Meet Lisa Hague

Continuing our celebration of female confidence, we met up with Lisa Hague - mum of 3, wife of ex Celtic player, Kris Commons, ambassador, model, podcaster and candle extraordinaire! When Lisa was just 22, she lost her first baby towards the end of her pregnancy. She has since used this experience to help other families going through similar things, through being an ambassador for charity SiMBA and starting the Lola Commons Foundation. Her & Kris now have 3 beautiful children and have recently moved back to their home town of Nottingham, where Lisa has recently started her own candle and wax-melts business, Hague Collection. As a long standing fan of our bags, we caught up with Lisa to have a good old chinwag about life in recent months...

Ok, first thing's first - how on earth did you cope with home schooling 3 young kids during lockdown?!

Lol I haven’t!!! That’s been the delightful job that my partner Kris has taken on and I've not helped one bit. I'd say it’s been the most challenging part of lock down, I have helped out occasionally and some of the questions I can’t answer eek!

With your children growing up in the digital age, how much responsibility do you feel on social media?

I certainly do feel responsibility, even down to the language that is used on my social media. I’m very aware that I have some young people following me and I never swear on any of my platforms. I also promote body confidence, as a lot of what we see on social media is fake. It's about educating the kids to be aware of that, and that social media should be fun and lighthearted and not something to compare our own lives to.

You're an ambassador for Scottish charity SiMBA. Through this, you have helped scores of women find the strength to share their stories of heartache and loss on social media, by building a real community for mum's to ‘break the silence’ over stillbirth. It's such an amazing message to send out, that negative occurrences in your life can be used to empower strength within others. What has this meant to you?

To be able to support other families who have suffered a loss means the world to me. As much as I love making candles and having my own business, what I really want to be doing is supporting families through labour when they have suffered a loss. Not a job a lot of people could or would want to do, but for me it’s an honour to be supporting a family in what will undoubtedly be the hardest experience of their lives . Our charity Lola Commons fund for SiMBA is an extraordinary charity and supports families all over the UK; the Lola fund provides private rooms for families to spend time with their babies.

We recently created our own online community to help spread joy as a result of the pandemic, which has certainly shown us the positive side of social media. It's been a very humbling and heartwarming experience to hear these women share moments of joy and recognize the incredible efforts of other women who have been putting their lives on the line during Covid. How have you kept positive during this time?

I have thrown myself into my new business HAGUE collection and haven’t had any time to be bored. I've got wax melts coming out of my ears! Also having three children has meant that me, Kris and the kids have been able to spend some lovely time together, baking and out in the garden. There’s lots of positives you can take away from this experience.

Not only do you send out empowering messages through your work as an ambassador, but you're a fantastic role model for promoting a healthy body image to women. You say your confidence has grown with age - what would you say to help women that are still struggling with their appearance?

I would say, we all have a size that we feel comfortable at and for me that’s a size 12/14 and 11 stone. That’s me looking healthy and living a lifestyle that I like. I’m not in competition with anyone else. I have stretch marks up my tummy and when the kids have asked me about them I say to them these are my life lines and each one of you contributed to them and they smile, and genuinely I don’t mind them. It does come with age, feeling happy in your own body.

You're the face of clothing boutique, Ruby Woo. What does dressing for confidence mean for you? 

I love being the face of ruby woo and I love the fact that I model clothes I would never normally pick, because most of the time I’m pleasantly surprised at how good they look. I now love to wear vibrant colours and there’s no better feeling that when you feel great in your outfit

As candle fanatics, we are loving your new range. What inspires this new venture, and the scents of your candles? 

I love candles, I always have and I’ve always spent a lot of money on them - they have always been my treat to myself. I started making candles for my charity along with another lady called Sibohan, and I loved how I could personalise each one and put my stamp on them. I’ve taken a long time in creating my fragrance menu and they are proving to be incredibly popular

What's your favourite fragrance in the collection and why? 

Oh, this changes almost weekly, so .. I love blackberry & bay - I smell this fragrance and it just does something to me! Wood sage & sea salt is unreal and I like to have this on in my hallway, and English pear & freesia is so fresh - I love this one in my kitchen.

After a busy day of taking taking care of the kids and running your own projects, how do you like to kick back and relax? 

I don’t particularly get a lot of time to relax but I do enjoy being outside in my garden and very often now go alcohol free. So far this year I’ve done 3 months which is pretty good, so I am enjoying alcohol free gin and tonic. The gin is £20 a bottle so sometimes it’s tempting just to buy the real thing ha! I also love an open fire, so in the colder months being wrapped up with a blanket in front of my open fire is heaven

We love a good podcast, and last year you recorded a series called 'Sex Rated'. I'm sure our ladies would love to know more about what inspired this set of risque recordings...? And perhaps tell us a story from it that might raise a few eyebrows?!

Haha! Well... I used to teach sex education in a college in Nottingham so when the team at FORE approached me to do Sex Rated, I jumped at it! We interviewed a mix of people from strippers to swingers. The best time ever was when we were taunting the stripper Scott on the show to show us his moves, then out of the blue he jumped on my lap and gave me a lap dance! It was a proper mum moment for me - I just went bright red and tapped his thigh ha!

And finally - talk handbags to us!! You've been a Sarah Haran fan for some time now. What do you love about our brand? 

I've always loved my handbags - handbags and shoes actually. I’ve spent a lot of money on designer handbags over the years and now I wouldn’t have any other than a Sarah Haran. I’m very busy, in and out of meetings constantly - and I have to admit my handbags on the inside normally look like skips - I’m so untidy and I end up just slinging everything in and embarrassingly digging around when I need something. That all changed when I got my Sarah Haran - it’s almost impossible to not be organised, every part is carefully thought about. There's compartments for everything from your phone to pens and even a lipstick! My favourite feature is the chain to attach your keys. Oh no, wait! My favourite feature is the day tonight bag! I can honestly say I’m the biggest fan and they are well worth the money at a fraction of the price of what I’ve paid for other bags!

You can shop Lisa's gorgeous candles through her Instagram account here.