I didn’t set out to create The Midlife Makeover.

It started much more quietly than that.

During lockdown, I stopped wearing makeup.

We weren’t going anywhere. If we did go out, we wore masks. Makeup simply didn’t seem necessary anymore.

At the same time, so much else was changing.

I was missing my nieces, Brooke and Scarlett. We’d always spent quality time together — sleepovers, visits, the ordinary family moments that become so precious without you realising it.

And when the girls were six, my mum was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

It felt like a lot of change in a very short space of time.

I was already living with fibromyalgia, SLE and DLE. Then a routine trip to the dentist brought Sjögren disease into the mix too.

I really lost my way.

I wasn’t interested in clothes anymore.

The way I ran my business had changed drastically too. I couldn’t deliver brochures in the way I had before, but strangely, my business started to grow online.

As the world began to open up again, I realised something I hadn’t really wanted to admit.

I’d let myself go.

I took a long, hard look in the mirror and thought:

I can’t run a successful beauty business if I don’t start taking pride in myself.

Then the girls came back into my life.

Brooke and Scarlett were back to sleepovers and the quality time we’d always shared.

And somehow, having those moments together again reminded me of how much I’d missed them — and how important those ordinary moments of connection really were.

Around the same time, I looked at my makeup collection and realised just how much had accumulated over the years.

It resulted in a mega overhaul.

My skincare needed to work with the skin I had now, not the skin I’d had ten years earlier.

And my makeup needed the same rethink.

I wanted products that suited my skin now, rather than simply continuing to use what had always worked before.

I knew where to start.

My previous makeup artistry skills, together with the Beauty Adviser training I’d completed through Avon, meant I understood what needed to change.

I had a huge wardrobe clear-out too.

Anything I hadn’t worn in the previous six months went.

So did all the clothes I’d kept because “I might get into them again one day.”

I realised I needed clothes for the body I had now.

I didn’t want to follow trends. I hadn’t done that in my twenties, and I certainly wasn’t going to start in my fifties.

I wanted clothes that suited my shape and made me feel confident again.

I started showing up for myself.

I made it a mission to be dressed smartly when I was doing deliveries, going to meetings, or even just meeting friends.

And that included my makeup.

But the makeup wasn’t what I used to wear.

It was minimalistic, suitable for my skin now, and gave me a radiant glow rather than feeling like a full-face reconstruction.

These weren’t huge changes.

But once I’d made them, something began to shift.

I started to feel more like the old me on the inside — and I was loving the new me on the outside too.

Then I started looking for my next idea.

I was doing some training online with another Avon Representative who had built her own brand. She was showing us how she’d created her online presence and sharing what she’d learned along the way.

One of the questions she asked was:

“What could be your USP?”

And immediately I thought of gifting.

I love wrapping presents.

So I tried it.

But nothing much happened.

And looking back, I know why.

I wasn’t passionate about it.

I was trying to build something around an idea I liked, rather than something I truly cared about.

Then I realised who I really wanted to help.

I came up with a few more ideas, but none of them felt quite right.

Then, listening to the trainer talking about your Ideal Client, something suddenly clicked.

I realised that my ideal client was me.

I knew what it felt like to lose your way.

To look in the mirror and not quite recognise yourself.

To have your body, your skin, your life and your priorities change — sometimes all at once.

To wonder where the woman you used to be had gone.

And I realised that what I was truly passionate about wasn’t wrapping presents, or even beauty on its own.

It was helping women rediscover themselves when they felt lost or out of sorts with themselves.

And that was when the idea of The Midlife Makeover™ was born.