You Always Remember Your First Chanel

Photo: Janine Falcon

This ancient, scratched-up Chanel No 5 spray wasn’t always mine. It belonged to a girl I never met, who roomed with my best friend at college in New England in a typical, off-campus student house with mismatched furniture and an emptyish fridge. The house was owned by Kevin, a towering, affable guy who managed the town’s coat hanger factory, which is psychically as far away as you can get from the most expensive college in the US.

One time I was visiting and nosing around in the bathroom for toothpaste, I saw something that seemed completely out of place. Trying to sound casual, I said to Kevin “there’s Chanel No 5 in the medicine cabinet.”

“Oh. That must have been Charlotte’s,” he said. “She moved out. You can have it.”

Who leaves Chanel behind? My best guess is someone who already has a lot of Chanel or unfettered access to more Chanel. This was unfathomable to 20-year-old, poor student me. This abandoned bottle was almost half full and I wouldn’t have been any more surprised to find a Fabergé egg or a diamond bracelet.

I shouldn’t have been. The girls who attended this college were very fancy, but hid it under baggy sweaters and thrifted jeans. My friend explained that back home they had “long driveways” which was her oblique way of saying that their (rich) families lived in enormous houses, set so far back from the road that they weren’t visible to passersby.

I took the bottle, obviously. It was impossible to pretend I didn’t want it. Thirty-five years later I have a lot of perfume (none of it nicked from other people’s bathrooms, by the way.) And even though it’s always been rather banged up, I continued to buy refills for Charlotte’s bottle. The fact that this style and size is still available speaks volumes about the endurance of Chanel.

It now lives on my dresser, beside an even older No 5 bottle that belonged to my mother. It’s not called hoarding when it’s Chanel, right?

Eau de Givenchy #perfumeeverydamnday

Eau de Givenchy

There’s a breeze blowing through Eau de Givenchy, a 2018 reimagining of the 1980s classic. This new version gets you with its fizzy bergamot, lemon, orange and grapefruit opening, before veering into a greenish bitter almond and then resting on a featherbed of pillowy floral hedione, the synthetic jasmine note created in 1958 and reputed to drive women wild with desire (Steve McQueen allegedly wore it.)

Before you leave your house and head out into the world, spray Eau de Givenchy into the air in front of you and walk through it, so your clothes are imbued with the scent. You will feel like you hung your laundry to dry in the garden of Hubert de Givenchy’s Saint Jean de Cap Ferrat mansion, le Clos Fiorentina.

I know it’s highly unlikely that a mansion would have laundry lines near its gardens, and the staff probably wouldn’t even let us anywhere near them. But such details interfere with my fantasy, so I ignore them. And if now is not the time to construct elaborate parallel universe fantasy lives, then I don’t know when is.

Clos Fiorentina, Saint Jean Cap Ferrat

Weekend Dinner: Summer Pasta Lets the Sun do the Cooking

These simple ingredients mean dinner is almost ready.

Summer pasta is the best sort of recipe. A no-cook sauce that uses the heat of the noonday sun to infuse roughly chopped tomatoes with the flavours of basil, garlic and olive oil, you prep it in the morning, so when dinner time rolls around you only have to cook (and drain) the pasta and add it to the bowl. Plus all the tedious (and potentially dangerous) chopping was done hours earlier, which is great if you’ve now consumed a glass or more of rosé and shouldn’t be allowed near knives.

A 1980s artifact from The Silver Palate cookbook, Summer Pasta bears the hallmarks of that more-is-more decade. The original recipe went heavier on the olive oil and called for an indulgent, entire wheel of camembert. Sure it’s a whole wheel, but if you’ve removed the rind, that has to reduce the calorie count too, right?

But maybe I’m just rationalizing. If it still seems like too much, you can use less cheese, but I wouldn’t recommend it. This is not the time to be mingy.

Summer Pasta

Ingredients (serves four)

·       5 fist-sized tomatoes or 7 roma tomatoes, cored, seeded and cut into ½ inch cubes

·       A half-pound wheel of very ripe camembert, rind removed (don’t substitute a strongly flavoured brie, because the sharpness will dominate. You want bland creaminess.)

·       ½ cup basil leaves, torn up or chiffonaded (rolled up and cut into thin strands)

·       2 medium cloves of garlic, finely minced

·       ¼ to ½ cup of olive oil (the original recipe called for 1 cup. Ugh. No.)

·       1 box (450-500 grams) of spaghetti or small pasta shapes

·       Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Dice the tomatoes into a bowl and add the torn basil leaves, finely minced garlic cloves and a healthy glug of olive oil (a quarter cup is more than fine.)

Remove the rind from a half pound wheel of ripe camembert and put its gooey interior into the bowl along with everything else. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and place it in direct sun for the flavours to meld. And finally, while you’re still feeling all briskly industrious, put a lidded pot of salted water on the stove, ready to go. (Obviously, don’t turn the stove on yet.)

When everyone starts thinking about dinner (and when you feel least like it), drag yourself to the kitchen. Cook your pasta as directed and then drain (reserving maybe a quarter cup of pasta water) and place back into the warm empty pot.

Add the very warm, sun-melded tomato and basil sauce and fold in quickly with a wide spatula. The cheese will melt and vanish, coating each pasta strand. You will not need parmesan. Divide into bowls and garnish each with fresh basil leaves and then take them outside to join your friends.

Kérastase Fresh Affair Dry Shampoo Smells Like You Moved Into a Higher Tax Bracket

Inside this can lies your better self

On the days that you are hanging by a thread and dry shampoo is your lifeline, you do not need to be reminded that everything has gone pear-shaped. And the last thing you want is some boring, mass-market-smelling, ‘good enough’ dry shampoo. What you need is someone kind who says “hey, it happens to the best of us,” and maybe also a dry shampoo that smells as if (for the brief moment that you are spraying) your life is actually perfect, not just merely ok.

Kérastase Fresh Affair Refreshing Dry Shampoo is scented with neroli, the blossom from the bitter orange tree, so it smells like the very best, most expensive eau de cologne. And it contains rice starch to efficiently absorb the (sorry to use this ugly word) ‘grease’ that has flattened your hair. But it also has vitamin E, so that same hair won’t becomes dried out and brittle. And the neroli scent gently lingers, giving you blissful little whiffs of your expensive-smelling self for hours after you spray.

There’s even a small travel size available, so when we return to the gym (I really miss the gym) you will be the fanciest lady at the communal mirror, hands down.

The ‘I Would Like to be Invited Back’ Cottage Gift Guide

Lake of Bays July 25, 2019

Cottage host gifting is all about largesse.

If someone is lending you their lake house this summer, or you’re lucky enough to have cottage-owning friends or family in your ‘bubble’, this year’s essential gift is not a sold out Provençal rosé, but rather hard-to-find Lysol wipes. (I recently got some at Dollarama. Go figure.) But that’s only your opening gift salvo. 

Bring snacks (healthy and otherwise) as well as all the components for one very nice dinner. Throw in a special bottle for the host to enjoy later, apart from what you’ve brought to consume during your stay. And if you are positively giddy with the thought of leaving the steamy city for a cool, quiet lake, then add a gift so nice and unexpected that every time your hosts look at it they’ll think, “oh, we must invite her back.” 

And don’t forget to sweep up the bunkie on your last day, strip your bed (or even better, bring your own sleeping bag so you’re not sticking them with laundry) and maybe leave some gas money if they took you out in the boat for a tour of the area or wake surfing.  

Enjoy your stay!

Images clockwise from centre upper right

• If your hostess was a bookish young girl in the 1970s, The Long Secret is a trip back in time. The darkish 1965 sequel to Harriet the Spy spoke directly to outwardly polite girls with hidden reserves of intensity. And it takes place in Water Mill, on the south fork of Long Island, New York, i.e. the Hamptons before they were “The Hamptons”. 

• Hand sanitizer is part of our daily lives now, so make it pretty. Vancouver’s own AG Hair’s Hands Free Clean Hand Sanitizer Gel, $13, in a sleek pump bottle, looks chic on an entry hall table and its 73% ethyl alcohol formula is effective, while aloe and glycerin calm skin and restore moisture. AG Hair has donated 5,000 bottles to BC area frontline and health care workers.

•  A family sized bottle of Bioderma Photoderm SPF 40 High Protection Spray sunscreen, $37.90, contains almost half a litre of sunscreen, with a trigger sprayer that makes it easy to keep the entire brood protected.

• Draped over the back of a couch during the day (cannily hiding that patch that the cat destroyed) and over your shoulders on the deck on chilly nights, The Bay’s 350th anniversary sterling wool caribou throw, $170, is a monochromatic take on the classic multi-hued Hudson’s Bay point blanket and its subtle gradations of pale to dark grey stripes will elevate any room.

• If those tubes and jars in the cottage bathroom have Zeller’s price stickers, they’re probably pretty old. Restock the medicine chest with Canada’s own Zax’s Original brand natural remedies like arnica-based Bruise Cream, $19, and soothing Bug Bite & Itch Cream, $16. (Zax’s is donating twenty per cent of online sales to the Red Cross in support of Covid-19 initiatives.)

• Saje x Jillian Harris Aroma Carve ($94) diffuser’s fluted cylindrical cover looks beautiful on a shelf. Too many diffusers just look like diffusers and that utterly defeats the point. Include Saje Deep Breath Diffuser Blend, $16, a mix of eucalyptus, peppermint, and lavender that is not only calming and invigorating, but also refreshes musty cottage and cottage bathroom air.

• A French market basket can corral towels indoors or get loaded up to stylishly transport a picnic lunch to the beach.  

• Nude’s Glacier Wine Cooler, $118, is so elegantly sleek and unfussy that your hosts might even decide to bring it back to the city. Include a fresh bag of ice from the gas station en route and be the cottage hero.

• Sure you can bring the ingredients for a summer cocktail (Remember Greyhounds? I would like to bring them back) but a modern classic like Cave D'Esclans Whispering Angel Rosé is always a crowd-pleaser.

Neutrogena Sunscreen Mist Makes It Easy To Stay Protected

Keep this by your side for the remainder of the summer

Of course you’re diligent with sunscreen in the morning, after you shower. That’s the easy part. It’s when the sun is at its highest and it’s time for your lunchtime sunscreen re-up when it all falls apart. Who wants to get their hands all sticky adding a layer of goo to an already heat-dampened face?

Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Face Sunscreen is a fine mist, so it’s easy to apply as your critical midday top-up, no face-touching required. Reapplying sunscreen throughout the day will protect you from dark spots and expensive IPL (intense pulsed laser) spot-removing treatments down the road, so why wouldn’t you?

At 100 mls, it can go in your carry-on (I’m not, but some of us are flying) and it’s small enough to slide into your straw summer tote. And arguably not that important, but very important to me, the delicate fragrance is nicely ‘chi-chi beach club with white chaise longues’, so you get an olfactory reward for using your sunscreen.

Clarins Eau Dynamisante #perfumeeverydamnday

I swear I’m not making this up. Years ago, in February, I saw a staffer at Toronto’s Clarins spa mopping the floor with the contents of a giant bottle of Eau Dynamisante, so even in the dead of winter the whole place smelled of citrus and summer. 

An extravagant hand with an energizing scent is the approach we need in the midst of swampy July. At $60CAN for the 100 ml spray, Eau Dynamisante encourages liberal spritzing. 

Its mix of petitgrain (bitter orange oil) and Amalfi lemon with rosemary, thyme and cardamom is eau de cologne with herbal energy for a lift when the hot weather has laid you flat. 

Or if you’re feeling extra louche, use it as fancy room spray, when the thought of lighting a scented candle in July seems wrong.

Feed Your Face: Borage Oil for Glowing Skin

Take four capsules of borage oil a day for glowing skin.

In the ‘what is happening to my aging body now?’ saga, dry skin is not nearly the worst thing. But my skin always feels desiccated and tight now, as if I accidently shrank it in the wash. 

So I eat more salmon, snack on walnuts instead of Doritos and take fish oil capsules daily – all to get those precious omega 3 fatty acids. And not just for their ability to reduce inflammation and inhibit the formation of clots in the bloodstream. Omega 3s even help strengthen our skin’s barrier function and improve its texture. 

But apparently we need to be thinking about omega 6 fatty acids as well. The less popular sibling to omega 3s, omega 6 fatty acids play a significant role in brain function, they stimulate hair growth and maintain bone health and one omega 6 fatty acid in particular, gamma linoleic acid (GLA), is really, really good for your skin. 

It all began when I met Lorna Vanderhaeghe. It was a bleak and cold winter’s day and I stared (rather rudely, I fear) at her skin, which was glowing in a way that one does not see in Toronto in February. She may be 60, but her skin is barely into its 40s.

Vanderhaeghe, a formulator with a background in nutrition and biochemistry, is the founder of Smart Solutions supplements. She takes borage oil, which is rich in gamma linoleic acid, also known as GLA (an omega 6 fatty acid) every single day and has for years.

GLA is essential for skin. it’s used topically on infants suffering from sebbhoreic dermatitis, and can help combat eczema. “Deficencies in fatty acids can spur on wrinkles and rosacea,” says Vanderhaege. “Literally all of the high end cosmetics have GLA in them.”

There are trace amounts of GLA in leafy greens and nuts, but, unlike omega 3 fatty acids, you can’t source it from fish and flax. We get GLA from breast milk, but we know that’s a short ride. Evening primrose is 8% GLA, but has a hard shell which inhibits extraction whereas borage (which is 24% GLA) has a soft shelled seed, so the oil can be cold pressed. Unlike the omega 6s found in vegetable oils, which can be unhealthy if consumed in excess, GLA is a powerful anti inflammatory. (And these are only two of many studies.)

If your skin is really tight and mad at you for whatever reason, you can even use GLA topically, like a souped up face oil. Just pop a capsule and apply the contents directly your face at bedtime and wake up feeling much happier when you face the mirror.

Mineral Sunscreens That Won’t Leave You Ghostly White

Did you correctly identify the vintage sunlamp tanning goggles?

I’ve always felt faintly uneasy advocating for expensive sun care, because for sunscreen to work you need to apply it liberally and often. But we tend to be somewhat miserly with expensive creams unless we are JLo, who made her rep as a beauty product libertine who coats herself head-to-toe in Crème de La Mer.

Nowadays, mineral sunscreens are increasingly the first choice of people who don’t want, or react poorly to chemical screens (they can sting sensitive faces) or prefer a cream that does its work at the skin’s surface, bouncing the UV rays off like a disco ball (chemical sunscreens absorb the harmful rays and convert them to harmless heat.) But some mineral screens come loaded with good intentions, but not necessarily the nicest formulas, so they sit thickly on skin, all whitish and heavy.

If you want a highly effective, broad spectrum mineral sunscreen that disappears into skin with no white cast, after only the most cursory rubbing, Alumier MD Clear Shield Broad Spectrum SPF 42 ($48), Dermalogica Invisible Physical Defense SPF 30 ($77) and REN Clean Screen Mineral SPF 30 ($48) might cost a bit more, but they will make you disproportionately happy.

Serge Lutens Des Clous Pour Une Pelure #perfumeeverydamnday

A deep blue fragrance is par for Serge Lutens.

The mysterious, deep blue-green colour does not give you a clue what it smells like. Des Clous Pour Une Pelure (loosely) translates to ‘cloves for an (orange) rind’ and while it initially smells like a clove-studded orange Christmas pomander or a potion from the apothecary, it comes to life on your skin (men’s skin, women’s skin, it truly is genderless).

if you are spending this month hiding indoors or in the shade, Des Clou Pour Une Pelure proffers just enough bright orange to feel summery, but without going full-on eau de cologne.

It opens up brazenly, all energizing and grapefruity with a hint of sweetness. But soon the clove retires into the background and what remains is a citrus scent with enough spicy depth to convert anyone who thinks that citrus scents can be rather ho-hum. It’s refreshing and richly layered at the same time.

And while it will not turn your skin blue, I wouldn’t spray it anywhere near that white cotton dress you have on repeat this summer.