How the Spice Girls look so good at 50
Victoria Beckham celebrated her 50th birthday on Saturday night with a lavish party thrown by her husband David Beckham at Oswald’s, a private member’s club in London. Tom Cruise reportedly did the splits, bottles of wine costing £3,000 were consumed and the Spice Girls reunited for the first time in years.
During the evening, David captured his wife (Posh) and her former bandmates Melanie Chisolm (Sporty), Melanie Brown (Scary), Emma Bunton (Baby) and Geri Halliwell (Ginger) singing and dancing to one of their best-loved hits: Stop. When he posted the video to his Instagram page, the former footballer was inundated with requests for the band to reunite for another tour.
Victoria was clearly delighted, too, writing “the best gift to be reunited” beneath a photograph of the bandmates posing together. All five women, who hover between 48 and 51 in age, look undeniably great. Just as they once exemplified the zest and enthusiasm of being a 20-something, they’re now showing us how to age gracefully.
So what are the secrets to their fresh, youthful look?
Victoria Beckham, 50
Style
Posh has taken out a lifetime membership to the “higher than high heels club”. It’s a style habit she’s owned since her 20s, and it knows no age limits (she made a point of this on her Instagram page). Even as she hobbles on crutches, Victoria’s commitment was unwavering – she wore six inch cream bow stilettos to her party, paired with a sheer aqua chiffon dress from her own label. Husband David was employed at the end of the night, to give her a piggyback to the taxi.
Beauty
Beckham is no stranger to the beauty world and is now just as well-known for her best-selling beauty range as she is her fashion label. Having been open about her struggles with acne and skin problems in the past, Beckham is particularly diligent with her skincare routine. She recently shared her “Self Care Sunday” routine on Instagram, telling her followers that “spending time on yourself is so important”. Beckham explained that she likes to apply a weekly mask (that she leaves on for 45 minutes) followed by cleansing and sitting under an LED red light for 30 minutes. If used regularly, LED light can help to brighten the skin and boost collagen levels (we like the Boost LED Face Mask by The Light Salon, £395).
Beckham also sees the leading facialist Melanie Grant to keep her skin in check: she rates Grant’s knowledge so highly that she has partnered with her on a two-step cleanser (it’s very good but The Cleansing Protocol will set you back £100). Beckham also has an excellent priming moisturiser and serum created in collaboration with the leading skin expert Augustinus Bader.
Emma Bunton, 48
Style
Baby Spice’s wardrobe is still unapologetically girly – floral and frilled dresses by day, crystal embellishments for evening. Her velvet party dress, with its cream satin cuffs, had an almost-vintage feel to it. It looked feminine without needing to actually be pink.
Beauty
The youngest member of the Spice Girls, Emma Bunton has her own go-to facialist. She has been a regular client of the London-based Shane Cooper for a few years. Cooper uses a combination of deep exfoliation to cleanse the skin, microcurrent tools to lift, firm and contour the skin as well as radiofrequency to stimulate new collagen production. He is also a fan of LED light therapy to target sun damage, hyper-pigmentation and redness. Cooper, whose treatments start from £250 per session, tells us that Bunton has also been using his skincare range at home (we’ve tried the Oxygenation Mask, £95, and rate it). Lily Allen and Vicky McClure are also fans.
Elsewhere it seems that Bunton likes to keep things simple, having spoken previously about relying on daily sun protection (every dermatologist will agree that suncare is the number one product to protect the skin from ageing). Bunton is invested in beauty, too, now running her own sustainable baby nappy and skincare brand Kit & Kin. She launched the range in 2017 after her son suffered with eczema and she couldn’t find anything natural and plant-based to soothe his irritations.
Melanie Brown, 48
Style
Mel B no longer wears leopard print to stand out in a crowd – she’s in a chilli pepper red maxi dress instead. In many ways her style has remained true to her Spice Girl days, wearing plunging necklines, body con fits and look-at-me colour. She still loves glamour, clearly, but these days balances her look with minimal jewellery and accessories.
Beauty
In recent years, the fresh-faced singer has seen the Cheshire-based aesthetic practitioner Dr Nyla Raja. She tried a treatment called Ultracel, which is hailed as a non-invasive face lift using high intensity ultrasound. It takes around six months to notice the full effects of the treatment, which kickstarts collagen production and lifts and tightens the face. It’s not cheap though; prices start from £750 per area of the face.
Brown, who was a judge on the Masked Singer Australia, has also been open about using the anti-wrinkle injectable Botox. She had a treatment last summer at a clinic in Sydney, with Dr Joseph Hkeik, who at the time commented that Brown “looks incredible. Talk about Viva Forever.” Botox is a popular treatment designed to relax the muscles in the face and smooth out lines and wrinkles; each treatment can cost from £150 per area and lasts three to four months before needing a top-up.
For her skincare, Brown has spoken about the importance of good cleansing and sun care, and her skin “turning around” after using skincare by Augustinus Bader (the brand’s cult Rich Cream, £230, is a best-seller).
Geri Halliwell-Horner, 51
Style
Geri’s Union Jack minidress era is long gone – these days she wears a purely white wardrobe, no matter what the occasion. It’s a method of dressing that symbolises serenity, wealth and no fear of stains. Ginger Spice’s party outfit was by the Australian designer Rebecca Vallance and came studded with pearl beads and bows to give a more celebratory feel than her usual pared-back pieces.
Beauty
Halliwell certainly favours a much more pared back beauty style nowadays, enhancing her natural hair colour and opting for a “no makeup makeup look”. Long gone are the highlighter streaks and full glam makeup from the noughties. And the key to her beauty routine? Keeping things simple. In a beauty video filmed by Harper’s Bazaar last year, the former singer confessed to being “the laziest person you will ever meet in beauty care. I’m just tired and want to go to bed. But I’m vain.”
She has a four step routine that includes the Take The Day Off Cleansing Balm by Clinique, £34 and the brand’s cleansing brush (although she confesses that she does sometimes sleep in her makeup), followed by the Revitalift Serum, £32 by L’Oréal Paris and Magic Cream, £79 by Charlotte Tilbury. “I don’t want to look younger, I just want to look my best,” she adds in the video. Whatever she’s doing, it’s working.
Melanie Chisolm, 50
Style
Sporty Spice’s ab-flashing, shoulder-baring cut-out dress was the perfect choice to show us all how hard she still works at the gym. Her outfits these days combine the athleisure look she was so famous for in the 1990s, with grown up polish.
Beauty
Since the early Spice Girls days, Chisolm has always been low-key on the beauty front: a slicked back ponytail and a little makeup was her go-to. Although she now favours a softer hairstyle that enhances her natural brunette colour, Chisholm seems just as low maintenance as ever with her skincare routine. She is a fan of The Body Shop’s Edelweiss range, which is the high street brand’s more premium offering, with the Daily Serum Concentrate costing £42.
Chisholm has also opened up previously about having a little Botox when she turned 40. In 2017, she told New Beauty: “I’ve had bits of Botox done. I do like it, but it does freak me out because I don’t want to turn into that person that everyone thinks looks like Michael Jackson.”
Try these
Take The Day Off Cleansing Balm, £34, Clinique; Magic Cream, £79, Charlotte Tilbury,
Edelweiss Daily Serum Concentrate, £42, The Body Shop; Revitalift Serum, £32, Boots
Rich Cream, £230, Augustinus Bader; The Cleansing Protocol, £100, Victoria Beckham Beauty; Oxygenation Mask, £95, Shane Cooper
Boost LED Face Mask by The Light Salon, £395, The Light Salon
