Sali Hughes on iconic beauty products and Celtic culture

It is an unseasonably warm day in Brighton, and I’m feeling nervous as I stare out the window of a snug restaurant at the vast, glossy sea. Brighton is a wonderfully odd place. A mishmash of city and seaside town, cosmopolitanism and artisan craftiness. The people have a mature friendliness, but it’s undoubtedly a young city. A left-wing haven, it’s both earthy and elegant.

I'm waiting for Sali Hughes, author and journalist. She's a famously honest and rigorous beauty writer, and I've been reading her work since long before I got my hands on a Chanel lipstick or started beauty writing myself. It makes sense that Hughes lives here in Brighton. It has a unique combination of intellectualism and creativity, two characteristics that in combination make her so beloved.

She arrives on time, hoping she isn't late and gives me a hug. As she settles herself, she expresses her love for Ireland, smiling warmly. As a Welshwoman, she has a soft spot for Celtic culture – "Dublin is the only place I've ever been where you can go even to a Michelin star restaurant and they bring you mash. It's not even really considered a side order. It's like water for the table. I really love that."

She’s chosen to meet at a fish restaurant full of delicate and beautifully unusual culinary offerings. “Shall we have steak?” she suggests after perusing the menu. I’m delighted.

We're meeting to talk about her new book, Pretty Iconic, which is released on October 20th. It comes in the wake of 2014's massively successful book Pretty Honest, Hughes' guide to life through the lens of cosmetics, a wonderfully pragmatic celebration of beauty in everyday life. Readers respond to Hughes' uniquely forthright and practical approach in an industry synonymous with back scratching and snake oil.

Pretty Iconic isn't a traditional beauty book or a shopping guide. No. Hughes wanted to explore the history of our relationship with iconic products. She's humble about the concept. "It might be a bit of a misfire. I'm waiting to find out if it's just me who's this nerdy about beauty, but as long as I can remember I've just been obsessed with products. I don't just mean posh make-up and perfume, I mean everything. Vosene shampoo and Brylcreem and Oil of Ulay. Things in my granny's handbag." She was in bed one morning when she started making a list of the particularly memorable products that featured throughout her life, and she couldn't stop.

It isn’t a list of her favourite things. “These are the memorable things, whether you love them or not; the things that changed how we look. And we may have discarded them, or they may have been a bit rubbish, or they may have been amazing and enduring and still things that I reach for, but it’s not about the best. It’s about the icons.” It makes sense. As she speaks, I recall the big bottle of Imperial Leather my grandmother kept by the bath, and the smell of setting lotion. We all have a chronology of products that punctuates our lives and that we associate strongly with certain people and times.

While talking, Hughes exudes a quiet, resolute confidence which instantly explains her success. I'm curious about where it originated. Many women claw their way up the precipice of confidence from a position of being consistently ignored or sidelined in their youth. Not so for Hughes. She can't remember ever being any other way. When I ask if there was a time in her younger years when she didn't feel entitled to a seat at the table, she responds instantly: "I honestly never did feel that, but I don't think that feeling came from nowhere." Her father was involved in Labour politics throughout her youth, and her mother never imposed any traditionally female insecurities upon her at a young age. "There was just a sort of air of acceptance that we could probably do whatever we wanted. They never showered us with compliments, but nor did they criticise us. It never occurred to them to say 'you're not capable'." Hughes declared to her dad at four that she wanted to be a writer, and he just nodded. A sort of 'okay, off you go then'. This attitude, she says, is probably why she goes about life with the expectation that people should be respectful to her. Nothing short of that is acceptable.

That confidence translates to the industry she works in. Occasionally, she’ll get abuse from churlish men on Twitter talking about the shallowness of writing about beauty. If she’s in the mood, she’ll demolish their poor logic with a torrent of sense. Usually, she isn’t in the mood. Hughes was raised a feminist and is pretty sanguine about it. “I don’t ascribe to first or second or third wave anything. I just think it’s a core belief around equality. If you think that women should be allowed to go to university, earn the same as men and have reproductive freedom, then you’re a feminist. The end game for me is real equality.” She has no tolerance for women calling out the “wrong kind of feminism”. “As long as we agree on the big stuff, that’s what matters.”

Hughes has written and commented openly in support of the Irish campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment. She describes women opening up about their own experiences of abortion as “heroic” and is open about the fact that she had an abortion at 19, declaring herself “absolutely unashamed and unapologetic” about it. British women, according to Hughes, “feel an imperative to let Irish women know we’re on their side. We are neighbours. We are basically the same. It is inconceivable to me that a country with which we have so much in common has this fundamental breach of human rights. It’s barbaric.”

It is this sort of sensible eloquence that sets Hughes apart, and it evidently comes naturally to her. Over a cup of coffee, I ask if there is any iconic product in her make-up bag today that was there 20 years ago. She looks intrigued, says "let's see", then proceeds to gently upend her make-up bag onto the table. Most women would be self-conscious about this. Not Hughes. She says she still gets that excitement in her stomach when she encounters a beautiful product, but her lack of interest in the pomp of the industry is refreshing. "I don't really go to events. The world I inhabit is not the world I grew up in. I'm Welsh and I'm working class and I don't always have the same view as the people around me." Hughes has a reputation as a slight renegade in beauty circles – she avoids the fancy events and launches. "I just don't want to be anywhere that's less nice than my house. I'm a single mum. Why go to Greece to look at a self-tan when I could be working and looking after my children?"

We part ways after she recommends some shops I should see in Brighton, a chocolate shop among them. I expect she’s off to do something terribly glamorous, but actually she has to go buy some thank-you cards. Ever practical.

An evening with Marian Keyes and Sali Hughes

The Irish Times Magazine is teaming up with Dundrum Town Centre to invite readers to an exclusive beauty evening.

On Thursday, November 24th, in Café Zest, House of Fraser, see Irish novelist and beauty buff Marian Keyes interview beauty writer and author Sali Hughes live, with expert beauty demonstrations from Bobbi Brown.

We'll have bubbles, light bites and beauty tips, plus live make-up tips, tricks and demonstrations and a gorgeous goody bag for every attendee, which includes treats from Bobbi Brown, Café Zest, Dundrum Town Centre and more.  There will also be spot prizes, and the opportunity to ask Sali and Marian your burning beauty questions, plus a chance to pick up a signed copy of Sali's new book, Pretty Iconic. The event starts at 7pm, and Dundrum Town Centre remains open until 10pm.  Tickets are €45 and are available from irishtimes.com/salimarian