LED masks, electrolytes and Oura check-ins: Our Beauty Editor’s daily regime at 40
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When I turned forty in December, I realised that I broadly approach ageing precisely as I do looking after my kitchen counter. Let me explain: every three months, I clear the clutter from my kitchen counters, get out the Osmo Oil, and set about massaging it into the wood to stop it from drying out.
I notice new scuffs each time, along with those endless little marks that unrelentingly appear over time without my having any recollection of their genesis. Once oiled, those bangs take on character, the counter looking not new but better than new: storied, loved, interesting.
And similarly, as the years tick by, inevitably my own exterior starts to take on signs of the years I’ve lived, as well it should — but with the right products and care, the result is hopefully also storied, loved, and interesting, which is my preference over boring blank perfection.
Do I look twenty? No. Do I want to look twenty? Also no; in fact, I think there’s something deeply disturbing about the desire to eradicate all signs of the passage of time. Instead, I’m aiming for healthy, energetic, and engaged — all things I plan to hang onto throughout my life.
Equally, I don’t think of forty as a big grand old age. My parents are currently eighty-six and seventy-six, and both still work and socialise and dress up and think about the possibilities that lie ahead. To me, forty is a door flung open, a chance to define a new era of my life, taking the lessons from the previous four with me.
