How do you feel about what you see in the mirror? As the year draws to a close, it’s time to reflect on how well our health and beauty regimes are serving us.
For me, it’s all about looking fresh rather than tired; brimful of energy rather than drained. Whether it’s make-up, skincare, supplements or exercise, everything I do is to generate that feeling of vitality.
Like it or not, what people notice first is how well you look. Yes, they also judge your age but we have to remove those preconceived ideas about what 40, 60 or whatever should look like. When it comes to beauty products, I hate the term ‘anti-ageing’.
When it comes to beauty products, Trinny Woodall hates the term ‘anti-ageing’
People say to me on Instagram: ‘Can’t you just age gracefully?’, and I reply: ‘Well, that’s a very subjective thing!’
Of course, the goal is to feel great about yourself. And I do think our sense of self-confidence is influenced not just by how we feel inside but by that reflection in the mirror. I’ve met many thousands of women in my career and I can tell you it’s always a combination of the two – the inner and the outer.
I’m also constantly asked what I do and when I do it. How often do I use this beauty gadget or have that tweakment? What do I have done to my hair and when? What’s my exercise schedule and my HRT regime?
Well, here it is, in glorious, fully timetabled detail: my day-by-day beauty and wellbeing calendar…
EVERY DAY: Eat protein, cleanse skin and run up and down the stairs…
If I want something sweet, I’ll have kefir yogurt with nuts and raspberries
- As soon as I wake up, instead of reaching for my phone and sending 20 emails, I listen to the Calm app for ten minutes. I’ve gone through years where I’ve been close to burnout – when you’re building a business, you can’t just can’t switch off – so I made a decision to introduce things into my day that would give me balance. This is one of the best.
- A daily skincare routine is a non-negotiable and mine includes an SPF50, or 30 in winter, to protect skin from the ageing effects of the sun, plus a vitamin C product to deal with existing damage and pigmentation. I’ve maintained this protocol since I was 28 and I don’t have much pigmentation at all now. Thorough cleansing every day is crucial too – I have double cleansed for 40 years, using first a balm and then a gel.
- Another daily skincare essential is a liquid exfoliator. Women who didn’t grow up with the concept can be especially impressed with this. If you think your skin is dry, it might simply have dead skin cells on that need taking off for your moisturiser to go in. You wouldn’t polish a lovely wooden table without dusting off the dust first, and you might not need to buy yet another moisturiser!
- Getting enough protein every day becomes more important as you get older to slow down the loss of muscle mass. I start each meal with protein and have a three-egg omelette in the morning with broccoli, then lunch will generally be chicken and eggs too (sometimes, I admit, all that protein feels too much, and then it will be soup and cheese!). In the evening, my stepson and I might have protein again, with sweet potatoes or salad. If I want something sweet, I’ll have kefir yogurt with nuts and raspberries.
- Every day after eating, rest for five minutes and then get up for 15 and do something active. Hoover, run up and down stairs, which is what I do, or go for a walk around the block. Movement is so much better for digestion and helps get your body’s fuel where it needs to be.
FIVE TIMES A WEEK: Exercise – tapping, hopping and weights
- Exercise is nothing to do with losing weight, it’s all about how much energy you want. My mum got vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s in her 80s and was never that active. I want to nurture my body so it will look after me. Strength training three times a week has made the biggest changes to my body and energy levels.
- I will also always do a ten-minute lymphatic drainage body-tapping routine. I go up my arms and legs, pull down my ears, then move around my collar bones, armpits, stomach, inner thigh and behind my knees. Then I’ll jump up and down doing ‘bunny hops’ for one minute. When you stop, you feel this rush through your body because you are making your lymphatic system active and draining away toxins.
FOUR TIMES A WEEK: Beauty gadgets and peptide injections
- For a non-invasive lifting effect, I use a gadget called the Facegym Pro EMS (£633, facegym.com), which delivers electric muscle stimulation to the facial muscles to lift and sculpt the face – I can actually see my muscles twitching. Using it four times a week for ten minutes means I really see a lift.
- If my face feels puffy, I’ll do cupping with a silicone facial cupping set (£5.99, amazon.co.uk). It’s the cheapest gadget out there that will make a difference in just a couple of minutes. It sticks to the face using suction and you glide it over your serum to drain away any excess fluid.
- Four times a week I inject myself with peptides into my stomach. I get them from the US to help with skin, hair, energy and for the longevity of my body as a whole. I have been doing it for five years now and have noticed the glow I get from it.
TWICE A WEEK: At-home microneedling and dynamic yoga
- I don’t have time to go for facials, but at-home microneedling gives me an opportunity to do something in my bathroom that you’d normally go to the salon for. I do it twice a week at night as an intense treatment, using Trinny London Plump Up Microneedle (£44), which at 0.5mm needle depth helps products go in and also stimulates collagen. You need to clean your skin properly beforehand, really look after your microneedle and change it regularly. It helps minimise the look of fine lines, wrinkles and uneven skin texture. I notice a big difference.
- The dynamic yoga I do with Victoria Woodhall twice a week is about getting physically stronger and maintaining flexibility, but it’s also an hour where I’m not thinking about anything else because I’m focusing on my breath. Often, I’ll double up and put an LED mask on for ten minutes while I’m doing it. The model I use is the portable Current Body Skin LED Light Therapy Face Mask Series 2 (currentbody.com, £399). I’m a big fan of LED masks for stimulating collagen and brightening the skin – in fact, my most used gadget is an LED body panel, the Dermalux Flex LED (currentbody.com, £1,999), which you lie under.
ONCE A WEEK: Roast a chicken and check your roots!
- I roast a chicken once a week to take to work for lunches. I’ll also have it as a snack before I go out for dinner, so I don’t arrive starving and hit the bread basket.
- As we get older, many of us can feel we’re losing hair at the front. If we dye our hair and it grows out, we can even feel a kind of baldness as it can seem like there is nothing there. From about a week after I’ve had a fresh colour, I use Color Wow root cover-up (£29.50 cultbeauty.co.uk) to recreate the shape of my hairline, so it frames the face better. It makes a big difference.
ONCE EVERY SIX WEEKS: Get a haircut that doesn’t wear you and restock your supplements
Trinny, now 60, says she has had Botox since she was 35
- The relationship we have with our hair is a very emotional one and we do like to hold on to our long hair. For a while, I was wearing my hair longer because I was told it was sexy, but I woke up one day and noticed that it was actually wearing me! If you have a long face and a long neck like me, long hair drags you down. So I cut it a bit, and it feels so much fresher. I noticed Susannah (Constantine) did the same not long ago, and said: ‘Darling, you look amazing. What took you so long?’ Avoid getting a mumsy blow-dry by really describing to your hairdresser what the texture of your hair is like and what you want. There is nothing worse than somebody giving you that ‘set’ look that your mother had. I’m quite specific. I know my hair will curl up at the end, so I always say, ‘keep the ends poker-straight and get texture in the rest of my hair, twist the brush back and forth – and please do not use tongs’. Tongs just dry your hair out. I don’t use any heat tools on my hair, nor foaming shampoo, which I think does the same. Instead, I use the creamy New Wash by Hairstory (£41.40).
- Every six weeks, I also pre-pack my supplements into a plastic morning and afternoon vitamin tray, which makes it much easier to remember to take them. My two most important supplements in the morning are NMN (nicotinamide mononucleotide) for general health, and B157, to reduce inflammation and improve gut health. Both are from Evolved Science. NMN gives you energy. I take it before I go the gym and literally feel it working. At night, I take progesterone tablets as part of my HRT regime, plus magnesium citrate from Viridian Nutrition because I sometimes have trouble going to the loo. I’ve just introduced creatine too, which I get from Love Life Supplements – a little mini amount per day, which floods your muscles with hydration and just seems to make everything work better. I’m excited to see the payoff – I think you need to take supplements for three months to see a difference. I also take Omega 3 Daily Fish Oil Capsules (£31.95, barebiology.com); Dose by VH Daily Immunity (£29) and Dose by VH Liposomal Vitamin C (£35), Ingenious Beauty Ultimate Collagen (£60) and Altrient Liposomal Glutathione (£109.96), all from victoriahealth.com. In the afternoon I will have ashwagandha capsules, which helps with stress.
THREE TIMES A YEAR: Botox
I have had Botox since I was 35. More than three times a year and it can stop working, I’ve seen that happen and then the forehead lines and crow’s feet can return. Because I started early, I never developed deep expression lines.
TWICE A YEAR: Check-ups and check-ins
- I have blood work done twice a year with my American hormone doctor, Erika Schwartz. Her menopause tests are very detailed. I take progesterone as a pill, and oestrogen and testosterone in a bespoke cream once a day. Erika checks to see where all my numbers are and whether I need to up my dosages. She also looks at cholesterol markers.
- Twice a year I take stock of where I am in life. In January it’s a spiritual kind of reflection: how, rather than where, do I want to be? This year, it was about ‘bringing my best self to every situation’. I set it as an intention and wrote it on my mirror, on my computer and in my notes page on my phone. Then in September I set my goals – even though I’m 60, I still feel it’s the beginning of a new school year! If you’ve been thinking vaguely about changing job or moving house, that is the time to make a proper plan while you are refreshed after the holidays.
ONCE A YEAR: Focus on health
I’m religious about my annual mammogram, and I have regular pap smear tests too. I’ve had abnormal cells in the past, but it’s never developed into anything more. A year ago, I did a check-up of everything with MRI scans and blood tests, but I wouldn’t go so far as to test for cancer markers. I don’t have any cancers in my family that developed under the age of 60. My mum had breast cancer, but it was post-60, which means it’s not an hereditary one.
NEVER…eat sugar
I changed my diet totally after I read the Glucose Goddess Method (amazon.co.uk, £18) by Jessie Inchauspe and chatted to her. I realised I had to change my relationship with sugar, which had always been quite unhealthy.
For a year I stopped sugar and I stopped feeling inflammation in my body. I stopped getting bloating around my tummy, or swollen ankles in the summer.
I used to get swollen knees really quickly, and that stopped too. I could see the impact of sugar on my body very clearly –and I think it’s an impact that doubles after the menopause.
- As told to Victoria Woodhall.
Simple steps to the perfect Christmas face
My party look is always ‘effortless chic’, says Trinny
First, get the right foundation. It’s all about looking natural, which means matching to your existing skin tone, not to the tone you would like your skin to be.
Choose one that melts into your skin.
For the day, I wear a very light base (Trinny London BFF Skin Perfector, £39) that is an SPF30 with a little glow, and a tiny bit of coverage, and then I might dab a little concealer on top if I’ve got a discoloration or a red nose.
For winter evenings, or a soft Christmas candlelight, I might use more base with Trinny London BFF All Day (£39) because it gives a soft matte finish.
My party look is always ‘effortless chic’. It’s quick, simple and effective, perfect for those last-minute parties.
I’ll use my Trinny London Everyday Chic Gift Set (£34). With just three products, you can achieve a complete, polished look in no time at all.
If I’m feeling great and I just want to lean into the night, I do a ‘rough smoky eye’.
I take our Line2Define Eyeliner (£22) in Shahroze and messily draw along my upper and lower lash line. Then just ‘squish, squish, squish’, which smudges it a bit.
Then I put Trinny London Eye2Eye in Magician (£18) on my upper eyelid quite messily.
And then I take a moisturiser, with a cotton tip, and clean up underneath to create a little bit of a lift around the outer corner of my eyes, as opposed to trying to very carefully apply some contoured shape. It’s the quickest way to do it.
If I’m going out but feeling tired, I do a ‘fresh’ eye with a brighter red lip.
A softer eye with lots of mascara opens up a tired face.
