At her newly opened clinic in Mount Street, Mayfair, facialist Melanie Grant hopes her clients will treat their appointment as the pinnacle of a perfect day, rather than something to be squeezed between appointments. “I love the idea of a client coming to Mayfair to make a day of it. A little shopping, lunch nearby, and then a beautiful treatment at the studio,” Grant tells Broadsheet. “We wanted the studio to be part of that rhythm rather than an errand.”
Much like Mount Street’s luxury shops and cafes, Grant’s bespoke treatments – from micro-needling to specialised Augustinus Bader facials – are designed to be experiences in themselves. There’s a waitlist, and every appointment is highly personalised. She calls her approach “clinical beauty”, and says results are as important as experience, with expectations grounded in honesty. “We specialise in skin and only skin, it’s all we do, so we’re genuinely good at it. And just as importantly, I know when to refer [to a medical expert].”
It’s a philosophy Grant has refined across studios in Sydney, Melbourne, Los Angeles and New York. After relocating from Sydney to London in 2022, she found that Mayfair – with its grand Georgian townhouses and opulent red-brick Queen Anne structures – matched the pace and elegance of her approach.
“This has been a long time coming,” Grant says. “Mayfair is quintessential London, and across all of my locations, real estate is everything to me … Mount Street in particular is a destination in its own right, and that matters enormously.”
Sought-after British designer Rose Uniacke (Victoria Beckham flagship, Belmond Royal Scotsman) set the tone. She created a classically beautiful English townhouse, bathed in light and dressed in honeyed neutrals from floor to sofa to ceiling. The feeling is less beauty waiting room, more earl grey in the drawing room. “A home feels far more reassuring than a sterile, clinical environment when you’re at your most exposed,” Grant says.
In expanding her skincare empire, Grant has adapted her treatments to suit clients’ preferences – and the climates they live in. In wellness-focused Australia, clients favour lasers, IPL and peels to reverse years of sun damage. “Behind that natural glow there’s often a lot of considered work,” she says.
In the US, there’s a sense of “more-is-more” – from multi-step routines to a greater openness to invasive treatments. But in the UK, clients “don’t mind a degree of imperfection”, instead the focus on compromised skin barriers, redness and dehydration brought on by the cold climate and hard water. “Most of our clients are really after skin they feel comfortable enough to forgo make-up altogether,” Grant says.
In a digital-native world where social media paints a glazed doughnut picture of good skin, it’s easy to believe flawless skin comes naturally. “It’s all smoke and mirrors, people only ever show the very best version of themselves,” Grant says. But if anyone knows how to peel back the veneer of celebrity, it’s Grant, who’s long looked after Victoria Beckham, Rosie Huntingon-Whiteley and Dua Lipa. There’s even a treatment called The Camera Ready Facial. Make of that what you will.
“People imagine there’s some secret that the most photographed faces are privy to, and there really isn’t. The skin issues are the same ones the rest of us have,” she says. “Ultimately, whether you’re in Sydney or London, we all want the same thing: healthy, even-toned, glowing skin.”
Melanie Grant
129 Mount Street, W1K 3NX
Hours:
By appointment
