MY STORY

I had to have a job, I couldn’t go back to acting - in which I had a degree - and a rather lacklustre career of which the highlight was three episodes in Emmerdale. But after the dot.com crash, when I had been working on Trinny Woodhall and Suzannah Constantine's www.ready2.com  plus two months in Nepal on my redundancy money I didn’t know what I should do.

Having always wanted to be a journalist, I had always been too scared - what if I couldn’t write? With encouragement - from those who believed I could  - I started by pitching beauty feature ideas to the Independent on Sunday born out of a frustration that the subject was portrayed as reverential and lacking in humour.   This seemed to hit a nerve and morphed into a column called Out Shopping with Beatrice Aidin covering fashion, fridges, fringes and everything in-between.

Under new management of the paper, Dear Wolfgang was born, a similar advice column but under the guise of a gay German from Baden-Baden with a penchant for the finer things in life but often bought down to earth by his (fictional, again) sister Helga with a fascination for the Bay City Rollers.  Wolfgang’s story a few years after the axe was featured in the Financial Times commissioned by Vanessa Friedman; an unlikely setting for Wolfgang but warmly received.

As a dyed-in-the-wool freelance journalist I was also the beauty editor of Prima for three years but I resigned in order to up-sticks and relocate to Los Angeles.  Obtaining a visa as an Alien of Extraordinary Ability was not easy, but achievable, and after two years in LA, a spell back in London I subsequently relocated to New York for five years, continuing to contribute to UK publications.

Returning back to London, I started consultancy  and copywriting for clients including Krug Champagne, The Lodha Group, Mertz, Nourish Skincare, Ruinart Champagne and Unilever and continue with this division of work.

Four years ago I started to write for the FT’s How to Spend it glossy magazine. I have written on the subject of Chinese snuff bottles, interviewed for The Aesthete and Perfect Weekend creative directors, perfumers, multi-Michelin starred chefs, CEO’s of multi-nationals, fashion designers et al. I’ve also written beauty features most recently the Beauty Special leads on the magic of vitamin C and the dangers to the skin of pollution.   I regularly write online about new hotels and restaurants, fashion and jewellery and the latest products on a need to know basis for the luxury market.   Also the odd dog story; featuring our portly King Charles cavalier, Gussie Aidin, may have been the proudest moment of my career. 

Dogs withstanding, as a beauty journalist I have needled, massaged, sucked and injected which have been the canvas to my stories (except for tattoos, trust me their removal is a growth industry). I am equally delighted to explore Botox as well as 2,000 year old Ayurveda; after nearly two decades in the job I have a wealth of knowledge and have seen remarkable changes, innovation and welcome disruption.  I have also contributed to Tatler Spa Guide, traveling across the world to detox in Germany, Italy, France the Maldives and also Thailand where I braved five colonics in as many days and broke into my emergency crisps.

Circling back to the beginning of my career, the economics of the beauty industry has always fascinated me - for the doubters, it’s worth more than £17BN to the UK economy.  I commissioned, edited and contributed to two Raconteur special reports on the subject  - as well as one about cosmetic procedures - and also covered the subject for the FT.