International Women’s Day: The Theme Is #GiveToGain & This Is How The Beauty Ed® Is Celebrating
Happy Monday!
In the run-up to International Women’s Day this Sunday, 8th March, my email inbox is always flooded with opportunities to speak to many brilliant women. From brand founders and dermatologists to industry experts, I am constantly surrounded by stories of success, strength and brilliance.
And this week, I wanted to celebrate the official theme of #GiveToGain which coincidentally fits into my 2026 vision for The Beauty Ed®: by‘giving’ the platform to a new wave of voices - from my core team of Gia, Hayley and Paloma - to the students that I mentor in THE LAB - so we can all ‘gain’ from a more inclusive beauty conversation.
Gia, Hayley and Paloma are three incredible women who serendipitously come into my life via beauty. They are now helping me grow The Beauty Ed® into a trusted space for honest and empowering beauty storytelling for all generations.
And in that #GiveToGain spirit, I’ve also been heading into a local high school to mentor a cohort of students through my new program, THE LAB. It’s been a fascinating two-way street; while I share my 27 years of industry experience, these Gen A students keep me grounded in what is actually happening in the world of the ‘new’ beauty consumer. More to come from THE LABsters soon…
As a little tease of what we’ve been working on in those mentorship sessions, I asked Gia to help me curate a Group Chat moodboard on what is actually trending with Gen Z and Gen Alpha right now. And it’s fascinating stuff. I’ll be sharing the full, deep-dive ‘Group Chat’ report from THE LAB later this week, but for today, it’s time to hand the beauty mic over to Gia, Hayley, and Paloma to hear what beauty means to them personally...
Thanks ladies - and Happy IWD everyone ❤️
Donna x
♡ Gia
In the spirit of International Women’s Day, it feels right to say not just what I love about beauty, but why.
For those who don’t know me yet, I’m Gia, a 21-year-old London-raised fashion, culture, and beauty journalist. I recently graduated from UCL with First Class Honours in Literature, and alongside my editorial work, I’ve always remained deeply attached to academic writing and cultural criticism. I am as interested in what beauty means as I am in how it looks.
I was raised almost entirely by women. Greek women who worked relentlessly, who dressed with intention, and who refused to make themselves smaller for anyone else. My mother and my late grandmother shaped everything I understand about expression. My grandmother, Artemis, studied at Central Saint Martins before becoming something of an ‘it’ girl in 1970s Athens. She adored glamour. My mother embraced colour and structure even when minimalism dominated. Between them, I was never asked to tone it down.
Beauty, for me, has always been about permission. Permission to revisit eras, from 70s bohemia to 2000s indie sleaze. Permission to romanticise old Hollywood through a Priscilla Presley liner flick. Permission to wear ruffles, florals and unapologetic pink without irony. I have always gravitated towards women on screen who understood fashion as character; Blair Waldorf, Summer Roberts and I’ve recreated their wardrobes more times than I’d admit. Nostalgia is fashion and beauty’s favourite language, and I speak it fluently!
But what I love most about beauty is the emotional weight of it. The heirloom jewellery from my grandmother. The Dior lipsticks my mother bought me as a teenager. The ritual of sitting at a MAC counter while she worked, watching transformation happen in real time.
M.A.C will always be personal. My mother retrained as a professional MAC artist in her forties, choosing passion over predictability, and I grew up backstage to that courage. Dior Beauty makes me feel beautiful in a way nothing else quite does. I return constantly to Chanel, Charlotte Tilbury, Rare Beauty and L’Oréal. Gisou and Sol de Janeiro also live permanently in my rotation.
What beauty gives me is confidence, yes, but more than that, continuity. It connects me to the women who raised me, to the cultures that shaped me, and to the versions of myself I am still becoming.
♡Hayley
As International Women’s Month officially begins, we at The Beauty Ed® wanted to take a moment to reflect on what beauty truly means to us - on a deeper level.
From as early as I can remember, beauty held a whimsical kind of magic that I was constantly drawn to. My Nana was the epitome of chic. She never left the house without her frosty pink lipstick, had her hair and nails done every Friday, and taught me the importance of always putting your best face forward. But what she truly instilled in me was that beauty isn’t about putting on a product to look “pretty.” It’s about taking time for yourself. It’s about care, ritual, and self-respect.
She never wore makeup to impress anyone else - and unapologetically didn’t care what anyone had to say. She was iconically the one and only, Ruth Hill. Once a year, my mom would take her to the Lancôme counter, where she would have her entire look done—from skincare to color—and truly treat herself, exactly as she deserved.
Similarly, my mother taught me the importance of skincare from a young age. I remember watching her apply the iconic Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion every single day, wondering what magic lived inside all those beautiful potion and lotion bottles. She would swipe on mascara and a touch of lip color, then leave the house looking effortlessly chic. I loved sitting in the bathroom watching her in awe, dreaming of the day I could “play makeup” with something more sophisticated than my Toys “R” Us playsets and Lip Smackers.
Fast forward to 2013: I had just graduated college and landed my first job in the fragrance planning office at Lord & Taylor. It felt so right—the magic of the “potions” was no longer something I admired from afar; it was the life I was living. I found myself in the Chanel offices, experiencing their latest innovations, and walking through the Estée Lauder building—places I once thought only existed in movies. It was a true pinch-me moment.
I later moved into cosmetics and eventually transitioned to the marketing side, working across brands from Trish McEvoy to Shiseido. Imagine waking up every day knowing that what you do is something you once only dreamed of. Getting to tell the stories you used to read about in Vogue. Even now, I still can’t quite believe it.
To me, beauty is all of the above.
It’s the ability to feel confident from within. It’s knowing that the lipstick you’re marketing might be the very thing that brings a consumer a smile while they face life’s adversities. It’s the scent memory of spraying a perfume that instantly transports you back to sitting in your grandmother’s room as she got ready to go out.
Beauty is a feeling. An emotion. A ritual.
It isn’t “fast fashion.” It transcends time.
And that is the beauty we honor - not just this month, but always.
Paloma
Without really realising it, I somehow became the beauty girl to people in my life; my friends, family and people I work with are always asking me for makeup/skincare/fragrance advice. As a result of this, I started writing about all things beauty, fashion and pop culture on Substack and am more often than not talking a combination of the three on my Instagram too!
I could genuinely spend hours aimlessly wandering the Selfridges beauty hall (maybe my favourite beauty location in London?)
When I think of what beauty means to me I think of girlhood. When I was younger and used to do dance shows, I was always the one helping everyone with their eyeshadow (which had to be blue - stage makeup rules!) As a teenager, it was getting ready for parties at friends’ houses and everyone trying to get the perfect winged liner. But a constant throughout my life has been sitting with my mum while she gets ready to go out, and now at 22, we still share/steal each other’s products. My favourite thing about having my own money now is spending it on over-priced products and no one can say anything to me about it because it’s mine! If there is a product I want to try out, it genuinely circulates around my brain until I test it out - is that what they call a shopping problem?
Anyway, speaking of favourite products, I have a few to share with you (and some brands too)! And, in honour of International Women’s Day, they are, of course, female-founded.
Another brand I simply can’t/won’t shut up about. I’ve never seen a brand with such unfailingly positive reviews - truly everyone who talks about Cyklar’s products only has wonderful things to say. I don’t know how they do it, but their products are just incredible. They make shower gels, body lotions, perfumes etc - I have the Bergamot Bond shower gel and body lotion and that citrussy sweetness wafts through my house every time I use it. 10/10 no notes.
I may be the most basic girl ever, but you know what? I don’t even care! I’m a big fan of Rhode, and while it’s safe to say I’m sceptical about celebrity brands, I really do believe that Hailey Bieber cares about her products and how well they perform. I am yet to try a Rhode product I don’t love, and while they don’t sit on the cheapest side of pricing, I think their products are pretty undupe-able. (Although if you have found a great dupe for a Rhode product, my DMs are open!)