Cow On The Ice

Imagine this.

You open the door to your house in the morning to move the bin back to its place, like the cultured citizen you are, and.....you basically can’t leave the house.

Because six apple trees have grown outside your front door overnight. Bearing apples.

Pretty magical beginning to the day, if you ask me.

The problem is, you never ordered any apple trees. In fact, you don’t even particularly like apples. You prefer onions. And swede. Even potatoes. Shame they don’t grow on trees.

You are English, so you don’t curse out loud. You sigh and consider apologising. Unfortunately, there is nobody to apologise to. And you absolutely refuse to apologise to the apples because you are beginning to suspect they might be cursed.
Because...
look at the Bible!
Or Snow White!!

Nothing good ever came from eating apples.

But being a good Peter (because your name is Peter), you go back inside, bring out a Tesco Bag for Life and dutifully collect all the apples that have detached themselves during the mysterious nocturnal orchard incident.

And then you find it. A very muddy invoice! An invoice that explains, somewhat, where this enchanted orchard was supposed to go.

Half a village down the road, there is someone expecting six apple trees. It’s quite far away. You can’t carry them there. So you decide to pay a visit to the apple lover down the road. You’re not even surprised when you discover her name is Eva. The Bible thing. Told ya...

And this is how I met Peter.
And found out where the new addition to my garden had ended up. On paper, it wasn’t my fault. The nursery I ordered the trees from had simply decided to deliver them in the middle of the night to a completely wrong person.

But I know the truth.

I simply create magic everywhere I go. I can’t help it. On the next occasion I will tell you how I created some magic by placing my nose on the trajectory of my brother's fist. It was good 34 years ago. My mum was spellbound when she entered the scene... but this time it was an enchanted orchard for Peter.

But more often than not, I try to do the same thing for you.

“Don’t send us orchards, Eva!!”

Don’t worry, darling. I can almost promise it will never happen again.

The magic I offer on a daily basis is usually locked inside little amber glass jars and bottles. And those concoctions have an interesting history.

When my health collapsed two years ago and I looked and felt like roadkill (with a bright lipstick), I didn’t have ANY energy left for so-called “beauty rituals”.

I was cold to the bone. Exhaustion levels barely allowed me to leave the bed. I had problems with walking, with balance, noise sensitivity and a general justkillmenow level of wellness.

In terms of self-care ceremonies...

I was genuinely delighted when, after a few failed attempts, I still managed to drag myself into the bathtub. I really didn’t want to be stinky on top of it all.

So yeah.

No woman in beige linen levitating above a cacao ceremony, that's for sure... Just me, my grey face and a desire not to lose the leftovers of my dignity.

And this is how our minimal skincare came into existence.

I’d never had the patience (nor the budget) for multi-step skincare routines anyway. But especially in that state, when all I could offer my face was 15 seconds.

If that.

So I started thinking about products that could do several jobs at once and give you visible results now, rather than in six to eight working weeks.

Take GLOW, for example. Put a little water on your face. Add Glow.

WHAA.

You’ve just replaced a moisturiser, serum and face oil with one smear.

Glow. Lemon Sherbet. The Herbalist. Absolute.

They are remarkably free of the whole unlock-your-radiant-quantum-inner-goddess thing...
..but OMAHGAWD, they do work.

So no. We don’t ask you to... Awaken the Luminous Portal of Your Becoming... (?) and suddenly charge you £444 for a webinar from Tulum.

We just want your skin to be healthy and look beautiful. Even when you feel like a pile of compost (with a lipstick).

And because enchanted orchards deserve to be celebrated (and I needed a memorable discount code):

Use code WOW!APPLES and get FREE SHIPPING on your online order. Valid until Monday (14.10.2026) midnight.

Sending love (not from Tulum but from a tiny village on a boarder of Cambridgeshire and Norfolk) from me and Twinkle, my apple-obsessed bulldog familiar.

Speak soon,
Eva x
Founder, Cow on the Ice

PS. This is more or less what our newsletters look like. Cursed orchards, bulldogs, confused Peter and, every now and then, an actual useful discount code.

If this sounds like the sort of thing you’d willingly allow into your inbox, you can join our newsletter at the bottom of our website.

We’d love to have you. 🍎

Maybe you remember me telling you that when I was about 10 years old, I looked like a potato wearing a sofa. Or, more accurately, wearing my mum’s pragmatic yet spectacularly unflattering choice of garment, accompanied by a sweaty mullet.

Maybe I also mentioned that when I was 24 and received my MA, I looked like a chubby, eccentric auntie with a lot of presence and a very, VERY adventurous approach to fashion.

Well...

I found photographic evidence of both.

And originally, I wanted to show it to you today and write something funny about transformations. About how women over 40 can absolutely have spectacular real-life glow-ups if they are stubborn enough.

But then I looked at the kid in that first photograph.

I looked into those very, very sad eyes.

And suddenly I wanted to give her a massive hug. And a massive LEGO set. And a puppy! And, what the heck, possibly even my kidney!

Because I realised she didn’t deserve yet another round of ridicule, even if this time it was affectionate and even if the person laughing at her was me.

That little brave soul wholeheartedly believed in fairy tales.

That was pretty much all the hope she had.

Her favourite was Cinderella.

And I think some part of her genuinely believed that maybe, just maybe, with a little help from a fairy godmother, she too could transform into someone who would be allowed to go to the ball.

Forget the prince. She didn’t hope for that much.

But maybe she would get a beautiful dress that swirled.

Maybe she would have a face and a body that somehow matched the dress.

And maybe, just for a little while, she wouldn’t have to keep sorting the peas to deserve her place by the fire.

Poor little darling. She tried so very hard.

And her first major transformation took her from a sofa with a mullet...
..into the fairy godmother herself.

At the grand old age of 24.


The actual transformation did eventually happen for me.

It cost me millennia at the gym, eons of improving my relationship with food, and a great deal of healing things that had absolutely nothing to do with the size of my trousers.

It arrived quite late, so it didn’t have the freshness of the first spring. Instead, it brought something much better.

A very grown-up, very quiet contentment.

And yes, I could date all the princes.

Unfortunately, this particular menagerie, albeit frequently bearded, tall and charming, couldn’t offer anything especially meaningful.

If my lawyer hadn’t advised me against it, I would write:

They were all t***s.

Some of them very well-educated t***s.

My mum still periodically asks:

“Have you seen that doctor from Northampton recently?”

“No, Mum. I’m happily married to Not-A-Twat, thankyouverymuch.”

Sometimes I suspect my mother is secretly hoping for some exciting drama from me. I really should remove the channels showing Turkish telenovelas from her telly.

Anyway.

I see myself as an attractive woman these days.

There. I said it.

I wear my short hair and sporty clothes like a badge of honour. I like my body. I like the face looking back at me from the mirror (mirror on the wall). I like the woman who lives inside it.

I was never a princess.

But perhaps I can become a queen.

And this sweaty little potato with a mullet turned out to be one of the most unlikely people imaginable to start a beauty brand.

Yet here I am.

Maybe that’s why Cow on the Ice was never going to be about fixing women.

I don’t want to sell you the fairy godmother. I don’t want to tell you that somewhere underneath your current face there is a prettier, younger, smoother woman waiting to be uncovered if only you buy the correct jar.

I want to make gentle, exceptional, natural things that love the woman who is already here.

The one transforming herself.

The one discovering herself.

The one starting again at 34, 44, 54 or 74.

The one who has finally realised that she was never waiting to become a princess in the first place.

Perhaps she was a queen all along.

So whether you’re sorting the peas, going to the ball, running away from the ball because everyone there is annoying, or slaying the dragon...

I’m rooting for you.

Cow on the Ice. For all of you Cinderellas out there.*
*Not the t***s.

Love,

Eva x
Founder, Cow on the Ice.

P.S. If you enjoy stories about potatoes, husbands having offensively boring dreams, fainting goats, and other matters of absolutely no importance for the cosmetic industry whatsoever, you should probably join our newsletter.

There are also occasional discount codes and little surprises, because apparently we are still a business.

You’ll find the sign-up at the bottom of our website.

What is better than Elemis, Clarins, MV Skincare... and possibly even the tears of a Korean snail?

(We assume harvested consensually.)

Apparently us!

(now it's time for your mandatory look at the second picture).

We received this note with an order the other day. Naturally, we printed it out, framed it and informed our mothers.

But it did make us wonder... Why does she think that?

There are several possible explanations:

A. She has exceptionally good taste.

B. We accidentally made Glow during a favourable planetary alignment.

C. Two years of using Glow has created an emotional attachment normally reserved for childhood blankets and problematic men.

oooor... it might be that Glow is basically concentrated lipid care. It softens and smooths the skin and leaves a fine emollient layer that helps reduce moisture loss. And some skin, particularly dry, mature, or lipid-depleted skin, REALLY likes that.

So, is Glow scientifically proven to be better than Elemis, Clarins and MV Skincare?

Absolutely not.

Does one woman who has actually spent her own money on all of them think it is?

Apparently yes.

We will be living off this compliment until at least 2037.

Claire has been attacked by flying pigs!!

The last few weeks have been absolutely mental. Claire, our shop manager, has been attacked by flying pigs.

I’m not even joking.

Poor Claire was driving along the A14 to pick up her daughter when, about ten cars ahead of her, was a cattle lorry. She heard an almighty bang and all of a sudden a load of pigs came flying out of the trailer.

Traumatised Claire and her even more traumatised daughter managed to get back home safely, but I’m not entirely sure what their current relationship status with bacon is.

I know you have questions...

The event is Googleable, but I’m telling you already that the pigs, at the moment they took flight, weren’t exactly alive. No, I’m not sure who transports them like that either...

I won’t beat Claire on the drama factor of unexpected events, but I’ve had quite a collection myself.

My poorly mother landed in hospital again and, as a result, transformed herself from an eccentric old lady with an explosive character into an ancient battle witch who throws rage at everything with the regularity of a feral cat locked in a shoebox.

So tending to her gives people (myself included) an instant PTSD and an eye twitch.

When I came back from this relaxing journey, I was faced with a beautiful little river that had manifested itself at the back of our house.

Beautiful view...

Peace and quiet.

Skylarks overhead.

Elves plucking at their harps.

Jesus wandering through the garden.

A golden fish lazily circling in the pond...


The plumbers (and the neighbours) didn’t share my enthusiasm.

Apparently it was a serious leak.

Apparently our wallets became very lightweight as a result...

Soooo...

If you’ve recently had a slightly difficult time... guess what?

You are not alone.

I know that other people’s misery isn’t necessarily an uplifting circumstance (unless you’re a psychopath), BUT it’s good to know that Satan himself hasn’t developed a particular interest in your little self.

So what can you do to survive days like these without becoming a depressed fainting goat?

Well, I’m glad you asked!

First of all, burning your mobile phone may be useful.

Or at least deleting social media.

That may allow you to go from ongoing panic attacks to mild existential dread in just one week!

Also, growing courgettes helps.

Touching soil is genuinely good for you (exposes your skin to harmless natural microbes that can boost your mood, strengthen your immune system, and diversify your gut bacteria), and courgettes are ridiculously easy to grow. And ridiculously prolific. You pickle them and BOOM: Christmas gifts for all the family and friends!! (hehe)

There is one more thing worth considering.

We have an absolutely phenomenal new fragrance.

And I am spraying this on myself like there’s no tomorrow.

It’s called Indian Summer, and it smells like golden fields, warm skin, and making peace with the fact that you were only popping out for five minutes and somehow ended up watching the sunset.


Sweet orange, neroli and ylang ylang mingle with the warmth of black pepper to create something soft, rich and almost edible.

It is golden light on bare skin.

Flowers growing slightly wild.

Ripe fruit within arm’s reach.

Warm earth under your feet.

A perfume for those days when the whole world seems beautifully, extravagantly ripe. And all you really need to do is stand there and breathe it in.

Wear with oversized jumpers, bare ankles, or absolutely no sensible plans whatsoever.

And because we are now fighting Satan with courgettes, perfume and Royal Mail,

GOAWAYSATAN!

will give you FREE SHIPPING until midnight on Monday (24.08.26).

So you can buy yourself Indian Summer.

Or restock Glow.

Or anything you want, really.

And have your favourite postie, hoppery-hoping through the meadow in his shorts, bringing it directly to your lovely, deserving hands.


Speak soon, my darlings.
And hang in there.

Eva
Founder, Cow on the Ice

We've prepared a parcel today for a Very Important Person in our little city.
Can you guess who it was?!
One of the considerable advantages of ordering skincare from approximately 30 seconds down the road is our extremely efficient local courier service.
Me!
But our special customer decided to pick it up herself!! And there she is!
Victoria!
The Queen of Cheese! 👑🧀 Victoria's Cheese
Vicky is testing Glow, The Herbalist Face Cream, Absolute... and the little perfume she was talking about in her story is Snowdrops & Sunshines!
No-nonsense skincare for one successful woman out there 👑