My Beauty Rules: Alice Hart-Davis

My beauty bag is constantly evolving. With beauty products, the technology and the formulations are constantly adapting and improving, so it’s rare that old favourites don’t get set aside in favour of edgier, intelligent newcomers. My foundation is always the newest, most high-tech one in the drawer, I like to switch that up. However, there are some things I’ve loved for years and still rely on. That includes Laura Mercier’s Tinted Moisturiser SPF20. Lightweight and sheer, it gives just enough coverage to make a difference to your complexion. I love Maybelline’s Great Lash, too. It’s not one I use to add volume or to extend lashes, it’s just a really great, plain mascara at a bargain price point – it’s available in brown, too. Next up, I love Alpha H’s Liquid Gold. It uses glycolic acid to exfoliate the skin and you only need to use it once or twice a week at night to see the smoothing benefits. Lipstick Queen’s lipstick in Medieval is ideal if you want a sheer, red colour and, finally, Aromatherapy Associates Deep Relax Bath & Shower Oil will always be a repeat buy for me. That blend of vetiver, chamomile and sandalwood oils is as comforting now as when I first found it.

Trends have often influenced my beauty looks. In the Seventies, that was blue eyeshadow, a pale face and lots of mascara. In the Eighties, there was a lot of red lipstick, savage blusher and even more mascara. By the mid Nineties I started having children and lost my job so make-up took a backseat, and once I started writing about beauty and tweakments, I noticed that all the beauty directors wore minimal make-up (if your skin’s that good, you don’t need to cover it up) so I followed suit. I went back to wearing make-up when everyone started doing Instagram – that included foundation, enough blusher to look healthy, defined brows, lips and lashes…I love being made up for photoshoots but on an everyday basis I now prefer that people pay attention to what I’m saying rather than wondering if I’ve changed my lipstick.

Hair-wise, my routine rarely changes. I wash it, condition it, I dry it… And if I need to look glam or ‘done’ and I can’t snag an appointment with Ivan Ferreira, I put it up in hot rollers for half an hour before going out. I’ve been doing that since I learned to use my mother's Carmen rollers as a teenager. Or I get out a wand to give my hair some movement. Even after decades of seeing London’s finest hairdressers (or perhaps I’ve been spoiled by going so often), I am still rubbish at blow-drying.

Skincare is all about finding what works for you. As a teenager, I used face wash and moisturiser. In my twenties, when I began working in London, I became a Clarins devotee, then in my mid-thirties when I began writing about beauty and tweakments, I moved onto using more ‘active’ skincare with ingredients like vitamin C, retinol and bucket loads of sunscreen because dermatologists constantly said how important it was. Getting skincare right doesn’t have to be rocket science, but if you can find the products that suit you individually, it makes all the difference.

No tweakment is a silver bullet fix. Each one addresses a different issue – nothing fixes everything in one go, and it’s also true that no one treatment is better than everything else. It all comes down to what’s bothering you. If you’re worried about frown lines, botox does the job. If you want to redefine the contours of your face, botox won’t help, but filler will. It goes on like this. What I always recommend is that people book in for a consultation with a good, very experienced practitioner. There are plenty who I’d trust with my face on my website. Use that appointment to discuss your concerns and, in turn, get specific expert advice on what will work best for you.

Research before any treatment is paramount. Thanks to a dire lack of regulation here in the UK, the whole area of cosmetic procedures is like the Wild West. There are thousands of people with minimal training, offering treatments to the unsuspecting public, with awful results, and causing a whole load of problems. You don’t want to be their next victim. There are many brilliant practitioners around who are medically trained, experienced in aesthetics and with several years of successful practice behind them – that’s the group I work with, and those are the experts you should see. They’re not the cheapest but they’ll give you lovely results if you’re inclined. Always think about the person doing the treatment, instead of the place they work.