Hello, it’s Saturday 14 December and although this Weekend Read is dedicated to the VH Awards, this is more of a conversation between us rather than a long list of awards essentially because each year is different, and this year is most definitely different. But before I talk about that difference, I want to talk about the evolvement of the health and beauty industry through the decades, because we have come so far and that is mostly attributable to the depth of research and clinical evaluation, which is both ongoing and remarkable in its advancement.

Yet, for all that advancement, there is another side to the story and that is the reporting of health and beauty products and as many of you know, our story more or less began on the pages of The Sunday Times where our products were featured weekly in the What’s The Alternative column. When that column ceased to exist, we received an invitation to look after the health and wellbeing of The Mail on Sunday YOU magazine readers, an invitation based upon the integrity and efficacy of our products and it is important to state here that our relationships with The Sunday Times and YOU magazine were non-commercial relationships.

There can be no doubt that the reporting of health and beauty products has changed, and of course it is disappointing, because it is more than obvious that product recommendations are mostly financially driven now, which is somewhat ironic because throughout our most prominent media years there were those who consistently posted articles and defamatory missives suggesting that I bribed editors and journalists to feature our products. In failing to conduct any form of due diligence to ascertain the truth, the shame is on those who deliberately crafted their words in an attempt to harm and undermine us. It didn’t work.

The purpose of sharing the above words is that I will not allow others to define me, and I think that’s an important statement for all of us, but it’s actually far more than that, because across all industries small businesses are struggling to be heard in an increasingly difficult landscape. The challenge is enormous, but specific to the health and beauty industry, most of the well-known health and beauty brands and generic health and beauty websites are now owned by the conglomerates. There is no such thing as a level playing field anymore and there is no doubt in my mind that independent creativity is being crushed by an unrelenting drive for market share.

In many ways, I believe that we were so incredibly fortunate to live through an era of old-school journalism and values, a lost era perhaps, but an era where purpose was defined by the truth and a moral responsibility to take care of each other to the very best of our collective ability. I am very much aware of the daunting, and increasing, challenges SMEs face, but the challenge is a challenge worth fighting for, I have always believed that, and I have always believed that the scales of justice balance in the end, often against all odds. That’s a song and all roads lead to Rome, as it were.

With that said, there has to be objectivity in all things, and I am writing this in the form of a conversation because when I ran the statistics for the year, it became more than obvious that the VH Awards would have to be written differently this year. Carrying the positive and ground-breaking energies from our earliest years, it was somewhat predictable that we would create a series of formulations dedicated to, and embracing, cutting-edge and pioneering ingredients. And so DoSe was born, and although relatively still in its infancy, it has dominated this year’s statistics, alongside Fulvic.

Of course I am beyond happy, these statistics are very real, and they not only reflect the efficacy of each individual product, they also reflect the trust we share, which has always mattered so very much. And that makes me extraordinarily emotional because I absolutely know that you cannot buy respect, and the other thing I absolutely know is that the truth will always set you free, no matter what. Deep breath, let’s continue.

I think it is apparent that I am not going to self-award, but I do need to name-check a few products and of course I am going to start with Ergothioneine Serum, which really is the Hero Product Of The Year and the Hero Ingredient Of The Year, capitalised for importance. I have written so many words about Ergothioneine, but Ergothioneine as an ingredient is indicative of protocol, and with an array of studies indicating that Ergothioneine has one of the widest range of benefits of any single skincare ingredient or technology, we uphold that indicative protocol across each of the DoSe formulations.
VH Editorial: Ergothioneine Serum And Its Benefits For Skin; DoSe Ergothioneine Serum £26 for 30 ml

Crossing over to supplementation, HA is of course our bestselling supplement, that’s almost a given, most especially because it now includes the clinically evaluated BioPerine®, which supercharges the formulation for increased efficacy, but I want to talk about two other supplements here. The first is Superior Joints because I honestly think that the stars all aligned when Shabir formulated this, and no I am not giving him an award, but what I will say is that Natural Eggshell Membrane (NEM®) is clinically proven to reduce pain and stiffness in joints, and we honestly don’t believe that anything comes close to Superior Joints in its genre. It truly is a remarkable product.
VH Editorial: Painful Joints; DoSe Superior Joints £30 for 60 Capsules; Hyaluronic Acid Capsules High Strength £35 for 30 Capsules

NAD+ Generator also deserves a mention, not only because of the role it plays in healthy ageing, but because there is so much nonsense written about healthy ageing, which borders on abject irresponsibility, so this for balance. The patented extract, RiaGev®, outperforms Nicotinamide Ribose (NR) and Nicotinamide Mononucleotide (NMN); RiaGev®increases NAD+ more efficiently and effectively than NR or NMN; RiaGev®has a greater bioavailability than NMN and straight NAD. RiaGev®is the only NAD booster which survives the digestive process intact and finally, RiaGev®also provides more sustained energy, with decreased fatigue. Amen.
VH Editorial: Are NAD Supplements Beneficial; DoSe NAD+ Generator £32 for 30 Capsules

Eleven paragraphs in and not one award announced, so I will begin this section by saying that our curation of brands and products has always been very tight, deliberately so because to do otherwise would not only be confusing for each of us, but it would put me in the very difficult position of having to write about brands and products that I don’t trust or believe in, and I can’t, and won’t, do that. So, I think what we are going to do here is continue our conversation, rather than doing a roll-call of awards, because somehow it feels more meaningful to do it this way.

Before I began writing, I asked Shabir who he would give an award to this year and in a heartbeat he said Viridian Nutrition, and although this paragraph belongs to Shabir, I knew he would say that. In any relationship there has to be respect, and both of us have the utmost respect for Viridian’s founder, Cheryl Thallon, who has led the brand for over twenty-five years. There is such a huge difference between leaders who are passionate about their mission and those who have, in recent years, jumped on the health bandwagon with dollar signs rolling around their eyes, and Cheryl continues to lead with passionate intent and purpose, aligning ethos with responsibility.

In many ways, the Viridian products are the other side of us, and I often write about the efficacy of their formulations, so here I just want to make reference to the last Weekend Read where I wrote about our most-read articles. I held one article back, but ‘Most Of Us Have Intestinal Parasites’ was in the top five most-read articles and I’m not at all surprised because Clove & Oregano Complex is one of Viridian’s bestselling products, alongside Horseradish & Garlic Complex to relieve blocked sinuses, Cleavers which helps alleviate inflammatory skin concerns and Thyroid Complex which naturally supports thyroid gland function.

I could continue to write about many more of their products, but I have a few more awards to write about, so I will end this by linking the intestinal parasites article below, together with a link to the Viridian products. And as we celebrate together, I am offering a 15% discount across each of the Viridian products this weekend and all that is left is for me to announce is that The Ethical Brand Of The Year Award goes to Cheryl Thallon and Viridian Nutrition. So richly deserved.
VH Editorial: Most Of Us Have Intestinal Parasites; Clove & Oregano Complex; Viridian Nutrition Products (offer ends at midnight GMT, Sunday 15 December)

Over the past few weeks, and most specifically on the Black Friday emails, I wrote about many of our heritage brands, the brands we have exclusively launched across the years and this next award was always going to be given to one of those brands. This was an easy one for me, mostly because it is not only about the products, it’s also about my relationships with brand owners and founders, except all too often brand owners forget where their journey began as fame and fortune is bequeathed upon them and we become a historical irrelevance. This conversation is getting rather juicy.

I’m not going to reel off those brands today, but what I will do is announce that The Heritage Brand Of The Year Award goes to Dr Colette Haydon and Lixirskin. I have often written about launching Lixirskin with Colette, and I don’t think I will ever forget another brand owner telling me that I was a complete idiot for aligning myself with Colette’s brand because it wouldn’t last more than six months, and yet here we are.

And thank goodness for that alignment because Colette and I are so incredibly close and I don’t think I would want to live without our ever-so-long phone calls where we discuss everything that is wrong with the beauty industry, and there’s an awful lot that is wrong. So, as I invite you to celebrate with Colette, who may just drop her coffee when she reads this, we are offering a 15% discount across the Lixirskin products this weekend.
Lixirskin Products (offer ends at midnight GMT, Sunday 15 December)

I have just one more main award to write about, and it’s a Lifetime Achievement Award, but before we get there, there are three more awards to write about. These are product awards, they are non-specific other than I believe they deserve the recognition for being best-in-class in their genre, and the first one is Spacemasks. I know I give Spacemasks an award every year, but I just don’t care because I think Spacemasks are amazing, and of course they are one of our heritage brands, so another celebration, and a little dance on our platform, with a 15% discount across the brand this weekend.
Spacemasks (offer ends at midnight GMT, Sunday 15 December)

It gives me the greatest pleasure to write about this next product, although tinged with a touch of sadness as its creator, Lawrence Roullier White, is no longer with us, but his spirit lives on through his fabulous product, Mrs White’s Unstung Hero Mosquito Repellent. Unstung Hero’s claim to fame was when it was used on a Vogue photo-shoot and this has been one of our bestselling summer products for as long as I can remember. Across the years I have written about several epic products and Unstung Hero is truly epic so, Lawrence Roullier White, somewhere in the sky, this award is for you.
Mrs White’s Unstung Hero Mosquito Repellent £20 for 250 ml

The last product award is such an important award because there are too many instances where a product should really be a market leader, based upon clinical evaluation and efficacy, yet it receives little to no recognition because it just cannot compete with mass market competition. But of course it’s not only about the ability to penetrate the market, because even if you do manage to gain recognition, it will become apparent that you can’t actually afford that recognition because of the heinous demands of most of the major retailers. Don’t care what I write, Clinisept+ Mouthwash receives this award and it drops in price from £7.95 to £6.95.
Clinisept+ Mouthwash £6.95 for 400 ml (offers ends at midnight GMT, Sunday 15 December)

As we turn to the Lifetime Achievement Award, I am having another emotional moment, because the recipient of this award, Sarah Stacey, was the award-winning health editor who invited us to look after The Mail On Sunday YOU magazine readers, as mentioned above. We were introduced by a mutual friend, and although we didn’t really know each other, we knew of each other, and I absolutely know that Sarah did her due diligence before we received our rather esteemed invitation because she knew more about us than we knew about ourselves, which was quite interesting.

And that was the beginning of a relationship which spanned more than a decade of duty and care to the YOU magazine readers, and a relationship which is as important to me now as it ever was. Sarah has spent much of her career supporting the natural health industry. When she won the HFMA (Health Food Manufacturers’ Association) Health Journalist Of The Year Award in 2011, Sarah was praised for her work on difficult issues such as over-regulation and legislative change such as consumer choice.

In 2022, together with senior politicians and leading doctors, she founded the College of Medicine Beyond Pills Campaign, set up in the wake of the Government’s National Overprescribing Review, which established that 10% of drugs dispensed in primary care were inappropriate, unnecessary and could do harm, including causing premature death. That expanded into Westminster with the launch of the Beyond Pills All Party Parliamentary Group in December 2023; Sarah is a member of the Secretariat supporting the parliamentarians.

The debt of gratitude I owe to Sarah is enormous, she gave us a platform to dance on and we have continued to dance on that platform together, and although much of Sarah’s work is now dedicated to the Beyond Pills Campaign, she still writes the occasional articles, which we share. But of course it’s not only about Sarah’s reporting, none of us can do any of this on our own, and Sarah is my safe space when I need the wisdom of her advice, so this is a tribute to Sarah, an accomplished, genuine old-school journalist, who has made such a difference to so many of us and continues to do so. Sarah, your diamond-encrusted tiara is in the post.
Beyond Pills Campaign

I want to return to health and beauty reporting, because not only do I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Sarah, I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to print media. I am sure most of you are aware that print media is struggling for its very survival and being pragmatic, I do understand the need to explore revenue streams, aside from traditional advertising, and one of those revenue streams is affiliate marketing. Some of my closest friends are journalists and, after much discussion and soul-searching, we made the decision to support print media, and a few other platforms, by offering a nominal affiliate fee, and it really is nominal.

We are a small business, and we are not able to offer more than a nominal amount, we just cannot afford to do so, but it is shared as a gesture of support and recognition more than anything else. Except, it really won’t make any difference, because the system is entirely skewed against us, so I shall just continue throwing things at the wall because I detest injustice and that’s all I really want to say. For now.

With my emotions on the line, this has not been the easiest newsletter to write, in fact I think it is one of the most difficult newsletters I have ever written, and I’ve written rather a lot. In all of this, and in all the years, I have always known that we wouldn’t be here without each of you and launching DoSe was exciting, but terrifying because we just didn’t know what would happen. It has been an enormous investment for us, but I would do it all over again because in the words of Pablo Picasso, 'Everything You Can Imagine Is Real'.

We are nearly there, so just a few more words because this is the point of the newsletter where I normally do the Saturday only treat, except this is where the Saturday only treat becomes the Weekend only treat because even though I didn’t self-award, I cannot end without mentioning Fulvic, and so until midnight GMT tomorrow, Sunday 15 December, when you spend £35 or more, excluding p&p, we will automatically send you Fulvic Body Lotion (60 ml)* because as tributes go, please consider this as a tribute for your ongoing support for one of the most innovative ingredients I have ever written about. Product details below.
Fulvic Body Lotion

Campaigning is in my blood, and throughout the years I have often used our platform to discuss mental abuse and cruelty, including online abuse, which is beneath contempt. So all that is left is this week’s song, and it is of course Against All Odds, which I feel is appropriate, mostly because when others attempt to harm and undermine us, it is never about us, it is merely a reflection of their own innate cruelty. Standing together, we’ll fight them on the beaches, if we have to. The VH Army marches on.
Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now) by Phil Collins; The VH Playlist

Just two more words. Thank you.

With love

Gill x