I opened CONTENT in 2008, when natural beauty products still lived at the back of health food shops. I've spent every year since then finding, testing and stocking the brands that changed how natural beauty looks.
2008
Opened in Marylebone
2009
Brought RMS Beauty to Europe
2016
The Nature of Beauty published
2026
Best Independent Retailer in Europe
Why I went natural
As a child in New Zealand I had severe ichthyosis, a condition where the skin renews itself too quickly, leaving it very dry and scaly. Bath time was tinted green (the colour, not the eco-credentials) with a medicated liquid, followed by a full covering of GP-issued cream. I used that cream once or twice a day for over 20 years.
When I moved to London in the late nineties, I couldn't get my cream here. So with my last tube in hand, I tried to work out why it worked. "10 per cent UREA" was printed in large bold letters across the label. I had looked at that tube every day for 20 years and had no idea what urea was, where it came from or what else was in there. The labelling rules then didn't require every ingredient to be listed.
That was my light-bulb moment. I was already shopping at farmers' markets, buying organic food where I could and cleaning my home with eco products. I just hadn't thought about what I was putting on my skin.
So I researched every product I owned. With plenty of omega 3, natural oils mixed into a rich body cream and a gentle, low-foam shower gel, I got my skin under control. Then everything else had to go too: cleanser, serum, foundation, mascara, the lot.
From fashion to CONTENT
The thing was, I loved beauty products, all of them. I didn't want to swap my lipstick for raspberries rubbed on my lips (it works, but it's not very portable). Yet natural beauty then meant one token brand in a department store, or a shelf in a health food shop that looked like it came from the wrong part of the 1960s.
"I wanted beauty products, not healthcare products."
So in 2008, after 15 years in the fashion industry, I opened CONTENT in Marylebone, a natural beauty shop for people who love beauty products. I wanted it to feel like an apothecary, where you could discover things not available anywhere else, know the people who work there and experience treatments.
I combined naturopathic medicine, acupuncture and holistic beauty treatments with the next generation of natural beauty brands, so that you could feel as good as your skin looked.
Since 2008
Many clean beauty brands you now see in department stores started their UK or European retail life on our shelves. We brought RMS Beauty to Europe in 2009 (Rose-Marie Swift even named one of her cult Lip2Cheeks CONTENT, after the store), then Ilia and Tata Harper in 2010. May Lindstrom, Nuori, Therapi, Manasi 7, Raeso, Le Rub, The Rising, Less is More, Abel and Twelve all made their first home here. So did Dr Alkaitis, Kure Bazaar, Agent Nateur, Soapwalla, W3LL People and Vapour Organic Make-Up, among many others.
In 2015 I started The Green Edit for The Telegraph, the first dedicated green beauty column on a broadsheet website, which was also printed in Stella Magazine. In 2016 Ebury published my book, The Nature of Beauty, a guide to organic skincare, botanical beauty rituals and clean cosmetics. The US edition followed in 2018.
That same year, 2016, CONTENT was named Best Independent Retailer in the UK, and in 2026 we were named Best Independent Retailer in Europe at the European Natural Beauty Awards.
I've been listed in the Natural Beauty Yearbook's Who's Who in Natural Beauty over many years, joined the jury for Beyond Beauty Paris, and talked about how we shop for natural beauty in New York, London and Paris.
I've also consulted for several large beauty and consumer brands as they move towards more sustainable beauty. I worked on the concept and creation of Aman Resorts' own-brand skincare, and in 2017 I worked with Emma Watson on The Press Tour, as she chose sustainable fashion and clean beauty products for the Beauty and the Beast press tour.
In 2018 we moved to a lovely new store and built a mini sustainable department store, with ethical fashion, vintage, books and zero-waste living alongside beauty, and our expanded treatments and event space. Covid closed its doors during the lockdowns in 2020, and CONTENT moved online, with a studio in London for one-to-one consultations.
How I work now
Alongside consulting on projects, most of my week goes on finding and testing new brands, reading ingredient lists against our CONTENT Approved standard, and talking to customers in the studio and on video. People usually arrive with a question: where do I start, what's in this, why is my skin reacting? Working out the answer together is still my favourite part of the job.
