A brief history of Eve Lom

Who's she then? Rather an interesting story this one. Brought up by a "witch doctor" (her words) grandmother in the former Czechoslovakia, as a child Eve Lom was often sent out to collect herbs and plants to be used in healing her grandmother's ailing patients. Her interest in herbalism had to be put on hold as 18-year-old Lom fled Czechoslovakia when the Russians invaded in 1968 and ended up in Paris working as a dancer. She married actor Herbert Lom (who you may well remember as the long-suffering Chief Inspector Dreyfus in the Pink Panther movies) and moved to Hollywood where she rekindled her interest in natural therapies. She became a facialist soon building up a good reputation and starry client list. A move to London saw the opening of her first salon in 1983 from where she started selling her eponymous line in 1985. The first outlet came in 1994, in Dickins & Jones, and the brand grew and grew. A few years back Lom sold the company to SpaceNK but still maintains a certain degree of control. What makes it different? Eve Lom's collection is all about simplicity. It's not a massive range but Lom argues that women can be guilty of using way too many products on their skin. So she's created the essentials to simplify the whole skincare process. So what's good? My favourite, and a feature of many top 10 beauty buy lists, is the best-selling cleanser (£50 for 100ml, £80 for 200ml, spacenk.co.uk ). Yes, it's rather expensive, but a little goes a long way and you only really need to use it at night. The 100ml pot lasts me about four months. And it really is amazing. It comes with a muslin cloth and it's that whole hot cloth cleansing thing that really gets in there and sorts out your skin. It's exfoliating, removes eye make-up and leaves skin feeling so good. Pop it on your list for Santa.