Your needle-free guide to great skin

How to avoid 'inflammageing' in the modern world

Since hitting my 40s, one of the most common topics of discussion among my friends is our skin. Does menopause really cause skin to age “in dog years” (as one doctor told me)? Are collagen supplements a scam? To botox or not to botox?

I know, I know. Beauty culture is toxic and exhausting, and Jessica DeFino’s Substack is very good on this. But I’m not out to achieve “glazed donut skin” whatever the hell that is. I just want to look healthy, and not as though my face is shrivelling away like a deflating balloon. Is that too much to ask?

Breast cancer treatment left me with two displeasing side effects in this regard:
1. prematurely ageing skin (thanks to chemo-induced early menopause)
2. a mega case of needlephobia
As a result, I’ve become slightly obsessed with ways to keep my skin looking fresh without injectables.

No judgement here. Full disclosure: I’ve tried botox in the past. And loads of my friends have it regularly, as well as fillers and other tweakments. I admire the new culture of honesty around this, especially as someone who spent 20 years interviewing celebrities who denied doing anything (“I just stay out of the sun!”).

For juicy transparency, I highly recommend my former Grazia colleague Polly Vernon’s Substack (who looks bloody amazing tbf). And celebrities are being much more honest, too. “Oh, I’ve had loads,” Olivia Colman said of tweakments last year. Asked if it hurt, she replied: “Yeah, it’s needles in your face.”

And this is the thing, I don’t want any more needles anywhere near me if I can help it. So if you are needle-averse like me, but also want your skin to hold up as you get older, this is what I’ve learned really works.