Born in rural Czechoslovakia, Eve Lom was brought up by her ‘witch doctor’ grandmother who introduced her to the idea of healing using ‘natural medicine’.
When the country was invaded by Russia in 1968, she fled to France where in 1975 met her husband, the movie star Herbert Lom, alias Inspector Dreyfus in the Pink Panther films.
In 1980, they moved to Hollywood where she was introduced to the beauty guru Georgette Klinger, described by the New York Times as the “Dean of skin care” who gave Eve an opportunity in her Rodeo Drive clinic. One day, while giving a facial, Eve used the ‘wrong’ product on a client. This was Eve’s eureka moment. The ‘wrong’ product turned out to be very much the ‘right’ product. The client came back claiming Eve to be a “miracle worker”. This was when Eve’s ground-breaking approach to skin care began.
In 1983, after further intense studies, she opened her first salon in London using her own hand-made products which Polly Sellar of Vogue described as “the best cleanser in the World”.
1994 saw the retail launch of the Eve Lom range in London which spread rapidly around the world to include Europe, America, Hong Kong and Japan and in 2000, unable to cope with the overwhelming production demands of success, she sold her company to Space NK.
Eve’s continual thirst for knowledge led her to the Upledger Institute in the USA and UK where craniosacral therapy was coined, developed and structured by Dr John Upledger who Time Magazine in 2000 called one of the “Next wave of Innovators”.
In 2012 she was awarded an MBE for her services to the cosmetic industry and was recognised by the Royal Society of Medicine and invited to become a member. She currently volunteers with Care UK working with people with dementia and Alzheimer’s.
Eve’s other great passion is for opera which she says “restores her belief in humanity, health, wealth and self-expression” and has been a Friend of the Royal Opera House for many more years than she cares to remember.