She doesn’t realise it but Una Healy is causing a stir. 

On a rare sunny afternoon in the gardens of Dublin’s Merrion Hotel, her ethereal beauty and those blue-green eyes are attracting covert glances from the people who are enjoying a glass of Champagne outdoors.

As she walks past the restaurant in clothes for her photoshoot, heads are turning.

Even later when she’s dressed down in a cornflower blue knit and casual jeans, it’s still very obvious to everyone that Una is extraordinarily beautiful. Well, obvious to everyone, that is, except Una herself.

We are here to talk about her new role as an ambassador for the new Prime Forever range from No7, the premium skincare brand by Boots.

If Una is anything to go by, it’s certainly worth buying as she has been using the products and attests that her skin is in great condition.

‘I’ve been using it for a month now,’ she says. ‘My skin is in really good condition so I love the routine from the cleanser to the primer, the serum, the moisturiser and the under eye patches.

‘I think it’s important to look after your skin, to nourish it and to preserve it, because we’re not getting any younger.’

Prime Forever features an SPF50 five-star UVA-rated primer to protect and preserve skin. It also contains a new proprietary antioxidant peptide blend, which combats damaging free radicals and reduces oxidative stress.

The blend also features No7’s proprietary world-first super peptide blend to target invisible damage beneath the surface of the skin and rice peptides to help provide protection against age-accelerating enzymes in the skin.

At 44, Una could pass for a decade or more younger, and she says that what goes into her body is just as important as what she puts on her face. Currently she is tweakment and Botox-free – not that she needs it.

‘You can see I haven’t done a treatment in a while,’ Una says. ‘I’m not going to lie, I’ve had a few sessions of Botox in the past but I haven’t had any in a while.

‘I’ve just given it a rest for a bit because it’s never the same every time.

‘Right now, I’m really happy to be just looking after it,’ she says of her skin. ‘It’s very personal. I would never judge anyone if they wanted to have treatments or tweakments or whatever.’

Earlier this year there were pictures of Una looking stunning in a blue bikini on a beach in Dubai during a girls’ trip.

To stay healthy, she goes to the local gym in Thurles.

‘I go to a lovely class in Thurles, at the AOC Gym, I try and go three times a week,’ she says. 

‘And I like to walk everywhere – I live in the town, so luckily I can walk to the shops and I can walk the kids to school if I need to.

‘They’re quite independent now,’ she says of Tadgh, who has just turned 11, and Aoife Belle, who is now 14, the children she shares with her ex-husband, former England rugby international Ben Foden.

Una has a few minor health issues, including Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, discovered during a health check for The Saturdays. It means her thyroid is underactive and for which she takes medication.

‘I had no symptoms but it’s been monitored since,’ she says. ‘I have to look after myself and my health, and with being that age as well, perimenopause and stuff.

‘I’m a lot more health-conscious now. Anything I got away with in my 20s and 30s, I wouldn’t so much any more.’

At 44, Una admits she’s got symptoms of perimenopause and wants to talk about it as she feels its beneficial.

‘They call it the change, don’t they? It’s like that turn, like the cog just goes,’ she says, as she mimics twisting a wheel. 

‘You can just really feel it. It’s just an unfortunate thing, an inevitable thing.

‘But a fortunate thing at the same time, I should say, because for every day where we’re alive, we’re lucky to still be here. So I don’t take for granted every day that I’m alive because your health is your wealth.’

Although everyone’s journey through perimenopause is different, Una says her mother’s generation had to suffer in silence, so speaking up is important.

‘I had very heavy bleeding and pain so I’ve got the coil in now, and I find that helps with that,’ she says.

‘But I just feel like there has been a shift in my hormones. I’m not on any HRT at the minute because my oestrogen’s really high, and I have a cyst on my ovary so I need an eye on that too.

‘But I eat really well and I’m on a lot of supplements,’ she says listing off magnesium, vitamin D and omega 3 as well.

‘Hydration is really important too and a balanced diet, everything in moderation,’ she says ‘I quit alcohol as well. Completely! I haven’t had a drink in four months.’

I ask if the sober life has made her feel better.

‘I’ll be honest, no, not really,’ she says and we both howl with laughter. ‘But at least you can eliminate that because you just hear that it’s not going to help in any way.

‘I had my fun in my 20s and so on and now it’s the hangovers, they are horrible – even after just one glass of wine, the next day it’s a different ball game now.

‘The cog turns,’ she says, ‘That’s the only way to describe it. It is this shift that you just don’t expect. It manifests in different ways every day.’

Her really good friend, Dr Mary Ryan, is an endocrinologist who keeps an eye on things for Una, checking bloods and fluctuating hormones. 

‘I think that is a lot of what happens in perimenopause – that it’s different every day,’ she says. 

‘It affects your mood, it affects your sleep. I used to sleep great, but now I find it hard to get to sleep, then I finally do but I wake up at 3am wide awake, ready to start the day, and it’s hard to fall back to sleep. Then when I do, I don’t want to get up.

‘But the kids are great for keeping a routine because I do love setting my alarm and getting them up for school. It’s quite good to have a routine – that helps.’

Una and her children have been living back in Thurles for six years now and they really are part of the community.

‘It’s been really great,’ she says emphatically. 

‘The kids love it. They love my family being around, my parents are there, my childhood friends that I’m still friends with are there. It’s a great place for us to just call home.’

You’d have to feel that the reason Una likes it so much is that in London, she might well be the multi-million selling singer from The Saturdays, but in Thurles she’s just Una from down the road.

‘Everyone knows me from old,’ she says. ‘I’m not a celebrity at home. I’m just the same girl people went to school with and I love that. 

'It’s very important to have that balance in your life. I forget sometimes that what I do is in the public eye, it’s not on my mind. I just get on with my day-to-day life, I have a very normal life.’

That said, when work does call there’s still plenty of music and plenty of glamour.

‘I’m very lucky that I’m still doing what I love and releasing new music,’ Una says. ‘On April 24, I’ve got a new EP coming out with six original songs.

‘Beating Heart is the name of the EP and the first track, which is a dance track. I’ve always been obsessed with dance music and I’ve got my influence from that.

‘A lot of different influences and inspirations have gone into this EP, which is also a lot of my own personal feelings. I like to get a lot of them out in the music.

‘It’s quite cathartic, to just express myself and how I’m feeling at that time.’

Una stresses that this doesn’t mean the lyrics of the songs express how she feels all of the time.

‘It’s just in that moment, when I am writing the songs,’ she says, pointing out that they are about the highs and lows of life. With titles like The Devil And His Demons, Take It Away From Me, Lonely Til I Die and Half A Heart, there’s certainly a range of emotions in there.

‘Beating Heart is very uplifting so that’s the one to get out there and get everyone dancing,’ she says. 

‘I love dance music. I never got to properly express that in my music, and I really felt the time was right, because I’ve been doing a lot of shows and will be doing a lot of Pride shows in Britain in the summer.

‘I was feeling that as part of my set, I’m doing Saturdays songs, I’m doing some covers, and I really feel what I’m missing is my own original dance music, which I performed for six years of my life with The Saturdays. 

'So I’m bringing that side of me out that people might not have seen yet. It’s nice to do that, it’s liberating.’

It seems it’s an era of liberation for Una because, despite rumours of a romance at the tail end of last year, Una says she’s currently single and resolutely so.

‘There’s no one,’ she says. ‘I’m literally not even texting anyone. I’m actually enjoying being single, I’m enjoying peace and the calm. The only thing is it doesn’t give me any inspiration to write new songs because that’s where I get it all from. 

'Actually, any time I go through a bit of a relationship where it’s not working out, I always think, at least I can get a song out of it. A lot of the songs are all about love, whether it’s being in love or out of love or half in love or whatever you call it.’

It’s hard to believe that in two years’ time it will be 20 years since The Saturdays formed. While the members don’t see that much of each other because of family commitments and so on, there is still a group chat and they are all trying to get together.

‘I think it would be nice to do something at some point,’ Una says about that big anniversary.

But for now, Una says she is very content.

‘My kids are really settled,’ she says. ‘They make me so happy. My children bring all the happiness that I need and love. I’ve so much love for them that when I think of the word happiness, I think of them. As long as they are happy, I always will be.’

With Una’s ex-husband and father of the children Ben Foden living back in England, the children are getting to see more of him, which makes life a bit easier. At the minute they are in America with their dad, stepmum and two sisters.

‘It is easier,’ says Una of Foden’s move closer. ‘It’s definitely better that he’s close by, it’s working out well for them anyway because they have the best of both worlds – going on lovely holidays with him and then they come home to me.

‘That’s important too, that they have that connection and they are not missing out. I just always want them to know how loved they are.’

Looking at this gorgeous woman with, it must be said, the perfect complexion in front of me, it seems mad to think that there isn’t someone out there for her. 

She admits she hasn’t ruled it out completely but feels more content on her own for the moment.

‘I think everybody would love to find their swan, wouldn’t they?’ Una says thoughtfully. 

‘That’s the fairytale but, as I said, I’m content on my own and one day if that happens then great, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

‘I’m not really thinking about my love life right now. I’m focusing on myself, my children, my family and everything that I

have. I’m not gasping for another half and I am taking time out from dating. That’s a good place to be. I have no interest, genuinely none.

‘I don’t want to sound negative about it because I’m not but I’m not looking for anyone.

‘It would be nice one day, but I honestly just really don’t want anything right now except, as Billie Eilish says, to protect my peace.

‘I am thrilled to be an ambassador for Prime Forever and bringing out new music for the first time in three years.

‘Every day is a blessing so just take one day at a time. That’s how you’ve got to live this life.’

Una Healy is an ambassador for the new No7 Prime Forever range, available now at Boots stores nationwide and on boots.ie.