Beauty bible

Bring the salon to your sitting room for a whole range of treatments

Celia Walden’s little home helpers

‘You definitely said tuesday .’ ‘i said Wednesday,’ insists my husband. ‘and if you wrote dates down instead of stashing them in the call centre that is your mind, you might have a better chance of remembering them.’

We’re staring at each other across the kitchen table, caught in that curious marital micro-moment when you’ re trying to decide whether you can be bothered to take the argument to the next level, when a meek female voice behind me asks: ‘so we’re going for a nice beachy wave today?’

i’m not quite sure when it was that i became a home-beauty app addict, but aside from my facialist su-man, (for whom i would fly across the world in the hold with the luggage), there isn’t now a single piece of body ad min i would leave the house for on a regular basis. Consequently, and as my husband points out, ‘there are three of us in this marriage – and the third party always seems to be brandishing tongs, or nail polish.’

there a re women who enjoy t he process of spa sand salons. it’s a ceremonial thing. the magazines. the rob es. the‘ relaxation rooms’ where you sit uncomfortably opposite another spa-sandal-wearing woman until a therapist comes to deliver you from your tibetan gong-soundtracked purdah. they yearn for the camaraderie of sitting among dozens of foiled-up females all weighing in on the same

Hello! royal spread. Well, not me. i like the product, not the process. Because that’ s just dead time. now, thanks to the uber fication of the beaut yin dustry, i can enjoy some quality marital tiffs while having my toenails painted (in essie’s Chastity Pink), parent while being pummelled – and write my column while being given ‘the SJP wave’.

a word of advice: don’t go rogue with these apps. after all, you’re letting a stranger( wielding wax strips) into your home, and the shoddier companies don’t vet their therapists as closely as they should. i know, i’ve tried them all, and these five are the best.