Ruby Hammer

Forty years of backstage secrets, tidied into one very sensible makeup bag.

Ruby Hammer started out on the shop floor at Harrods, spending her staff discount on makeup and fashion magazines, and went on to spend four decades making up faces for catwalks, magazine covers and television. Along the way she co-founded Ruby & Millie, the makeup brand that found its way into Boots stores up and down the country, and in 2007 she was awarded an MBE for services to the cosmetics industry, which is not a sentence many of us will ever get to write about ourselves.

Her own range arrived in 2019 on a wonderfully simple promise: if she makes it, it is one of the best you can buy. So instead of hundreds of products there is a short, clever edit of makeup for cheeks, lips and eyes, including precision eyeliners and lip serum balms that are part lipstick, part lip care, alongside magnetic brushes with interchangeable heads that make a well-organised makeup bag look almost effortless. It is all designed to work across every age and skin tone, and it is exactly the kit a professional makeup artist would pack, for the very good reason that one did.

For more for the dressing table, have a browse of our gift sets + hampers and bags collections, or carry on to gifts for her. There are more businesses like this one in our Women-Led collection, and more from closer to home in our British Brands collection.