Kathleen Baird-Murray

I feel beautiful when I feel happy, or even, as I’ve learnt to appreciate the older I get, content. A friend who’s slightly older than me, said her approach to aging is about “not repelling people”, which is a great attitude and one I’m going to steal, even if it more often than not boils down to hair removal, yoga and HRT.

The best skincare routine is more about the routine than the skincare – being consistent and not jumping from product to product.  I used to try pretty much every single product that was sent to me as a beauty editor, but now I have learnt to try it on the back of my hand, and if I like the way it feels on my skin I’ll use it on my face, and if it doesn’t bring me out in bumps the following day then I stick with it for as long as I feel it’s still doing me some good. It’s also important to me to know the back-story – how does it work, what makes it worth my time, does it smell nice, is the packaging wasteful, does it look good, who are the founders, are they nice people? Even with these best intentions, there’s a lot of “stuff” in the cupboard that is perfectly good but doesn’t always get used. 

AM – Controversially perhaps, I don’t cleanse my face in the morning, I jump in the shower, rinse my face with water and nothing else, and my body with water and a bodywash by Wildsmith. It really annoys me the way we’re led to believe there is one rule for everyone and that if we’re not cleansing multiple times a day we’re somehow not cleaning our skin. I’ve checked this out with facialists and derms and it really does depend on what you’re doing to your face the rest of the time. If you’re not wearing a lot of makeup, and you’re cleansing properly at night, you shouldn’t need to cleanse in the morning. You might even be damaging your skin by over-cleansing it.  

After not cleansing, it’s a Vitamin C moisturiser (I love Westman Atelier’s as it leaves your skin with a beautiful glassy glow, and has helped with my pigmentation) and that is it. If I’m going for a run I’ll use a sunscreen  – not so much for the sun as it’s early, usually it’s grey outside anyway – but because I think the thickness of the cream might protect my cheeks from the wind and the cold. A facialist once recommended Eucerin’s precisely for this, and I think it might be helping my rosacea. 

In the Summer, I switch it up and use a moisturising sunscreen for a little protection – there are a whole new spate of sunscreen/moisturiser hybrids which care for your skin and actually improve its condition while also delivering invisible SPF, and these are better for my skin than most SPFs, which can cause my rosacea to break out. Sisley is great for this. 

PM – I don’t double cleanse – I think it’s a marketing gimmick – but I will cleanse more or less depending on how much make up I have been wearing. I like a balm or a cream cleanser like Reome’s with a pad, then I’ll use a separate eye make-up cleanser for mascara – current favourite is Orveda’s. I alternate my moisturisers according to how my skin feels on the day – if it’s dry, I’ll reach for a Kat Burki Super Peptide Firming Creme which has retinol, peptides, the works basically. I’m also loving De Mamiel’s Gravity Fix, which is great for making your skin feel more plump and elastic. 

Trusted old favourites are Mario Badescu spot cream, Jolen Creme Bleach and Gillette Venus Snap razor. 

As I’ve got older I wear less make up, but I wear it more often. My face looks better with it, but I have to keep it light. I use something really sheer all over my face – I love Chanel Les Beiges Water-Fresh Tint, Vita Liberata’s Beauty Blur Face in Medium, a tinted moisturiser like U Beauty’s The Super Tinted Hydrator for a touch of glow and colour. I then touch-up where needed with something like Westman Atelier Vital Skin Foundation Stick – it’s a foundation but I use it more like I would use a concealer. For a lighter touch under the eyes, it’s  Victoria Beckham and Augustinus Bader’s concealer, which I know has enough skincare benefits to keep the skin hydrated. I love Chanel’s eye palettes – I always have ever since that one from about 30 years ago with the soft white, the black, the brown and the pink! – and if I can be bothered I’ll smudge a little black or brown eyeliner (Victoria Beckham’s are foolproof), some Hermes mascara (I’m a sucker for the exquisite packaging and the formulas are also good), always after eyelash curling. Lips are one of  Violette Fr’s Bisou Balms, or her Bisou Jelly’s – she is the best at making lipstick for women who don’t like lipstick. Intense colour, soft textures, never dry out your lips – love them! 

I shampoo two to three times a week and always  condition from the mid lengths down, sometimes adding a leave-in conditioner as well. I love Hair by Sam McKnight’s shampoos and conditioners, they smell so good, thanks to his insistence on getting the smell right and working with perfumer Lyn Harris; I also use Philip Kingsley’s shampoos and conditioners, as well as their detangling lotions and Preen Creme, which can work miracles.  

I jog three times a week as it’s the most efficient way to walk my dog, Santi, and keep me slightly fit and sane at the same time. I’ve just started training with a friend who has a personal trainer and it’s making a huge difference. I’m trying to increase my muscle strength, something I’ve neglected over the years but which is so important now that I am getting older as muscle declines so quickly in women. Usually I talk my way through the session in an attempt to distract the trainer and myself from just how much it hurts. I recently tried a class at the Method and absolutely loved it – so much fun, and great soundtrack. 

As regards my health, HRT has been a life saver, and I see a great doctor – Dr Sara J Mathews, who really listens. I’m normally an NHS girl through and through, but when I was starting on my perimenopause/menopause adventure I was also going through a divorce, raising two teenagers by myself with no financial support. I needed to keep myself together. Everything around me was falling apart, and this centre needed to hold! Sara is very special, taking the time to listen to your symptoms, and is also very thorough about bloods and scans. I’ve recommended her to loads of people, who all swear by her. 

Rituals: I’m a big believer in baths.I love baths in the evening, with a ridiculous amount of bath salts and some oils – either Oliverum or Bamford or one of Wilder’s oilshttps://www.wilderbotanics.com/collections/wilder-bath/products/healing-spirit-soak and salts by Westlab, which I order in bulk and chuck very generously into the bath. I like to think it’s a form of meditation, and it would be, except usually I am doom-scrolling on some sort of social media until I am disgusted with myself for digesting so many cat/dog memes. 

Which reminds me, I need to get back into meditating. I have experienced a lot of anxiety recently, which is probably down to the menopause. Years ago I learnt to meditate at the Ananda spa in India, with a fantastic teacher, Sandeep Agarwalla Premananda. I recorded his teachings at the time, so now, if I’m feeling a bit panicky, I can replay his soothing voice and chant along. You can hear the background noise of birds and instantly I am transported back there. 

For 10 years now there has only been one fragrance for me – I first made Catch Me If I Fall in 2015, with perfumer Frank Voelkl, but I only recently launched it to the unsuspecting world, last September 2024. It has been so popular, I get customers writing to me saying it’s the only fragrance they’ve ever worn that they get compliments on, or that it’s the fragrance they have been looking for all their lives. It was inspired by my heritage – my mother came from Myanmar (Burma) – and yet it’s very modern, urban, thanks to the way Frank took beautiful ingredients like bergamot, jasmine, green leaves, added some cardamom pods, and plenty of cedarwood and white musk, but then left it feeling slightly raw round the edges, unpolished and unfinished. It’s a joy to wear – at once fresh and uplifting but also very warm and grounding, the kind of fragrance you’d like to nuzzle your nose into a loved one’s neck to get more of. I am so proud of it, and can’t wait for more people to discover it – it’s currently only available in the US and the UK, but we have big plans for it. 

I have the smoothest skin in the world and it’s down to body brushing with a dry brush before getting in the shower. Upward motions, you know the drill. 

I spend half my life at the hairdressers, seeing Nicola Clarke for colour and Joel Goncalves https://www.nicolaclarke.com/joel  for regular trims. They’re the best. I love them. We laugh and laugh in the chair, and there’s usually someone next to me who I know as Nicola has had the same clients for so many years now, we all love her. I know at some stage I will need to stop dying my hair and go grey, but I just can’t get my head round it now (pun intended). I visited Annabel Kingsley at Philip Kingsley recently, and it was a really useful experience – I had been seven years before so was able to measure how much my hair density was diminishing. It’s natural for it to get finer as you get older, and also for you to lose more hair, so it’s important to keep an eye on it, in case you need any kind of vitamin supplementation or other sort of treatment.

For facials I like Katharine Mackenzie Paterson, who really cares for your skin in a very bespoke way and when I need a little more of a lift, I like Keren Bartov, her laser is exceptional. 

Kathleen is photographed at home by Tom Chapman, wearing Olivia Von Halle.