Over the years, I’ve learnt a thing or two about what works for me, and the biggest lesson is that it’s the unsexy products that can make the biggest difference to your routine. So without further ado, here is a list of deeply unsexy beauty products that get the job done and have been repeat buys for me over the years.

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Naturium The Energiser Mandelic Acid Body Wash

If you’re like me and destined to be one of the sweaty girls forevermore, or you’re just looking for a good post-gym shower gel, I gotchu! According to the Naturium website, the Naturium The Energiser Mandelic Acid Body Wash* has a plant-based enzyme system that is designed to combat odour-causing bacteria - sounds perfect if no matter how much anti-persperatnt you use, you just knowwwwwww there’s a risk of the sweat becoming a delightful smelling oder later on in the day. The product itself also has barely any smell to it, so if you’re not big on perfumed products because your nostrils hate it, this one has only the smallest whiff of citrus (and I MEAN the smallest whiff - more of a deep snort up the nose if you want to smell it).

Naturium KP Body Scrub & Mask

Another Naturium product I must mention is this one… I have never used a product that has left my skin smoother than this - that’s the headline. I’ve had a number of people corroborate this story because yes, I am that person who whips my forearm out post-shower and asks people to feel how smooth it is… Anyways…

Once a week, as part of the ‘everything shower routine’, I slather this over every inch of my body (except my face) and spend a couple of minutes working it into the skin. Then I’ll do my awkward little shower dance to stay warm whilst out of the water (you need to leave it a couple of minutes to do it’s thing) and when you wash it off, it feels like you’ve shed your entire outer layer.

The Naturium KP Body Scrub & Mask* is a 3-in-1 KP exfoliant with the following included: AHA/BHA/PHA chemical exfoliants, pumice and jojoba esters. It gets rid of dry, dull and rough skin and, as the name suggests, is great at combating Keratosis Pilaris (though you may need to use it more than once a week to see improvements on that one).

Full disclaimer: this smells like sh*t, so get a nice-smelling body wash to give yourself a once-over with after, and don’t forget to use a SPF in the days following (the AHA makes your skin more prone to sun damage).

E45 Body Lotion

Some products are timeless, and that’s because they freaking work! As somebody with dry and sensitive skin, the original E45 body lotion* has been a lifesaver during both the summer and winter months. I whack it on whilst my skin is still damp after a shower, as it’s gentle enough to use daily.

It’s unscented and fragrance-free and can be used to moisturise the body and face (though I’ll admit to never using it on my face myself).

If you’re looking for a more lightweight option, I also really like this E45 Daily Lotion* as an alternative.

Beauty Pie Footopia Foot and Heel Cream

I started writing this section saying that ‘nothing to do with feet is sexy’, but as my Instagram feed keeps dropping me off at videos of women showing us how they sell pictures of their feet to men, we know that’s not true for everybody. (Side note, get that bag girls!) So I’m going to amend my previous statement to ‘nothing about feet CARE is sexy’ but it is necessary if you don’t want to be hobbling round on painful soles the older you get.

This Beauty Pie Footopia Foot & Heel Cream* is great for that. Work it into your feet, including the soles and heels, stick on a pair of socks and head to bed. In the morning you should wake up with not soft and moisturied feet, but lovely smelling ones too (it’s got a nice mint scent).

Vaseline

An oldie but a goodie. I started doing this about 18 months ago and it really does make a difference when paired with my favourite perfumes (currently YSL Libre* and Chanel Chance Fraiche*). Pop a small amount of Vasaline on your pulse points (I do wrist and neck), then spray your perfume onto it.

So there you have it: those are my 5 deeply unsexy beauty products that have earned their place in my routine for their results. Some of them can be pricey (I’m looking at you, Naturium), so make sure you’re checking sites like Space NK* and Boots, who usually include them in their flash sales throughout the year.

I know everybody has hidden gem products like this, tell me what your unsexy beauty product is that you couldn’t live without in the comments.

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The title of this article is a text I sent to my friend last year, but after a recent intense life situation, I found myself repeating it to numerous people over recent weeks. I wanted to articulate my thoughts: 1) because getting thoughts out of my own head is one of the best forms of self-therapy I possess and 2) as we know thanks to TikTok, we rarely have original thoughts anymore, so I’m sure there is somebody else out there who feels the same.

A lot of the online discourse around being diagnosed with ADHD is that it’s your superpower (and has been all along - yayyyyy!). The positive people describe it as something that makes you better at certain things, and something that gives you a unique perspective that a neurotypical person might not have. Many a comment section on articles and influencer videos praises those who talk about their disability as a superpower and seeing it as such.

Because that’s what ADHD is: a disability.

Now if you’re a certified ADHD baddie who sees it as your superpower, then honestly, absolute slay from you on that one! I’m honestly happy for anybody who can reframe their neurodivergence as such.

But what about those of us who haven’t quite come to terms with what’s going on in our brain? Those of us who don’t see the diagnosis as an ‘oh this explains so much’ moment? Those of us who can barely admit that it’s classed as a disability without welling up in tears, or getting a very sickly feeling in the bottom of our stomachs (this reaction is so ADHD coded btw).

I’m one of those people. All I feel when my diagnosis is mentioned or has to be acknowledged is acute grief that usually makes me shed a small tear (my eyes have welled up writing this article on numerous occasions). This feeling is swiftly followed by a large amount of guilt because I don’t exactly live an awful life, do I?

The guilt comes as I look around at what I have achieved… a university degree, a very good and very well-paid job, my own life with friends, family and my own apartment that I can keep some semblance of order over. But the sadness I feel can be overwhelming. I think of how a lot of what I have has felt like a battle to achieve. The stress over exams when I just couldn’t revise like my friends and had to rely on my memory, which also isn’t the best. The outbursts of frustration I have to keep in check in the corporate world. The intense and painful feeling when I’m given feedback at work - even if it’s not necessarily bad feedback - gotta love that RSD! The need for more time to process complex information…

All of it feels like it makes my life just that little bit harder.

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Of course, I acknowledge that there are people who have it much worse. But when you’re the only one in your head, it’s all relative.

Being very honest, I haven’t dealt with these feelings. I’m actively trying to… but I usually try to push past them when I can, and pray they don’t become overwhelming. Occasionally they do, and the crash out is not pretty. It’s usually during intense periods of stress in my life.

I don't really have a neat way to end this. I guess I just started writing what was on my mind - which is exactly what ‘Things I’d text my best friend’ is about.

To my fellow ADHD suffering girlies, I just wanted you to know you’re not alone if all you feel about it is grief. Or you look back at your life and wonder, ‘what if…’, you’d been diagnosed earlier and started managing it. Where would you be in life now?

I'm not going to tell you ways to make peace with your diagnosis or how it makes you feel, because I haven't found them myself. Some days the grief is quiet. Some days it isn't. I'm still the person who cries when I have to mention my diagnosis, and I'm learning to let that be true without needing to fix it first. I think that’s all we can do - lean into our feelings and sit with them. There’s power in learning to sit - also something the ADHD brain can find difficult, of course. Therapy helps a lot, but the process is slow (and obviously very tedious to somebody with ADHD who just wants to ‘complete the task’ haha).

If anybody does have any tips on how to deal with these feelings around an ADHD diagnosis, please drop them in the comments for others.

In the early days of the videos, I started the day by going to the gym. To me, that was the ultimate self-care experience. Then I’d wash my hair in the luxury showers with the expensive products, before stopping by M&S Food on the way home for a bougie dinner - whatever I fancied, no budget. I’d cook (or heat up) that dinner and spend some time reading and relaxing. No phone. No interruptions and, most of the time, not a face mask or candle in sight. Just me, doing something for me and taking a load off my brain.

This evolved as I went on. The M&S Food haul and the reading stayed the same. But the first part of the day started to be guided by what my body and mind actually needed.

Many women are so hard on themselves when they finally put themselves first, especially if they feel like what they’re doing isn’t productive or achieving something. It’s as if rest has to be earned or your Saturday only counts if you’ve got something to show for it by Sunday evening. I used to be one of those women. All through my 20’s, if I wasn’t doing SOMETHING on a Saturday, I’d wasted my weekend - which meant by the office return on Monday morning, I wasn’t always rested and ready to go again.

Because here’s the thing nobody puts in a “romanticise your life” TikTok: switching off isn’t a vibe; it is a skill! And like any skill, I was bad at it before I attempted to get good at it. I was treating my weekends like an extension of my week, still proving myself, still ticking things off, just in a slightly more fun setting. Self-care Saturday started as something small and specific, a gym session and a nice dinner, and it slowly turned into something bigger: a monthly practice in spending a whole day answering to no one but myself.

That’s the part that actually changed something. Not the M&S dinner. Not the reading…

What my Self-care Saturday actually gave me wasn’t a routine… It was one day, at least once a month, where I’m totally at ease with whatever I choose to do with it. It can be productive, or it can be a day wasted… There are no rules, and whatever happens, I refuse to feel guilty about any of it.

Some Saturdays that’s the gym and a hair wash and a walk to M&S. Some Saturdays it’s pyjamas until 4pm and binge-watching a TV show I’ve had on repeat rotation for the last 20 years, whilst eating Percy Pigs on my sofa. And some Saturdays it’s finally sitting down and sorting my finances - because not sticking your head in the sand about your own money is genuinely one of the kindest and most caring things you can do for yourself in this economy.

Sometimes, I still catch myself thinking I should be doing more with my weekends. I should be travelling. I should see that exhibition down at the V&A that I keep getting served Instagram ads for. Maybe I should do the big food shop and meal prep for the week, write something for this Substack, film content, bake something, be productive, be improving in some way, be somewhere…

But ‘Self-care Saturday’ was never really about the gym or the dinner or the book. It was the thing that gave me permission to slow down and do what I actually needed, and not feel guilty about whatever that turned out to be because it’s ONE Saturday out of the month. ONE day out of 29/30/31 days… that’s it!

So here’s what I actually want for you. One day from your month. Pick a Saturday, any Saturday… hell, it doesn’t even have to be a Saturday, and let it be exactly what you need it to be that month, whether that’s doing everything or doing nothing at all.

You don’t need to earn it first. You can just take it.

I'd love to know what your version of a ‘Self-care Saturday’ looks like; reply and tell me. Oh, and drop your M&S Food picks too… (we all know that will be the real treasure trove of information here).

If you need more inspo, you can watch my ‘Self-care Saturday’ videos right here.