Lisa Haydon is embracing the unglamorous side of beauty and finding joy in it

Lisa Haydon remembers her first lipstick. A maroon Revlon bullet, borrowed from her mother’s makeup drawer and swiped on with the optimism of someone still learning what womanhood might feel like. It’s a memory she mentions offhand, but it stays with you, because it says everything about the kind of beauty she returns to now. Easy and unconcerned with perfection.

“I think my relationship with beauty has changed with age,” she says. “When I started out in my teens and twenties, I was probably harsher on my body or just my expectations of myself.” Now, she says, there’s a shift. The sense of urgency has been shed as she started following the rhythms of her body.

On set for her July-August cover shoot, Haydon is all long limbs, slicked hair, skin that reads more like beach holiday than highlighter. Off-camera, her rituals are similarly minimal. “To be honest with you, my beauty rituals are so basic,” she says. “I love things that multitask.” It’s not a rejection of beauty. She no longer sees it as something to be constantly managed.

Much of that shift came with motherhood. “Now that my youngest is four and in school for the full day, I can actually go grocery shopping in peace,” she says. “Or do an hour-long workout. Just little moments in the day where I’m not being pulled in many different directions.” The logistics aren’t dramatic, but the impact is real. Having time to move through a task without interruption. Finishing a thought. Choosing your own pace.

Those “little moments” are threaded with purpose. She walks almost daily—“just a long moment to breathe”—and does Lagree Pilates regularly. “It’s all about slow, agonising movements… and it feels meditative because I make the effort to really focus.” Haydon doesn’t describe her routine with a tone of reverence that often accompanies wellness. It’s more matter-of-fact, like brushing your teeth.

There’s a discipline to it all: early to bed, early to rise and appreciation for that one hour in the morning when the world hasn’t started yet. “It just gives you the space to feel as though your life is your own,” she says. “No stress, it’s silent.” She pauses, then adds: “I feel like for me, that sets my whole day.”