Sigourney Cantelo has spent 25 years asking beauty's best-known names what they actually do. She was Beauty & Health Director at Vogue Australia before founding Beauticate in 2014, and the interviews here keep that habit: specific questions, real routines, products named.

You will find makeup artists and hairstylists on the products they would never be without, founders on how a brand really got built, and actors, presenters and models on the beauty habits behind the public face.

Not every story here is a conversation. Our Beauty Icons stories look at the beauty of figures such as Princess Diana, Audrey Hepburn and Stevie Nicks, drawn from the public record rather than an interview with them.