Putting on a brave face into your 60s

Trinny Woodall on makeovers in middle age

Trinny Woodall may have just turned 60, but there’s no way she’s going grey. “Everyone’s entitled to how they want to age – some people might say, ‘Trinny, why do you keep dyeing your hair? You should go grey naturally’. Not in a million years! I have s ***** coloured grey hair, I’m not going to do that. I don’t love grey hair on me.”

Woodall, who rose to fame as one half of presenting duo Trinny and Susannah (Constantine, right) on the Noughties makeover show, What Not To Wear, and founded beauty empire Trinny London in her 50s, says she’s “more confident” as she enters this new decade – in her skin and herself.

“I think I feel that I really know who I am. The benefit of age is you really discover who you are. And you don’t worry what people think. In my 20s I definitely didn’t have that self belief.

“I found 50 to be quite a freeing decade, and I find this to be an even more freeing decade.”

Although she didn’t feel skin confident until the age of 30, after years of suffering from acne, which was “very debilitating – I tried every single thing for my skin”, it gave her lifelong passion to figure out what works for her.

Woodall launched her brand, which is targeted at women over 35, with make-up in 2017, followed by skincare in 2022. She posts her routines almost daily for her 1.2 million Instagram followers, and has racked up an army of loyal fans.

Refreshingly, she doesn’t use the phrase ‘anti-ageing’ (“I’ve got eye wrinkles now and they don’t bother me one bit”) it’s about what suits our skin as we get older. But she’s very open about the fact that she does Botox twice a year, alongside a comprehensive skincare routine.

“I’ve actually never gone to bed without taking my make-up off. From my 20s, I’ve always had a routine which is sort of three or four steps,” the 60-year-old says, although the active ingredients available now go far beyond the three-step Clinique routine she used in 1979. As much as I do Botox, you know, I’ve had CO2 laser for my acne scarring, the consistency of my skin is down to ingredients I continually put on my face every day.

One of the key things she’s done for her skin, and health in general, is cut down on sugar. “I just think it’s worse than smoking,” Woodall says. “Things do change when you’re 60, you know what’s going to cause inflammation in your body and you need to avoid it because inflammation leads to many things that are not that pleasant. So the more I can keep my body in an alkaline state, the better.

Although, “This weekend I actually relapsed on sugar, I went to the mountains and there was a patisserie and I just went insane.”

■ Trinny Woodall is running an ‘Elevator Pitch’ series on Instagram to give budding female entrepreneurs the chance to pitch their business in 60 seconds, providing tailored feedback in return. See @ trinnylondon.