The O'Portal: Health and Glam

Everything I do for my Skin aged 47 - FREE POST.

Dawn O'Porter — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 17:24:14 GMT

Up until recently, I was doing far too much to achieve smooth, healthy skin. When I quit booze, I needed something to focus on, so I went hard on (ha ha I said hard on) skincare. I was scooping Marine collagen into everything and spending a fortune on topical products. I got Botox and Profhilo, used my LYMA laser daily (I still do that) and took expensi…

One Year Off Booze.

Dawn O'Porter — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 09:26:08 GMT

On this day last year, I was driving home with my kids from the country after a weekend with some of my best friends in the whole wide world. We all have kids the same age who get along so well. We drank cocktails while they ran free, building dens from sticks and playing hide and seek among the trees, like we were in the pages of a novel about a life so lovely you’d hardly believe it could be real. The perfect picture of childhood. I laughed so much that weekend. We all took turns to cook. I’d just finished MasterChef, so for dinner I made them my final dish: salt-baked trout. A huge, impressive feast we ate as we raised our glasses and shared stories of joy, past and present. It was dreamy, every single second of it.

On the drive home, I felt heavy. The kids and I were chatting and laughing, but I was mostly wondering whether I’d get Wotsits or Monster Munch from the service station, or probably both. I didn’t feel sick, just low. After all that joy, the thing I was taking home was anxiety and dread. We reached Stone Henge and looked to our left as we wondered how the stones got there and why, and then there was this quiet but determined internal voice that simply said, ‘You’re done. No more booze.’

Stone Henge had spoken.

HRT and ME!

Dawn O'Porter — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 10:05:52 GMT

I am 47, and up until recently felt like ‘perimenopause’ was something everyone else was going through. It’s been all so many of my girlfriends have talked about for years, while I nodded politely, feeling totally “normal”.

If I’m honest, I was sick of everyone talking about it. Like our age is totally defined by it. Literally everything from a sneeze to a scratch would make someone shout ‘IT IS PERIMENOPAUSE’. Truth is, I felt totally fine. Sleep was good, moods were regulated, hair, face, body all in check. I wondered if I was one of those women who got away with it. I hoped I was.

Due to my mother’s very premature death from breast cancer (she was 36), I have always believed HRT was the enemy. That was until I needed it. The second symptoms started, I poured myself an Oestrogen bath and dived straight in.

Welcome to my ‘Morning Pages’. The words I write to clear my head before I can write the words that will end up in my novel. Subscribe to keep reading. We are now going behind the magical paywall of love!

Subscribe now