The 10 Best Beauty Treatments I Tried in 2024: PART ONE

Yes, I had to divide this into two. It got too long.

There will be beauty directors reading this and thinking: lightweight, I had way more treatments than this here doughnut did! Full disclosure: I didn’t have as many treatments as I would normally, because normally I have them only if I’m writing features around them, and I wrote less features last year as the first six months I was gainfully employed and never allowed to stray from my desk for more than about 15 minutes at a time, and the second six months I was in full beauty brand launch mode and guess what… I didn’t get to stray from my desk for more than about 15 minutes at a time.

Nonetheless, it was an interesting year, new things tried, old favourites re-visited.

Let me know of your experiences if you’ve visited any of the places below.

NB: All treatments received for review purposes, and therefore I did not pay for them.

5th January 2024: hair colour at Nicola Clarke for John Frieda, 58-59 Margaret Street, W1

Nicola Clarke for colour! ALWAYS! I’m only going to write about this the one time re 2024, but in fact I went many many times to see Nicola in 2024, let alone for the last 25 plus years. Last time I went to see her, she stopped for a second, my head covered in foils, her brush loaded with colour and said, “You know what, I fucking love my clients!…” And she does. And we love her. Not just for her exceptional colour - for me, she does my grey roots and then adds a few highlights, but also because she is funny, kind, makes excellent conversation.

Her mega-famous clients - Kate Moss, Cate Blanchett, Kate Winslet, Madonna, Sienna Miller, Cameron Diaz, Sigourney Weaver have been added to over the years by a new rosta of talent: Ellie Bamber, Emilia Clarke, Carey Mulligan, Haley Bennett, Greta Gerwig, and she’s no stranger to a leading man with Leonardo di Caprio and Brad Pitt also regulars. She’s never boring, but errs on the side of natural, for me anyway, as if I’m still the sun-kissed child/teen I think I am.

When she opened her salon back in 2018, I wrote a piece for British Vogue about it, and one client, not one of the famous ones, but a high profile woman working in private equity finance said this about her:

“She makes me feel I can go out every day and do battle. She has looked after me for 20 years through good times and bad; she is the most talented artist and one of the most understated people I know, and I adore her. How important is it to look the part? 100 per cent. You have to look as if you’re premier league, you have to be able to get through a day like today where I was up at 4.30am in the morning, flew to Munich, had some very challenging discussions, flew back, and have to be able to keep it turned on all day and then go out in the evening. I couldn’t do it without her.”

My top tip: if you can’t get in to see Nicola, opt for one of her protegees, and not only will you be able to get an appointment more easily, but if you ask nicely, she will also keep an eye on it. Mention this to the reception when you book, as Nicola is often out of the salon on shoots.

16th January: Biosculpture manicure at Estelle Manor with Jessica Diner

Jessica Diner is a colleague (the Global Beauty Director of Vogue) who I adore. I would go to the ends of the earth for her, but luckily for me, she only ever takes me to nice places with nice brands. When I was a child, one of my career ambitions was to be an Ambassador, I even wrote to renowned pedophile and very evil person, not that we knew it back then, Jimmy Savile on his childrens’ tv show, Jim’ll Fix It, to ask him if he could make that happen. Thankfully as it happens, he never replied.

Jess has become an actual ambassador, albeit for Biosculpture, which is less stressful and possibly more useful than being the ambassador of say a small potentate with few natural resources to exploit, and definitely more credible than being the ambassador of, say, Ferrero Rocher. Anyway, she spoils us, and off we all go to Estelle Manor, the country house hotel in Oxfordshire, a collection of beauty editors and content creators, and we sit in rows and get our nails done, then retreat to the splendid suites at the manor, a place I am so fond of that I now sell our fragrance, Catch Me If I Fall, there.

So what do I like about Biosculpture? I have never had great nails. And while gels do occasionally lure me in, there are two things I don’t like about them - the way you can’t just remove the polish when you want to, like you can with “normal” nail polish, instead you have to go somewhere and get it removed, or else pretend you’re a nail technician and wrap them in foil at home and sit and wait until the liquid burns it all away. (“Burns” is not a technical term, I hasten to add, but what even is that liquid? It always feels like it’s what you’d get if you melted down Jimmy Savile, toxic, highly flammable, potentially a lurid green). The downside of not being able to remove a gel polish easily means you can’t just change colours when you want to. I’m a fan of Chanel’s nail colours, they’re always spot on, and when I am sent a new one, I like to be able to try it out straight away, so I never quite like the way you’re limited by that (mostly) sad looking colour wardrobe on the shelves of gel-focused nail bars. So then I pick at them, and tell myself I can, if I am careful, I can just remove it myself, peel it off gently, and look, that first one was okay, so I’ll keep going… And that’s the road to disaster. My nails for the forseeable future are brittle, scratched-looking, flaky.

And yet, there are times when only a gel polish will do. For those trips where others except you to look polished, where they don’t appreciate the black under your fingernails is from planting dahlia bulbs or picking potatoes from the vegetable patch, “clean dirt” as my mother used to call it. Where there is an expectation to be groomed, to look, as one yellow-cab driver once said to me “like the wife of a rich man”. When you’re filming, as I have just done, a “how-to-pack-our-perfume” video for a new shipping company, and you realise you’re inflicting your rubbish-looking nails on their wonderful work-force, not such a good impression.

And for those times, I like Biosculpture, because the technicians they work with (I’ve met some really interesting women working for them - from pHD students to mums and office managers, their conversation is as excellent as their technical skills) take the time to pick the right base to suit your nails, depending on how dry or damaged they are, so that the polish stays on for the longest time possible and also helps to condition them. The Biosculpture colours are also good - Jess even has her own collection, featuring a beautiful creamy nude, a dramatic navy, a rich berry, a bright red rose, and a grey-blue-green that looks a little like lichen on rocks.

You still can’t get it off quickly, but that’s a small price to pay for a treatment that lasts well and isn’t as harmful to my nails as most gel polishes.

28th February: Joel Goncalves, Nicola Clarke for John Frieda

I have been seeing Joel for hair-cuts since I was in my 20s. I am now in my fifties. If that doesn’t say how happy I am with the way he cuts my hair, I don’t know what does. I have recommended him over the years to several friends, who all continue to see him. I once asked the renowned hair stylist Sam McKnight, who he thought was the best cutter in London and he said “Joel”.

Joel trained under the Vidal Sassoon umbrella, learning to precision cut, but like Leonard, that other great master of hair, his hair-cuts aren’t what defines a woman’s character or look, they complement it. He swears by regular trims, noting that even for long hair, you’re better off trimming the ends so that the split ends are removed, rather than leaving it until they split all the way up the hair shaft, leaving you with thinner, scrappier looking hair.

I’m probably not the best example of his work - my hair has had a centre parting and hangs like curtains for many years, but we do do fringes every four years or so, which I then grow out for the next four years. It’s not my fault if he refuses to make me look like my all-time style icon, Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny. But that’s why he is so good.

1st March: Eynsham Baths at Estelle Manor

This is impressive. The 3000 square metre space was inspired by ancient Roman ruins nearby, so rather cleverly, founder and co-CEO of Estelle Manor, Sharan Pasricha, based the spa on the highly sociable tradition of Roman baths. All the communal areas and the baths themselves are vast, generous and open. There’s plenty of theatre if you want it, from the anti-allergy hay barn sauna, which has lavender for calming; or the traditional hammam. I spent a full hour meandering through the thermal pools, going from a hot 40 degree calidarium to a 6 degrees celsius frigidarium before having a massage with the brilliant Manos Dimoudis, using oils created just for the spa. Whenever people ask me “Where can I take XXX for a spa day?” this is one of my favourite recommendations, because you can completely switch off, and it never feels punitive, like some spas can.

25th August: Clarins relaxing massage at Le Mas Candille, near Mougins, south of France.

Ha! Did someone say “punitive”? Definitely not at Le Mas Candille. “People like to stay here for the calm,” one of the managers told me. “They go off to their parties and then they come back here to use the spa and rest by the pool.” You can’t beat Clarins for really great massages, and I think because it’s a brand that’s been around for a while, they are sometimes overlooked in our keenness to write about the newest, the latest, whatever’s trending. I had a massage and it was excellent. Lots of long movements that found the root of each knot, then worked it out, following it all the way up until it disappeared all the way up the back and shoulders. Each body part gets worked on more than once, it’s as if the therapist massages in quarters, a foot, half a leg, half a back and then down again. The oil is abundant - mine was the Relax Treatment Oil, which is rich and nourishing. I love a Clarins massage.

Next up: Everything you need to know about my panel event at The BEAUTY TRIANGLE, 25th January 2025 at 1500!