Beauty Full Lives

Twelve guests have now shared the stories of their lives and how beauty products, memories, and practises have had an impact on them, and now we're nearing the end of season one, I thought it about time I shared mine. Last week's guest, the writer Rebecca Reid , agreed to host the episode, and we have a good old natter and touch on acne, anxiety, and my struggle with finding balance and contentmen...

It is almost impossible for Rebecca Reid to talk about anything without being completely compelling and extremely candid. Ask her about going from a Catholic boarding school to a polyamorous relationship in the space of a year, and she'll tell you precisely you how it happened and how it felt. Talk to her about the obsession with being a Victorian that lead her to rag her hair and go to schoo...

Zoe Sugg, aka Zoella, is an internet sensation, racking up over a billion YouTube views, with 12 million subscribers, and a further 10 million on Instagram and 13 million on twitter. Her fans are famously loyal - and they recognise Zoe wherever she goes. In this episode of Beauty Full Lives, I was keen to discuss the human element of living with the enormous fame and scrutiny that comes with...

Esther Coren didn't grow up thinking her currency would be her looks. She describes herself as having a 'round face, lots and lots of very pronounced freckles, and very, very red hair. I wasn't chubby, but I wasn't one of the pretty girls at school at all.' Fortunately, she grew up in a household where the way she looked wasn't valued above other attributes - particularly speedy wit, and in a...

Tina Earnshaw  is a make-up veteran, having either designed the make-up or worked on principal actors on - wait for it - Titanic, Emma, Mama Mia, Shakespeare In Love, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Hamlet, and many, many others. She's been nominated twice for an Oscar, and is revered within the industry for her ability to create a classically beautiful face: think perfected skin, enhanced eyes...

Millie Mackintosh's  first foray into beauty was with a sparkly lilac toy nail polish - and the experience was a disappointment of epic proportions. Enter a granny with a stash of Chanel polishes, who gave Millie a pillar box red varnish, and in so doing spark an appreciation of beautifully-executed beauty products. A slightly bumpy time at school thanks to acne honed Millie's...

Ateh Jewel  found beauty to be a source of comfort in a turbulent childhood, enjoying scent and glitter and then graduating to a love of colour and glamour. But there was a fly in the ointment: as a woman of colour, Ateh was constantly being told that certain products didn't apply to her, that pink or blush or even experimenting was not for her. Resilient to the core, Ateh continued in her qu...

When Trish McEvoy founded Trish McEvoy beauty back in 1975, how women used make-up and what might be missing from their bags was at the forefront of her mind. She started with brushes, after which she continued to add to the range, but always with the view that products should be hardworking to deserve a place in a busy woman's mirror time. In this episode, she tells her compelling story, and...

Irish writer, academic, and activist Sinéad Burke had a rather unlikely introduction to beauty as a child: her father worked as an actor and therefore had a huge make-up kit, from which he'd pull gems like Max Factor's Pan Stick before offering his daughters make-up advice. Sinéad's Dad also served as a role model for her in another significant way because he too was disabled as a result of achond...

Holly Willoughby turned up to record her Beauty Full Lives interview with a piece of paper in her hand on which she’d written a list of products she wanted to mention. ‘That’s the sign of a busy lady,’ Holly explained.  And busy she is: between presenting This Morning and I’m A Celebrity… and appearing on Celebrity Juice , Holly works with Garnier (more on which below), Diet Coke GB , and M &...

Siblings Sam and Nic Chapman started their career working as make-up artists before uploading videos to YouTube showing how to achieve different make-up looks. Within two years, Pixiwoo had amassed 30,000 subscribers. From there, they launched Real Techniques, a brand designed to demystify the process of applying make-up. In this episode of Beauty Full Lives, they discuss everything from the produ...

Davina McCall is a woman divided when it comes to beauty. On the one hand, she’s been influenced by her mother, a woman who would ‘ walk into a room and magnetise everybody - she was always looking amazing, always made up, always moisturised.’ And then there’s the grandmother she lived with for nine years, a woman who ‘never wore a jot of make-up - stuff and nonsense.’ It’s easy to see the influen...

Dolly Alderton was, by her own admission, not terribly comfortable with her looks as a teen. Yearning for adulthood, when she expected she’d find a life to suit the grown up aesthetic she’d come to love, she suffered taunts at school and was roundly ignored (or, worse, insulted) by boys.  This didn’t stop Dolly from realising any of her ambitions, and she is now revered and held in great affe...