As I
passed through airport duty-free a few weeks ago, I spied the yellow and
white packaging of the perfume Giorgio Beverly Hills. The power
fragrance of the Eighties is now incredibly dated, and yet I couldn’t
resist a quick spritz.
When the heady floral scent hit me, I was immediately transported back to the Eighties and my Grandma Betty’s flat in Leeds.
Whenever
I stayed there, every morning I’d follow my grandmother, then in her
early 60s, into her room and perch on the end of her bed. I’d watch
transfixed as she sat at her dressing table in a peach silk dressing
gown and marabou-trimmed slippers ‘putting her face on’.

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Claire Coleman (pictured left aged two with her
grandma, then aged 56 in 1979, and right, together today) says she now
looks back on her grandmother's beauty tips as a legacy that has shaped
who she is

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Claire (left) aged 7 in 1984 with Grandma Betty, and sister Rebecca
It
was an hour-long ritual that started with Dior Capture moisturiser and
finished with a liberal spritz of Giorgio. Back then, it seemed the
epitome of grown-up glamour, the essence of what it meant to be a woman.
Now,
I look back on my grandmother’s beauty tips and tricks with more than
just nostalgia. It’s a legacy that’s shaped who I am. After all, we
inherit more than just our looks from the influential women in our
lives. Without realising it, their attitudes and ideas of femininity
subtly become ours — tweaked, of course, to fit us better.
Because
it’s surely no coincidence that I feel most stylish when I’m wearing —
as she did — high heels with oversized sunglasses, a vintage fur coat
and a slash of bright lipstick, ensconced in a cloud of Elnett hairspray
and a liberal coating of my own power fragrance, Prada’s Amber. A
perfume that, I was amused to discover, contains notes of sandalwood and
patchouli, just like Giorgio.

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Claire says her grandma Betty, pictured aged 36
in 1959 with her daughter Fiz and son Jonathan, shaped her attitudes
and ideas of femininity
It’s
not just me. One friend attributes her entire style — her love of a
fitted frock, her passion for emerald green, her Thirties hairstyle — to
her grandmother.
I
always knew Grandma Betty was a glamorous gran, but I think like many
women I hadn’t realised quite how much of her wisdom she’d imparted to
me over the years.
Whether
it’s investing my money in moisturiser rather than cleanser (‘why pay
for something you wash down the drain?’), never using soap and water on
my face (‘it dries it out’), religiously removing my make-up (‘otherwise
you’ll ruin your skin’), keeping my face out of the sun (‘use fake tan
instead’), far more of my beauty regime than I realise is inherited from
her.
Some
might think that ‘putting your face on’, as Grandma would say, is the
most superficial of subjects. But our appearance has a huge bearing not
only on how the world perceives us, but on how we perceive ourselves. As
Grandma Betty puts it: ‘If I don’t look good, I don’t feel good.’

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'Grandma Betty was a glamorous gran, but I think
like many women I hadn't realised quite how much of her wisdom she'd
imparted to me over the years,' Claire says (Betty aged 59, left, and
43, right)
Our
beauty regimes don’t define our femininity, though for many of us they
are a fundamental part of it. But there’s more to it than that. At a
time when we constantly hear statistics about a lonely generation of
older women who feel they have little in common with today’s youth, the
extraordinary truth is that beauty is one of the only subjects that
bridges the generation gap.
While
Grandma Betty and I never shared the same taste in music, and my
passion for the latest gadgets baffles her almost as much as her
devotion to bridge bewilders me, like many women we never fail to find
common ground when it comes to cosmetics.
And
frankly I’d be a fool not to take advice from her on the subject. At
91, she has the face of a woman 20 years younger and is adamant she
wants to keep it that way (when, five years ago, she realised that the
side of her face that she slept on was more wrinkled, she began sleeping
on her back).
Claire (right) aged 13 in 1990 with Grandma Betty, and sister Rebecca
Born
in Leeds in 1923, the eldest of three, Betty left school at 16. She had
wanted to study beauty but her father, a teacher, enrolled her at the
local college to be an apothecary’s dispenser. ‘I didn’t argue — in
those days you didn’t,’ she says.
My memories of her date from a time when, having retired at 61, she could finally embrace her passion for fashion and beauty.
I
remember thinking then, as I do now, that her style was flawless. These
days she tends to wear dresses with coordinating cardigans that are as
likely to be high-end designers like Cerruti, Jaeger or Jitrois as they
are to be High Street treasures from Marks & Spencer or Jigsaw.
I’m
always delighted to receive her cast-offs. Indeed, her eye for an
outfit is probably why, in her 60s, a friend’s son offered her a job
selling designer fashions in Hewlett’s, a Harrogate department store,
which she accepted with delight. ‘I knew all the girls on the beauty
counters and so they’d always be giving me samples of new things to try.
And I got a 20 per cent discount at Dior which, to this day, I still
love.’
I
vividly recall rummaging through her drawers full of blue and gold
compacts, my sister and I daubing each other with bronzers and
coral-coloured lipsticks. In fact, many of those same lipsticks and
bronzers are probably still in use today.
‘You
can keep most make-up for years,’ Grandma insists. ‘I’ve got a Dior
bronzer that dates back to the mid-80s, and Elizabeth Arden powder and
Rimmel eyeshadows I’ve had for decades.’ Now I understand where my
cosmetic hoarding habit comes from, I too have drawers full of
discontinued cosmetics.
Despite
never having worked in sales, she was a natural. ‘I never sold anyone
anything they didn’t look fabulous in,’ she boasts.
Her
experience means she’s an uncompromising customer — in a way that
embarrassed me as a teenager, but now makes me fiercely proud. I
remember going puce with embarrassment when she’d drag me into a store
while she returned a pair of Wolford tights that had gone saggy.
Mummy knows: The fist archeological evidence of cosmetics stems from ancient Egypt, when castor oil was used used as a balm
Despite
living alone since the death of my grandfather four years ago, her
standards haven’t slipped. She is the voice of reason in the back of my
head, especially when I see a company promising a £200 moisturiser will
make me younger.
And
barely a week goes by when I don’t get a call from her. Whether she’s
asking what I think about a new product — ‘Now, this anti-ageing spray
I’ve read about, Filorga? It sounds wonderful, but it’s terribly
expensive’ — or telling me about her latest discovery, there’s always a
reason to talk.
Discussing
perfume recently, I found we shared a mutual love of L’Occitane’s
Verveine scent (Giorgio has long since been banished) and so I suggested
she try a Dior one I liked, Escale A Portofino — turns out she already
had it.
And, on my latest visit, she showed me an ancient Dior lipstick and was lamenting that it had been discontinued.
While
I’d always thought that the corals she liked were not my colour, I
found myself unearthing my new favourite, Jungle Queen by Lipstick
Queen, in a shade that was uncannily close to her Dior.
Some women turn into their mothers. I, it seems, am turning into my grandmother. And I couldn’t be more proud.
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