Inside Claudia Winkleman's very laid-back approach to wellness
Claudia Winkleman doesn't take herself too seriously - and we love it. Waxing lyrical about all the ways she flouts health and beauty conventions, the Strictly presenter is charmingly, disarmingly laidback and eccentric.
Fake tanning with gravy granules? If it was good enough for your grandma during WW2, it's good enough for Claudia. Water, the elixir of life? None of that muck will pass the mum-of-three's lips. Taking her makeup off before bed? Jog on.
As Traitors series 3 airs tomorrow, Women's Health dug through the archives to learn more about the broadcaster's favourite wellbeing habits - and it'll come as no surprise that some of her claims are absolutely ridiculous.
There are no mirrors in her house
In 2014, Claudia told WH's Going for Goal podcast that her mum - former newspaper editor Eve Pollard - had raised her in a home without any mirrors, and that she had continued this trend with her own family.
She said: 'I was brought up in a house without mirrors, so my mum is a huge believer – and my dad – in the shell is only that.
'What I look like, how I’ve done my eyeliner – that’s not the shiz, the stuff is the inside, the chat, the brains, the laughs, the loyalty, the kindness, the cooking an extraordinary roast chicken.
'What you look like is the least interesting thing about you, it’s got to be, because it is all going to fall apart, and I hope I’ve passed that onto my kids as well.'
She never takes her makeup off before bed
'I've never ever taken it off before bed,' she insisted to The Express. I take it off the next morning with my nifty Boots No7 gel which comes in a tube. Fantastic - don’t have to deal with pot opening. But no, I sleep in it. I have more fun in my dream.'
She added that her sheets and pillowcase are smeared with makeup and fake tan. 'Yes, it’s disgusting. With the eyeliner and the spray tan, it looks like I've had quite a nasty accident. You just have to apologise. I just wash [the sheets] a lot.'
You also won't be catching Claudia veering far from her usual look, a beauty chameleon she is not. 'I don’t care about what I look like...orange, black eyes, Tippex mouth,' she said on Elizabeth Day's podcast.
‘I don’t want to suddenly go, I’m throwing on a gloss and a bit of blush. I don’t want to change what I do, I want to get decrepit looking the same.'
She committed to Invisalign at 46
In 2018, Claudia was a guest on the Emma Guns Show, where she told host Emma Gunavardhana that she had invested in her smile with straightening braces - at the age of 46.
She said: ‘They’re part of the mid-life crisis, I’ve got Invisalign in. My teeth suddenly went crooked, one morning they all decided to fold in front of each other, you couldn’t do anything with them so I got this, I’m slightly in love with it. They’re so clever.’
Claudia also told Stylist that she is ‘obsessed with brushing my teeth. I look forward to it like people do with holidays.’
She thanks her fringe for boosting her sex life
Last year Claudia hit the road on a speaking tour dubbed Behind The Fringe. During her Guildford performance, she told fans that she will never trim or grow out her iconic heavy fringe as she believes it is the power behind her TV career - and sex life.
She said: ‘People ask, 'did you always have a fringe?'. And yes I did. People ask what I am hiding with my fringe — and it's a massive forehead that is repellent.
‘I was born with six extra teeth like a little dinosaur. When people saw me smile they screamed. But when I was 21 and a virgin, I got my fringe and everything started happening.’
She also told the Irish News why her fringe was more than just a style - it was a defence against the mishaps of daily life. She said: 'I think I came out of the womb with a fringe.
'If you're on the school run, if you look disgusting, are knackered, have lost your house keys, in mismatching shoes and the world's falling apart, but you've got a fringe - a heavy fringe - something's still going on.'
Her must-have beauty product is less than £3.50
Blistex Relief Cream - 5g
Claudia previously revealed that she swears by a tube of C Blistex Relief Cream, £3.50, even describing it as 'The Daddy' of lip salves. 'If you have chapped lips, don’t worry about anything else,’ she said. ‘It really sorts them out, it’s inexpensive and is basically the Yoda of the lip-healing world.'
She has an attitude of gratitude
Claudia doesn’t believe in regrets. She told the Irish News: 'They’re a bit of a waste of time. Of course, I haven’t done everything right in my life, but I’m incredibly grateful for what I have. I think we’re all agreed, I’ve been far too lucky already.'
She’s low-key away from work
Every Saturday and Sunday during the winter we get to see Claudia rocking some seriously luxe outfits, and her fancy country wardrobe of chunky knits and tartans has seriously impressed viewers of The Traitors. But, away from work, you won’t catch her looking like she does on screen.
'It’s not sequins at home for me,' she told Woman's Way. I love the clothes on Strictly but I don’t get to keep them ever. One of the bonuses of the show is they completely take charge of my appearance and get me glammed up in a way I simply can’t achieve.’
She embraces imposter syndrome
She told Irish News: 'I don’t want [my career] to end tomorrow. But if it does, I think I’ve had a ridiculously long run. More than anything, I love the adrenaline.
'But I also can’t bear the arrogance of assuming that it’s just going to continue – I love a bit of imposter syndrome. I think it’s super healthy.'
She is a massive reader
‘Both my mother and my father were big readers, so it’s in my blood,' she said to SheerLuxe. 'But it’s also about habit – get into bed and pick up a book, not your phone. So long as it’s on charge in another room, I’m not interested in my phone.’
Drinking a glass of water is a hard no
When she was a guest on the Off Menu podcast, she made a startling admission: she hates water. She said: ‘I don’t like or believe in water, I won’t have it… I’ve never knowingly had water, I don’t like it.
‘When people drink it - such as my husband, who drinks great amounts of water and I really like him - it’s problematic. He’s glugging, don’t touch me, “Claud, take your bra off”’… I don’t think so. That was disgusting, you should be ashamed of yourself.
‘I’m never thirsty, I’ve never been thirsty, and I don’t like the taste. Sparkling is too much of a shock. I just don’t like liquids.'
She loves a long shower
Claudia told the Belfast Telegraph that she loves to unwind with a hot shower at the end of the day.
She said: ‘This is going to be weird for you because most people are probably going to say bath, but I love an endless shower. You turn the shower on and you get in and you go, 'Here we go'. I have Head & Shoulders, the new Nourishing Care Lavender one. It's so amazing. You open it up and suddenly you're in Provence.’
Au naturale? Oh no! She loves to be 'orange'
If you've ever adjusted the colour levels of your telly while watching Claudia, you can be forgiven. She does often have bright orange skin - she describes herself as a 'short, orange person with a fringe' - and she loves it.
She previously admitted, 'I like being orange, I think it is because I was born in 1972, I am an eighties kid so everything was like ultra glow.'
When working on Strictly, she gets three professional spray tans a week, but she has also shared her DIY fake tanning methods, telling Radio Four's Women's Hour with Emma Barnett that at university she resorted to smearing herself with used teabags and even Bisto gravy granules.
She also claims to using a kitchen scourer to slough off the old tan when she's ready for a fresh coat. She told In The Bathroom: ‘If you were using a Dulux colour chart, if there was one on there that said tangerine, right at the bottom, the one where you say, “That’s going to be too much for our walls”, it’s not too much for me. Put it on.’
She has serious eyesight issues
Claudia was born with myopia, an incurable eye condition which seriously affects her sight. She was born with -15 vision, and has undergone several surgeries to try and improve it - and her quality of life.
She told the How To Fail podcast: 'I've always had terrible eyesight. Which is going back to the blurriness of the paintings I like and the blurriness of how I really like life to be.
'I've had a couple of operations since then because I was just banging into walls. But now I wear lenses or glasses or whatever.'
She explained more to The Sun in 2021, saying: 'I can't even begin to tell you how blind I am. It's embarrassing. I can't read the autocue. My eyes have deteriorated so badly, I'm not meant to drive. I am doing the wrong job.'
Claudia has also claimed that her eyesight means that she has 'never really been able to see my face’.
She added: 'Everything is ish, it's just a vague idea which is how I'd like to live. I don't want to live in a perfect land. I want to live in fuzzy world. I like irregular and ramshackle and messy. Just look at the way I do my eye makeup.'
She's a CBD advocate
Claudia started taking CBD oil during lockdown as she struggled to homeschool her youngest son. She found it made her much calmer when dealing with him, and also enjoyed other ways it mellowed her out during very uncertain times.
She said: 'I found CBD oil and felt much calmer…It definitely transformed my sleep and the way I feel about the world.
'Sleep is very, very important to me and CBD oil absolutely shifted that for the better because I’m also 51 so I must be up the kazoo regarding hormones. I have a bath with a bath melt (from Cannaray) which has got coconut in it and leaves your skin smooth and lovely. Then I like to wrap myself up like a yeti in a towel, get into bed with a book and take two Cannaray capsules before I go to sleep. I love a two-hour wind-down.'
She even teamed up with Cannaray to launch her own beauty and wellness collection.
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