When you’re reading this piece this weekend, I’ll be celebrating my 42nd trip around the sun. I always find birthdays a good time for reflection and for looking ahead, and this year it felt fitting to write about the many things that have shaped my approach to beauty and the habits I swear by now that I’m in my 40s.I’ve been fascinated by beauty for as long as I can remember. I almost loathe using the word “obsessed” because social media has driven it into the ground, but in this case, it’s the only one that fits. I’ve always loved beauty products – their shininess, their formulations, the rituals that surrounded them and, most of all, the women who taught me how to use them.I remember sitting on my grandmother’s bed, stuffing clove drops into my mouth from the jar she kept beside her bed, while watching her sit at her vanity table, applying Ponds Cold Cream. Always delicately, always in the same order and never forgetting her neck or chest, which I now realise was remarkably ahead of its time.I remember my mother’s penchant for YSL lipsticks and that particular smell that somehow carried luxury, leather and secrets you weren’t supposed to know as a child, all bottled inside a lipstick. I remember my godmother’s incredible blow-dries and impossibly big hair – something I’m now equally determined to achieve myself – and how glamorous she looked with a full face of make-up, perfect nails and not a follicle out of place.Looking back, I don’t think I fell in love with beauty products as much as the actual ritual of using them.Even now, a swipe of lipstick or a bit of mascara can change the course of a day. Not because it changes my face, but because it changes how I feel walking out the door. Beauty has been there for almost every significant moment in my life, both the highs and the lows. At times, it has given me a sense of control when everything else felt anything but.Over the years, of course, I have realised it’s not the hundreds of products I’ve tried that have stayed with me, but a handful of habits I return to again and again.When it comes to the products and habits I couldn’t live without, if you’ve read this column for any length of time, you’ll know exactly what’s coming first: sunscreen. Yes, it’s a slight departure from the nostalgia of the opening paragraphs, but, honestly, sunscreen is the one. Protecting my skin every single day for decades has stood me in good stead, and it’s something I’ll continue to use with military-like dedication into the next decade and beyond (if I’m lucky). Sunscreen, first and foremost. Photograph: iStock The second lesson I’ve learned is that hydration beats complexity every single time. It’s not one miracle product or the endless routines the internet tells us we need. Keeping my skin hydrated with a good serum and a decent moisturiser has done more for my face than chasing every new launch ever could. Dehydrated skin looks tired, exaggerates fine lines and doesn’t function at its best, so I prioritise hydration above (nearly) everything else. [ Sunscreen: All you need to know to pick the best SPF for your face, scalp and bodyOpens in new window ]None of those habits are particularly glamorous, I know, but perhaps that’s the point. Consistency rarely is.Another habit that’s transformed my beauty routine over the past 10 years is washing my hair less. Like many, I spent years shampooing every day or so, and constantly battling oiliness, product build-up and hair that never seemed particularly happy. With a little encouragement from my hairdresser – and more than a little help from dry shampoo – I trained my hair to need washing less often. It took some time, but now I’m down to washing my hair once, maybe twice a week – and it’s stronger, thicker and healthier. I’d always convinced myself I simply had fine, weak hair, but in reality, I suspect a combination of hard water and washing the daylights out of it was doing most of the damage.Not washing the daylights out of my hair has helped it to become stronger, thicker and healthier. Photograph: iStock Next is nails and my long-standing love of a professional gel manicure. It’s unlikely you’ll ever see me completely relinquish my salon appointments and move towards the arguably trendy natural nail approach we’re seeing everywhere at the moment. Never say never, as they say, but having manicured nails resets something in me that I struggle to put into words. And I’ve seen it in other women too.Many years ago, I was getting my nails done when a woman walked into the salon I was in, looking as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. She looked like she’d been crying. It seemed there was a lot happening in her life, yet there wasn’t much conversation between her and the team. She was obviously a regular, and they knew what she wanted and got to work.I sat and watched over the next hour as she had a manicure and a pedicure. She flicked through a magazine for a while but mostly just sat with her eyes closed. By the end, her shoulders had lifted a little, she stood up a little straighter, and there was the smallest smile on her face. It felt like watching someone being quietly put back together. [ The five minute face: Six easy-to-use products for a no-fuss make-up routineOpens in new window ]I’ve never underestimated that feeling since. When everything around me feels wildly out of control, and I look down to see a fresh manicure, something in my brain settles. I think, “Right. I can do this.”I think that’s what beauty has always been for me. Not perfection, not vanity, but a collection of small rituals that help me look in the mirror and think, “There she is.”Perhaps that’s what the women in my life knew all along.