What should be on YOUR wish list this year...
Christmas would not be Christmas without a bevy of beauty joys — certainly not a Betts Christmas. my parents had five children, three of them daughters, ensuring that the festive season became a beauteous riot.
at eight, i received my first proper perfume — a demure flacon of houbigant’s Quelques Fleurs — and a hairbrush with my name on it, financed by my Victorian great-grandmother so i could get in my hundred strokes a day.
Later, in the wake of edgily manicured Uma thurman’s star turn in Pulp Fiction, my academic father queued for Chanel’s rouge Noir, while my mother picked out No. 5 bath oil.
to this day, i cannot think of a more sublime twin offering.
For where the unthinking beauty present can be a ghastly platitude — a vat of rash-inducing bubble bath, say, or some biscuit-scented candle — so the truly beautiful one will be remembered for ever.
What should you buy this year for the woman you wish to delight, or what hints might you drop yourself?
Let’s put beauty where it belongs: as your ‘main thing’ (‘main thing’ being a Betts family term for your big-ticket item.)
i know what my choice would be this Christmas, were money, and emotionally blackmailing my boyfriend, no object. Behold, aromatherapy associates moments to treasure (£225, aromatherapyassociates.com), a ‘chest of self-care’, as the essential oil gurus call it.
Not everybody loves aromatherapy. those who
don’t are wrong.
There’s nothing quite like it for soothing your face, body and brain. and this is the top of the tree: a cornucopia of 20 award-winning potions and tools worth more than £360. i defy you not to weep with pleasure when you see the contents.
Or maybe you’re a high-tech grooming fiend, longing for a piece of state-of-the-art kit: say, a shani Darden Facial sculpting Wand (£345, cultbeauty.com) with sound-wave technology to firm muscles and boost circulation?
Or the multi-award-winning the Light salon Boost LeD Face mask (£395, thelight-salon.com), clinically proven to increase the production of collagen, elastin and hyaluronic acid? it reduces wrinkle depth by 36 per cent in four weeks. it doesn’t come cheap, but neither does Botox.
hair-wise, it’s got to be a Dyson. the supersonic dryer is both super-speedy and superprotective (£299.99, dyson.co.uk). i’m also intrigued by the sound of the volume-doubling GhD rise hot Brush (£169, ghdhair. com). You simply hold it in place in regions you want to lend oomph to, such as the roots.
if you’re buying for a skin obsessive, might i recommend subscription service beautypie.com’s Pie Plus gift membership (£59 for a year, allowing them an unlimited monthly spend)?
Or, hit them with a pot of the ever-luxe Creme de la mer (£70 for 15ml, cremede lamer.co.uk), or cult brand augustinus Bader’s serum (£260, augustinusbader.com), eye cream (£150) or hand treatment (£40).
i’d adore a great big bottle of therapie’s multi-purpose skin soother, Cherish skin repair
serum (£68 for 200ml, cultbeauty. co.uk). Votary’s fresh-faced the Glow Kit is a winner, too (reduced from £143 to £95, votary.co.uk).
in terms of make-up, Guerlain’s heavenly meteorites illuminating
powder balls come in gold this
Christmas (£49, guerlain.com). Ditto hermes’s bewitchingly glinting, limited-edition Poudre d’Orfevre Face and eye illuminating Powder (£75, hermes. com). and i am yet to encounter any woman who fails to succumb to hermes’s lipsticks (£58).
Palette lovers should seek out Pat mcGrath’s riches. i crave the relatively low-key Pat’s Backstage Kit (£165, patmcgrath.com), but pros should head straight to her six-palette Celestial Odyssey everything Kit (reduced from £230 to £150).
and huda boasts so many eyeshadow collections, it fries my tiny mind. try mercury retrograde (£58, hudabeauty. com) with its 18 cosmic shades, or the quieter, but no less beguiling, rose Quartz eyeshadow Palette (£58).
if eyeliner floats your boat, you’ll need VB’s Kajal Wardrobe (reduced from £142 to £128, victoriabeckhambeauty.com): seven creamy, highly pigmented pencils that dry down to a waterproof formula, encased in a very Posh black and gold pouch. merry Christmas!