose the most basic spiritual truth of all - the one Muscular Christianity forgot too. The body isn’t a test. It’s a teacher. It tells us when to move, when to eat, when to rest, when to slow down. It’s a physical vessel that we need to look after, but it’s not indicative of our virtue. But we’ve been so trained to override it, to moralise it, to shame it into submission, that we no longer hear what it’s saying. Maybe if we took the morality out of it and focussed on how our bodies feel, that may just lower the stakes, and the bar to success.

Love and protein shakes…

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If you’ve ever been derailed mid-conversation because someone walked by smelling like a musk-drenched demi-god, you’ll know that scent is…hot.

A spritz can pull you in closer than a chiselled jawline, make you linger long after the conversation’s gone dry and lodge in your memory like that ex you still think about at 3am. Perfume is basically hot sauce for attraction; you don’t always need it, but when it’s there, it makes everything that little bit spicier.

Why is this? Some may say it’d down to pheromones, aka the love chemicals found in the animal kingdom, although scientists disagree on whether humans actively sniff them out or not. Another theory is association; a study at the Monell Chemical Senses Center found women’s faces were rated more attractive when paired with pleasant smells like rose oil versus, say, fish guts. The take away? Our brains process beauty and scent together, so in short: if you smell good, you also look better.

Honestly, it’s exhausting that most of the “scientific” research on fragrance and attractiveness is skewed toward women being studied as the objects of desire, without any kind of balance. Furthermore, smelling good is subjective. Coffee notes might smell like Sunday morning to one person and like a panic attack in liquid form to another, so can we ever truly know what ‘sexy’ smells like?

The dating scene is tough right now; app fatigue is causing dating burnout and conversations are drier than the limpest Ryan Air sandwich. Although I’m not trying to ‘win’ anyone over, I am curious to take advantage of what I can and if wearing certain scents can impact my results - in my book that’s resolutely worth a try.

What does ‘sexy’ smell like?

Picking florals over the aforementioned eau de fish guts is a no brainer, but historically the scents we found most attractive often had less to do with innate desire and more to do with how they were sold to us via word of mouth or elevated as a must have by aristocracy. In our lifetimes it’s been the mood of the era, amplified by fragrance advertising that has played a massive part in what we define as a sexy smell.

Rich fragrances of the 1970s reflected the sexual revolution and disco-era liberation in both their notes, and the way they were portrayed. Tabu by Dana (above) was originally released in the 1930s, but was reinvented and gained traction in the 1970s as sexy, alluring scent. It was exotic, heavy and ripe with civet, amber, woods and ripe florals. The gourmand boom of the 1990s (hello, Thierry Mugler’s iconic Angel) turned desire into dessert, making sugar and chocolate erotic - you became a literal snack. This switched in the 2010s as soapy ‘skin scents’ - like Glossier You - became the symbol for sexiness, but even at its most scrubbed-clean, perfume can’t quite escape its filth. That warm, salty closeness of skin, the suggestion of sweat under cotton sheets - the intimacy of nakedness is implied rather than announced.

As for now; it feels like so much is up in the air. Our concept of ‘sexy’ doesn’t feel like it’s quantifiable, in the same way it’s been in the past. So are there any scents that actually make you more quantifiably…bangable? Over the past few months of dating in London (where 41% of us are now single…) I decided to conduct my own sexy scent tests to find out, partly driven by curiosity and partly to gamify the boredom of sub par dates. A beauty experiment in real time, I’m hoping to find out which scents actually land as hot. Since I mostly date men, I tested my perfume theories on them - but as you’ll see what I learn is applicable to everyone.

Let the experiment begin…

Does animal attraction work?

The theory: For centuries the sexiest perfumes leaned on animalic notes like ambergris (whale regurgitation), musk (scraped from musk deer), and civet (yes, from anal glands). Rare and ruinously expensive - the Birkin bags of their day - they gave fragrance a sweaty, skin-on-skin intimacy. Today they’re mostly synthetic, but the animalic pulse lingers in Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur or YSL Libre Intense. It’s not subtle at all - think of it as the olfactory equivalent of Paul Rudd in Anchorman declaring: “Time to musk up.”

A very scientific test: Unbeknownst to my date (lets call him The Politico) he’s about to become a test subject. Headed to a pub in Farringdon, I start with six sprays of Phlur Cherry Stem laden with black cherry, plum, woods, and leather. It’s sweet and snackable at first, but with a dry-down that smoulders in musky leather. He notices instantly because he can’t not; I’ve really gone to town: “Wow, that perfume is amazing,” he says, going in for a lingering hug.

I take that as a win, but I’ve been strategic. I sprayed it on my jumper, not my skin, because I know a scent switch is incoming. Later on in the date I slip off the cardigan in the bathroom and spritz Vyrao’s Ludeaux directly onto my skin. It’s softer - peach skin, white florals, a hushed musk, a skin scent for intimacy and quiet confidence.

By this point, two bottles of wine in, I can’t tell the flirty vibe is from the perfume switch or just the booze. So I fess up. “I don’t mind being used,” he quips. I give him a whiff of both and test another scent on this - Eccentric Molecule 01 + Cistus - to find out which scent he thinks makes me hotter. His answer is: “You’re just hot either way.” Diplomatic, of course, given the nature his job. But between the three, the latter just edges it, he says because it’s so layered and complex. As for the date, as fun as it’s been, my brain is flagging from so much intense political chat and he’s based in Brussels so we part ways, indefinitely.

Will smelling like a snack make me hotter?

The theory: Edible, gourmand notes come in many guises, all designed to smell like you want a bite. Thierry Mugler’s Angel was the iconic gourmand: honey, caramel, praline - sweet and moreish, like demolishing an entire Colin the Caterpillar solo. But there are other ways to be snackable; more hints of sugar, like savouring a delicate petit four rather than a full on sugar binge.

The test: I have high hopes for a second date with The Architect. He’s cute, polite, and actually decent over text (a rare feat). But our first meeting was borderline platonic, which makes round two more interesting: if scent is supposed to push things from friendly to flirty, this is the perfect test case.

So, I wear Tom Ford Black Orchid Reserve (above) a new version of the 2006 original but amplified with roasted tonka and black truffle giving it a sweet, edible edge. Half way through the date, the vibe is still a little bit ‘work colleagues.’ He’s very logical and quite straight laced, so I wonder if sharing my experiment might make him chuckle and loosen up. Reader: it does not. “This isn’t a real experiment, you don’t have a control, so it‘s all anecdotal” he says, unimpressed by my half-arsed science, and I by his lack of humour. Me and this incredible perfume are wasted here, so I say goodbye early and go to meet my friends. They’re all several drinks down at a members club in Soho. As I arrive the waiter tells me I smell amazing and I look beautiful - that’s the win this scent deserves.

A week later, I’m on a park date wearing Penhaligon’s Lavandula, a curious blend of cinnamon, lavender, musk, vanilla, and tonka. I’ve chosen it deliberately; it’s the closest blend I can find to replicating an infamous 1990s study which claimed that the notes of pumpkin pie and lavender together increased blood flow in men’s penile tissue by 40%. Lavender soothes, pumpkin pie comforts and together I guess they…arouse?

As for the date, let’s call him The American. We stop for coffee en route to the park, he orders his, pays, but doesn’t even offer to get mine which is so strange. It’s not a gender thing; if I’d have gone first I’d have bought both drinks. The barista and I give each other a knowing glance, but I’m here now, so I may as well make the best of it and test some perfumes on him. We go sit in the park and chat about music, but the chasm is immediately obvious: different lives, zero spark. I even call him “pal” a few times just to hammer the point home. When we say goodbye, though, he leans in for an unsolicited kiss on the neck - no signals given from me. I’m confused as to why he thought that was ok, or why he went for the neck, but maybe the perfume worked. Or maybe he’s just delusional. Possibly both.

Are florals really that filthy?

The theory: We know florals make us hotter than fish guts (thanks science) but some innocent looking white flowers in particular contain indole, a molecule also found in chocolate, the smell of sex, faeces and decomposing bodies. At low levels, indole makes florals smell lush and luminous. Turn it up, though, and it adds a whiff of sex itself. It’s why jasmine has always been the femme fatale of fragrance: beautiful on the surface, filthy underneath.

The test: This experiment is about to dial up a notch. I’m at Antichrist, a goth fetish club night, with friends for a bit of a dance. The cocktails, the latex, the pounding goth soundtrack, the sweat-slick dance floor - that’s what my pals are here for. I, however, came with a different mission: I’m also testing whether my indole-drenched florals give me any extra pull in a club where people are literally having sex.

We head to the top floor of the club and straight into a room full of spanking and flogging. My friend wants to leave, she says it reeks in here and she’s right, it does smell of sex - sweaty, sweet and slightly gross, and not entirely unlike the indolic nature of some white florals. I sniff my wrists for some light nasal relief; I spritzed on Charlotte Tilbury’s Star Confidence with jasmine and patchouli just before I arrived, hoping its namesake might rub off on me. A few heads turn as I try to waft by dramatically so people can smell the scent, though it might just be because I look unhinged. But I fear that as pretty as this scent is, it could be a tad too polite for this crowd.

Good thing I’ve packed backup. Floral Street’s Black Lotus comes out next - a modern-day version of 1970s sexy-classic YSL Opium, dripping with jasmine, saffron, black cherry and narcotic musk. It has to fight through the aroma of latex, sweat and sex, but when a girl in the loos stops me to ask what I’m wearing (possibly with a side of flirting), I know it’s holding its own.

By 1am, I switch again, this time to LBTY 1875, thick with tuberose, one of the hottest and most iconic indole notes of all time. That, it seems, is the clincher. A few people on the dancefloor shoot me knowing looks, but I’m 12 drinks down and McDonalds beckons. But I could have stayed and made some new ‘friends’ - and I’m blaming the tuberose entirely. This scent really does smell like sex, in the very best way.

Can historic be hot?

The theory: Perfume has always been less about notes on a blotter strip and more about what society was ready for and certain scents in the past seemed to carry major sex appeal. Often, they emerged during moments when gender norms or sexuality were shifting - they were bold, rebellious and modern at the time and very identifiable which gave the wearer power and identity.

The test: When Guerlain launched Shalimar in 1925, women were smoking in public, bobbing their hair, and dancing on tables. One of the first amber-orientals: rich with vanilla and tonka bean, it smelled of luxury, decadence and sex after champagne. Mad Men’s Joan Holloway - the office embodiment of lust - famously wore it. “The perfume of temptation,” Guerlain later called it. If you wanted to smell like the woman that mothers warned their sons’ about, this was the ticket.

It’s a Saturday, and I’ve got a museum-and-coffee date with a guy who works for a record company. He’s smart and curious, so I decide test Shalimar on him, splashing it on my wrists with abandon. He notices the perfume immediately - you can’t not. “You smell… unusual,” he says. I’m unsure how to take that, but what I do know is that every time I catch a waft of it, I feel a little buzz. Maybe that’s Shalimar’s secret: it doesn’t just seduce others, it seduces you first. We look at the exhibit, I offer up some deeply awkward facts about Tudor hygiene (why am I like this?) and after a couple of hours, we part ways. Neither of us text each other again, a mutual ghost if you will - until I inevitably become folklore in his group chat: “Remember that girl who spent half a first date explaining how Tudor aristocrats wiped their arses?” SIGH.

A few nights later, another first date. He’s a menswear designer - hot, chic, and a bit cockier than I’d like. I drench myself in Robert Piguet’s 1944 classic, Bandit: a wild clash of violet root, tuberose, civet, amber, and coconut. Within minutes of our meeting, he’s intrigued. “That smells like something… I know it,” he says, nose twitching. That tells me all I need to know; Bandit was once described as smelling like a model’s lingerie and frankly, he reeks of being a shagger. But what’s truly fascinating isn’t him, it’s Bandit’s creator: Germaine Cellier. Ex-model, reputed lesbian, legendary iconoclast - and one of the very few female perfumers of her time. Back at the table, I relay the perfume’s naught past. He grins: “That perfume is quite sexy. Weird. But sexy.” And honestly - isn’t weird the best kind of hot? I couldn’t possibly say if he ended up wearing it later that night. But lets just say either way, we’re all winners here.

So, what’s the sexiest scent?

Sometimes hot smells like roses dipped in honey. Sometimes what’s most attractive is leather, sweat, and… yes, actual faeces. The truth is, perfume doesn’t just dress the body - it undresses the mind. Through all my so-called “tests,” the real constant wasn’t how others reacted, but how I did. The scents that felt most like me - right down to the bottle staring back from my shelf - were the ones that gave me the real boost that led to me being a better, and more confident version of myself. The real magic lies in a perfume that doesn’t impose desire on you, but invites you to inhabit it - to lean into your sexiest self, on your own terms.

I’ve found a few winners above, but I’d love to know what makes you feel attractive too.

Much love and sexy whiffs…

PS: Curious about the perfumes I tried? Click here to check them all out.