Few people in British beauty can claim to have lived every side of it.
Sue Moxley has been the face in front of the camera, the artist behind it, the editor shaping the pages, the entrepreneur with her name above the counter, and — today — the practitioner with her hands on the work itself. Across four decades she has moved through modelling, makeup artistry, national journalism, television, product development and aesthetics.
Sue Moxley arrived at Elysium as its Editor in Chief with a rare kind of authority: the sort you can only earn by having done the job at every level.
From model to makeup artist
Sue began her career as a photographic model, and it was a good one — nine successful years working advertising campaigns across Japan, Spain and the Netherlands. That international grounding did more than fill a portfolio; it put her on set beside the best makeup artists in the business, and it was there she found her real calling. She crossed to the other side of the lens and never looked back, building a career as a makeup artist that spanned some twenty years. Working on photographic shoots and television commercials, she made up many of the world’s top celebrities and rose to the top of a fiercely competitive field. It is the experience that still anchors everything she does — the understanding that beauty is a craft before it is anything else.
The Beauty Editor’s chair
Sue’s expertise and voice earned her one of the most influential platforms in British beauty journalism: Beauty Editor of The Sun.
Writing for one of the country’s most-read newspapers, she translated the professional’s knowledge into advice that reached millions — the practical, unfussy, tell-it-straight guidance that would become her signature. Her byline has appeared far beyond Fleet Street; over the years she has contributed regularly to Netmums, The Huffington Post, Essex Life, Menopause Life and Choice magazine, writing across every aspect of beauty, wellbeing and midlife with the same directness readers trust.
Netmums Woman with Sue Moxley
As a beauty expert and editor for Netmums, Sue’s beauty advice, delivered in video format, reached millions of women in the UK. The video “How to shape your eyebrows” below got more than a million views alone.
Famous by Sue Moxley
In November 2007, Sue put her own name to the counter and launched Famous by Sue Moxley, a makeup brand built on a simple conviction: professional-quality cosmetics should be within everyone’s reach. Created with business partner Cheryl Carter, the range rolled out nationwide into Superdrug stores across the UK, growing from its first stockists into hundreds of shops.
For Sue, the brand was never just product. Tools matter — “makeup can’t be properly applied without the right tools,” as she puts it — and that philosophy runs through the collection to her current Pro Tools line available through her website and Amazon.
On screen
Television was a natural next step. Sue has presented several makeover shows and appeared widely as an on-screen beauty expert, co-hosting the reality makeover programme So Would You Dump Me Now? alongside Lizzie Cundy. Comfortable in front of an audience and quick with the kind of warmth that makes viewers lean in, she became a familiar face in the genre that made beauty accessible to a mainstream audience.
Into aesthetics
Sue’s abiding passion has always been anti-ageing, and it drew her deeper into the science of the skin. She progressed into aesthetics, and today runs clinics in Essex and Norfolk offering advanced treatments — dermal fillers, anti-wrinkle injections, skin tightening, dermaplaning and natural skincare among them. Her approach is measured rather than maximal: subtle enhancement, results that refresh rather than announce themselves, and an honesty about what treatments can and cannot do.
A menopause expert
Some expertise is earned the hard way. After navigating a difficult menopause of her own, Sue trained and added Menopause Expert to her qualifications — turning a personal challenge into a resource for the women who read and follow her. During that time she hosted The Menopause Show on Women’s Radio Station, and some of the women she she worked with at the time went on to collaborate with her across Elysium today.
Menopause is a subject she still writes and speaks about candidly, and one that sits at the heart of Elysium Lifestyle Magazine’s commitment to midlife women.
Editor in Chief of Elysium
As co-founder and Editor in Chief of Elysium Lifestyle Magazine, Sue brings the whole of that career to bear on an independent publication that speaks to women across beauty, health and wellness, art and culture, travel, cuisine and home. Her credibility is Elysium’s foundation. When Sue vets a contributor, recommends a treatment or fronts a beauty feature, she does so with the combined weight of a model, a makeup artist, a national beauty editor, a brand founder and a practising aesthetician behind her — very few people in the industry can say the same.
Off the page
Sue lives in Essex with her husband, 80’s pop star turned politician David Van Day, whom she married in Orsett in February 2010. The couple share a love of performing — they formed their singing duo and perform at venues and private parties. They both have a deep love of dogs and have four, including rescues brought home from as far as Romania.
