A February Box of Lockdown Treats (and the best cheese fondue recipe)

Outdoor dining in Switzerland: a sheepskin to sit on and a blanket on top will keep you warm while you devour your cheese fondue. Photo: Liza Herz

If I could, I would charter a flight to Zürich and we’d all go eat cheese fondue together outdoors. Sadly, a private plane is too expensive and too large to fit into my February box (and it would contravene lockdown rules).

A February Box is really just an amped up Valentine’s gift to yourself which acknowledges that warmer weather is still weeks, maybe even months away, so we need better treats than just heart-shaped boxes of chocolates.

Choose one or all of the following. Because now is not the time to deny yourself anything.

Nothing says love better than melted cheese which may be why fondue pots are harder to come by right now. This one is nice and please do scroll down to the end of the story for the best Swiss fondue recipe ever.

Caudalie’s newest scent range, Soleil des Vignes, launched last summer, but I knew I’d need it now, when the scented bath gel with tiare (gardenia steeped in coconut oil) could lift me from my seasonal torpor.

REN’s Moroccan Rose Otto Bath Oil is a room filling, mind-alteringly wonderful bath classic.

When you are frozen solid and only a long soak will defrost you, Ren’s Moroccan Rose Otto Bath Oil, $61, with geranium, palmarosa and Moroccan rose otto, is the happiest ‘stay in the bath until your fingers go all pruny’ solution.

Did you know that fancy Portuguese fragrance line Claus Porto has a lower priced range of soaps, Ach Brito, which is as good, and as beautiful, as the more expensive main line? This bar of Luxo Banho is three quarters of a pound of snowy white, crisply-scented heaven. Available online and for curbside pickup from Toronto’s exquisite Saudade design shop.

Earthy and sensual, Balmy Summer roll-on fragrance ($36) from super-chic and super-chill west coast surf and style boutique Merge, is truly genderless, with notes of amber, vanilla and woody spruce. Wear this skin scent yourself or (in a not-so-selfless act) share it with your romantic partner.

Conjure a venerable hotel’s marble-clad bathroom by lighting this woody and creamy smelling Alpine Cedar scented candle ($42, Nordstrom.ca) from Canadian brand Maple & Lather, before soaking in the tub.

This white Rina Menardi cachepot $240, from Toronto’s Hopson Grace elevates your grocery store hyacinth and perfectly hides the ugly, black plastic pot it came in (no having to transplant, just pop the whole thing in.) And its gently bulbous shape harmonizes with contemporary decor or lightens up a room full of heavy antiques.

Rationalization, because it is rather pricy: it’s a modern classic that costs less than, and will afford you more pleasure than say, yet another pair of designer sunglasses (besides, everyone is buying $20 shades on Amazon now anyway.)

A very chic, über-hostess friend of mine bought a pair of Sunbeam heated blankets for hosting socially distanced coffee dates on her back patio this winter. Sheepskins are nice to sit on, but can you imagine diving under a soft fleece blanket?

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Authentic Cheese Fondue for two

Please try this cheese fondue recipe instead of defaulting to those foil pre-mixed packets at the grocery store. This version is easy to assemble (the only challenge may be in finding the perfect cheeses, see note below) and only takes minutes to pull together. It’s so worth it.

400 grams total of grated Gruyère and Vacherin Fribourgeois cheese (see Note, below)

150 ml white wine, like a nice Riesling

2 tsp cornstarch

2 tsp kirsch

A round or loaf of sourdough or country bread with a deep crust, cut into bite-sized cubes

A plump clove of garlic

Instructions

Cut a garlic clove in half lengthwise and rub the cut side all over the interior of your fondue pot (caquelon) releasing the garlic juice. Leave the little garlic bits in the pot.

Whisk the cornstarch into the wine in a measuring cup. Pour this into your fondue pot with the bits of garlic still there.  

Place the pot on the stove and heat the liquid over low-to-medium heat until hot but not boiling and then add all the cheese. Whisk constantly allowing the cheese to melt, paying special attention to scraping up the bits on the bottom of the pot and not letting the heat go too high. 

Once the cheese has melted, add the kirsch. Remove the pot from the stove, light the heating element on your fondue stand (the ‘rechaud’) and place the pot on the stand. Adjust the heat so your cheese is hot enough but not furiously bubbling. Add a tiny bit more wine if it’s too thick. 

Skewer your bread cubes on your fondue forks, dip and twist to remove excess cheese and enjoy. Tradition has it that anyone who loses a bread cube has to pay for the next bottle of wine.

As you eat and the amount of cheese in the pot goes down, you will have to turn down the heat so as not to burn what’s left. If there is a caramelized circle of cheese at the bottom of the pot when you are finished, carefully pry it off with a wooden spoon (not metal because it will scratch the finish) and enjoy. 

This recipe increases easily. Add 200 grams of cheese and 75 ml of wine for each additional serving.

Note: a classic Swiss mix of cheeses for fondue can be as simple as the above half Gruyère and half Vacherin Fribourgeois version, but you can also add small (or larger) amounts of Emmentaler, Appenzeller and Challerhocker as well.

A Middle-Aged Beauty Consumer Yells at Cosmetic Brands

I wrote the story below for Elle Canada’s April 2020 issue, (thank you, Lesa Hannah for letting me give full vent to my rage) and I feel it even more keenly now.

(The photo above of silver-haired Vogue UK editor Sarah Harris accompanied the online version of the piece, entitled I Am A Middle-Aged Beauty Consumer And This Is What I Want Brands To Know.)

Lockdown Skincare: Strong But Gentle Glycolic Acid Peels For Over-50 Skin

LaSpa Intensive Anti-Aging Glycolic Peel and Omorovicza Acid Solution are a glow-giving pair for winter-dull skin.

If you’re restless during the stay-at-home order and looking for a change, try doing a glycolic acid facial peel instead of giving yourself a stick and poke tattoo or bangs that you will probably regret.

A glycolic acid peel speeds up skin cell turnover by dissolving the bonds between skin cells to reveal the clearer, smoother, younger-looking skin underneath. The best part? Glycolic acid also helps thicken skin. The irony here is that once you’re over 50, your skin has begun to thin, leaving it vulnerable to irritation from things like the glycolic acid peel you want to do to thicken your skin.

You can find a solution in LaSpa Intensive Anti-Aging Glycolic Peel, $130, lapsanaturals.com or Clementinefields.ca. Used every night over the course of a week (each jar contains 14 doses, enough for two one-week rounds) it is loaded with hyaluronic acid in addition to the glycolic acid, so your delicate skin is protected while the glycolic acid diligently does its dead-skin-cell munching thing. After the first two nights, you’ll glance into the mirror to see a glow that says you’ve been taking sunrise mountain hikes and doing beach yoga, as opposed to staying indoors eating Pringles and watching third tier Netflix choices.

After you’ve completed the one week peel, a once nightly swipe of Omorovicza Acid Solution, $145, Nordstrom.ca, will help maintain the glow. Acid Solution contains your now best friend, glycolic acid, as well as lactic acid which exfoliates but also moisturizes. It even has lipophilic (oil loving) salicylic acid to dissolve any errant blackheads that have recently colonized your nose and chin (a surprise gift you may have noticed when your pores get larger after menopause.)

And if after all this you are still intent on getting a stick and poke tattoo, how about these whimsical, wee trees?

Take a Perfume Walk with Chanel Sycomore (the World's Best Vetiver)

Les Exclusifs de Chanel Sycomore is the greatest vetiver fragrance. Fact.

TikTok-er @itsmetinx, has her wine walks (fill an opaque Simple Modern cup with wine and stroll through the neighbourhood getting quietly tipsy) but I have been taking perfume walks. As a counterpoint to living in sweats 24/7, I drown myself in perfume and walk the streets of north Toronto, leaving a beautiful-scented wake, like a Catholic priest swinging a censer during Mass.

Right now, my perfume of choice is Les Exclusifs de Chanel Sycomore, (75 ml eau de parfum. $240), the greatest vetiver fragrance there is. (I should change the name of this site from Oldish to ‘Vetiver is my boyfriend.’) Genderless and nuanced, this classic from 2008 is for anyone who craves an earthy, herbal smell but is either repelled or just bored by anything patchouli-dominant. It’s kind of sticky, a little bit smoky and herbal, indisputably very fancy and very Chanel.

Sycomore plays beautifully with other scents. If you have an ethereal floral that needs grounding or toughening, a blast of Sycomore can do that easily without even breaking a sweat. But I prefer it on its own, both as a fragrance and as a critical counterpoint to my WFH wardrobe.

Heavenly-Smelling Weleda Sheer Hydration Moisture Mist Fights Inescapable January

I love Tiktoks of men showing off the beer fridges built into the sides of their man-cave couches. I want tricked-out seating too, but I’d prefer a Montauk 'Scarlett' armchair, with a hidden fridge stash of Weleda Sheer Hydration Moisture Mist, bottled water and some cubed watermelon.

New from Weleda (and perfect timed to counteract January’s moisture-free air and general awfulness) Sheer Hydration Moisture Mist, $19.99, contains prickly pear cactus extract which helps winter-ravaged skin retain water. Prickly pear cactus leaves are full of mucilage, (the same ingredient in kindergarten glue), which is loaded with water-bonding polysaccharides. Add aloe vera juice, skin-plumping betaine and water-attracting glycerine and you have a near-perfect moisture delivery system.

It smells wonderful, its green mandarin and palmarosa scent providing an olfactory jolt of happy along with the moisture surge. Palmarosa smells like a field of roses took a beach vacation: lightly rosy, sunny and energizing.

The range also includes moisturizing lotion, cream and unscented eye gel that could live in your couchfridge™ to soothe Zoom-weary eyes. But for instant gratification, the hydrating mist is it. When you are too lethargic to open tubes and moisturize, you can always manage to lift an arm and spritz.

Your New Ritual: The Morning Mask

I once read that Martha Stewart does a hydrating mask every single morning, but I filed that knowledge under ‘excessive celebrity beauty rituals designed to appease magazine advertisers and sell product.’ Then I got older and watched helplessly as Mother Nature vacuumed every last trace of collagen and moisture from my face. Winter only exacerbates this devastation, so a daily mask is actually a painless way to combat dry air and prevent my face from looking like a crumpled ball of parchment paper.

I don’t much care for sleep masks because I prefer to go in hard with “serious” ingredients at night. Why waste those valuable skin-regenerating hours just moisturizing? But come morning, after I stare grimly into the bathroom mirror assessing the damage wrought overnight, I splash on some water and then apply a mask. After coffee and some random puttering, I rinse the residue off in the shower. It’s easy enough to do and the results are gratifyingly instant.

Currently in rotation: the Embryolisse Masque Hydratant ($32, Shoppers Dug Mart) is a French pharmacy miracle loaded with plant oils, vitamins and moisture-bestowing hyaluronic acid while Nudestix’ Nudeskin Citrus-C mask ($48, Sephora) from their new and surprisingly excellent skincare line, contains antioxidant-rich yuzu, soothing turmeric and has a faintly Creamsicle-ish, mood altering scent. And sure, Sisley’s Velvet Sleeping Mask ($175, Holt Renfrew) is intended for overnight wear, but 30 minutes in the morning is enough for its saffron flower and kokum butter formula to do its thing, while the very French orange blossom scent will make you feel suitably fancy as you sip the first of many dehydrating coffees that day.

Aveeno Restorative Skin Therapy Soothes Itchy “Dragon Shins”

Aveeno Restorative Skin Therapy Itch Relief Balm is a descriptive, but not terribly fun, name.

In Through the Looking Glass, the Red Queen famously tells Alice “it takes all the running you can do to stay in the same place.” Which, in menopause terms, means that after 50 you spend a lot more time moisturizing skin that now feels like it shrunk in the wash. Estrogen loss thins the skin at the same time as you’re losing collagen, losing moisture (thank you, slowed down lipid production) and losing all that juicy, subcutaneous fat.

Throw in the moisture-free, super-dry air of a classic Canadian winter and you have the recipe for the itchy skin that comes from a disrupted skin barrier made worse by scratching. This is dramatically visible on one’s shins - once gleamingly smooth and reflective, they are now rather scaly and dragon-ish.

You can’t just slap on thick cream and hope for the best. You need something that will strengthen your skin barrier and calm the itch, while feeling nice (otherwise you won’t actually use it.)

Right now, Aveeno Restorative Skin Therapy Itch Relief Balm, $9.77, Walmart, is the only thing preventing me from relentlessly clawing away at my itchy, dry shins. If I were in their marketing department, I would change the name to Aveeno Anti-Dragon Shin Balm, complete with a menacing dragon graphic wrapped around the tube.

This balm contains colloidal oatmeal, which not only “possesses antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties” to soothe inflammation, but oats are also a prebiotic, encouraging the proliferation of good, protective bacteria in your skin’s microbiome. Plus, for immediate itch relief, it also has the topical analgesic Pramoxine Hydrochloride, a light anesthetic (NOT a steroid) that effectively soothes your skin so you don’t scratch. Because it’s that wretched scratching that keeps the cycle of disruption going and prevents your skin from healing.

I’m not done with the dragon simile though. I’m going to hunt down a sticker of a dragon to put on my tube. My Covid lockdown-awakened obsession with childhood things continues apace.

The Nice List: Gifts For All the (Newly) Silver Ladies

Whether by active choice or bowing to circumstance, there are a lot more silver-haired women roaming our streets. As a long-standing silver, it is thrilling to see women really leaning into their newfound follicular DGAF.

Appearing in photographs with visible regrowth is now the new power move. (Viz this portrait of foreign affairs specialist Fiona Hill that accompanied her New Yorker magazine profile this past summer.)

Fiona Hill

But culture-shifting semiotics aside, there is a learning curve that accompanies this dramatic change.

Choosing silver is not the maintenance-free lark some would assume. Despite not having to police your hairline for regrowth, you now have to keep your hair from absorbing any airborne pollutants, or it goes a dingy yellow like you’ve been spending your days in a dark, smoky bar.

If you have a friend who has made the switch (Hi, Sue!) support and encourage them with any of these gifts:

The gold standard, the pure, uncut, good stuff, Kerastase Masque Ultra Violet, $69, will bring hair back from the brink, conditioning dried out hair (silver gets very, very dry) and transforming any yellow strands to a piercing silver. Some brave souls even leave it on for hours to tint their hair a soft purple, but that is a very off-label use and you didn’t hear it from me.

Mixed Feelings Purple Leave-In Blonde Toning Drops, $38, Sephora are an easy way to tend to silver hair. Add a couple of drops of this intensely pigmented, purple serum to a favourite styling product to neutralize brassy colour for pure silver hair. This is one of those genius ‘how has no one thought of this before?’ products.

The Manta hair brush is perfect for delicate silver hair

The small but mighty brush from Manta hair comes with an origin story that might make you weepy. Gentle enough for even the most fragile silver-to-white hair, the silicone and bendable Manta was created by a stylist whose wife developed a fear of conventional stiff bristled brushes as she lost her hair to cancer treatment. Manta’s flexible bristles bring gentle order to hair, but still feel like a soothing head scratch. It’s perfect if going silver has turned your formerly sturdy hair into delicate cotton candy fluff.

Silver hair an be infuriatingly delicate and susceptible to colour change from pollution and water deposits and you don’t realize that it’s gone faintly (ugh) yellow until you wash it, so scrupulous maintenance is the key. L'Oreal Professionel’s SerieExpert Silver holiday gift box of shampoo and conditioner is two behemoth bottles (500 ml) of brass neutralizing magic. OK, not magic, science. But the sparkle they give hair seems magical.

Colour Boost

You don’t realize how much life your hair colour adds until you go silver and the colour seemingly drains from your face as your features all but disappear (just giving it to you straight.) Draw your features back on with a few key items, so people know where to look when talking to you.

19/99 Beauty’s Colour Kit One is everything you need in one covetable pouch

19/99 Beauty, the clever new line from two former Bite Beauty execs, just released their all-in-one Colour Kit One, $79: two eye pencils, one dark and one light and shimmery for definition and highlight, a smudging brush and their singular, universally-wearable red pencil Voros, plus a sharpener to keep them all ‘on point’ (sorry) all in a vivid, graphic pouch that is easy to spot in your bag.

Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow dual palette is life-giving colour made portable.

Charlotte Tilbury’s popular FilmStar Bronze and Glow dual palette, mini $40 is a portable quick fix for pallor. You can safely ignore the ‘sculpt’ edict, which is for 20something Instagram makeup aficionados, and use the bronze shade on the outer perimeter of your face to softly add depth, and the highlight to bounce light off the high points of your face.

Maybelline Falsies Lash Lift is the lashes of your youth returned to you

I will never understand the allure of pricy mascara. Mascara needs to be tossed every three months for hygiene’s sake, plus the best are always the drugstore brands anyway. You will have to pry the Maybelline from my cold dead hands. Their $12.99 Falsies Lash Lift mascara gives you of the lashes you once had by adding the perfect amount of thickening fibres without clumping.

The Nice List: A Gift Idea for Your Overworked Girlfriends

Fill stockings for a childlike Christmas experience.

Who runs the world? Overtaxed, exhausted women, that’s who.

All my female friends are wrung out right now: planning Christmas, worrying about elderly relatives, and still having to work and sit through endless Zoom meetings under less-than-optimal lighting.

Not as chic as a my all-white main image, but Dollarama still delivers.

This year I’m giving them the beauty version of childhood Christmas stockings: bulging and filled with lots of little things: wee jars of cream, small tubes of hand lotion, face cream, and mini candles. I have amassed a collection of those beauty gift boxes that are so thick on the ground this time of year, all to be divided up and their component parts packed into (admittedly scratchy) red ‘velvet’ Christmas stockings from Dollarama (my love for Dollarama is boundless and well-documented.) I’m even planning to individually wrap every last, silly little item and seal it well with scotch tape just to prolong the whole unwrapping process.

Oh and weed gummies. I’m going to buy weed gummies, because I think my friends could really use them.

Quo beauty’s gleaming Cosmetic Christmas crackers, Shoppers Drug Mart, come six to a pack for only $15, each containing a wee lip gloss.

It is an indisputable fact that Nest makes the best Christmas candles. Their Holiday Set, $90, Sephora, is two of their most popular scents - Holiday and Birchwood Pine - in festive gilt trimmed vessels.

Caudalie’s hand cream trio, $24, is a happy collision of Shea butter, antioxidants and polyphenols with the singular sophisticated fragrancing of Caudalie perfumes Thé des Vignes and Rose des Vignes.

You know that friend who adds Trader Joe’s Everything But the Bagel spice to literally everything? I love resinous (and much more refined than patchouli) vetiver and want to add vetiver to every scented item I have, so I am bossily giving Monsillage’s beautiful Vétiver soap, $12, in the hopes of converting all my friends. Available from Montreal’s Etiket boutique, Canada’s most idiosyncratic and well-stocked beauty store.

Tucking a Softlips slims lip Hydrating Lip Balm ($4.99 for a package of three at Walmart) into a stocking is a very Mom thing to do. The peppermint ones look festive in their candy cane striped suits (there’s even a bonus cherry in the pack) and each has spf 20 because worrying about your friends’ sun exposure is even more peak-mom.

Biossance Your Clean Routine Overachievers set ($77, Sephora) skincare contains the brand’s bestsellers for glowing skin, all built on a base of their hero ingredient, sugar-cane derived, cruelty-free squalane.

The annual L’Occitane advent calendar, $84, is always a delight - bath gels, creams, their famous Shea butter hand protectors, bar soap in the shape of a leaf. You can buy the calendar to give to someone whole or just get one and tear it apart. Maybe it will be on sale by now given that we are well into advent?

What genius created watermelon THC gummies? (ChowieWowie’s watermelon gummies come four to a pack but your seasonally stressed friends should only take one at a time.)

According to Canadian Canabis firm FIGR, Canadians prefer to receive edibles by a wide margin (49%) over the kind you smoke. And my friends are all well above the age of consent and in need of some chilling out, so THC it is.

When all this is over we will want to return to our favourite cafés to sit and nurse a macchiato (or a dry white, which is all foam and no actual liquid milk and is apparently the latest thing.) Supporting your friend’s favourite locals will help keep the cash flow flowing.

Montreal’s Dispatch Coffee describes their offerings in highly detailed foodie/perfumer language so you can easily pick the right bean. They sell single bags, gift subscriptions and all the necessary tools a coffee addict could possible need.

Beloved Korean brand Belif’s Glowy Holidays kit, Sephora, contains different iterations of their famous Aqua Bomb super hydrators all in their signature, adorable top hat jars, as well as a hydrating essence, all for only $30.

The Nice List: Your Emergency Gift Stash (most under $20)

My mother and her friends were pros at buying random items on sale, so they’d have fully stocked ‘gift closets’ to choose from when they needed a present. (The old line-up-for-hours William Ashley warehouse sale was the source of many ‘off-registry’ crystal vase wedding gifts back in the 90s.)

Saturday Night Live nailed the phenomenon in this music video about the endless regifting of a terrible, peach scented candle. (Christmas bonus: the 80s-into-90s overdone makeup, lacquered hair and furs ‘n’ turtlenecks sported by Emma Stone, Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant in the video are a holiday present all their own.)

As an antidote, here are some wonderful beauty gifts to keep on hand, all at Secret Santa prices, because no one wants to be passing off the current equivalent of that dreaded candle.

And while some brands have beautiful holiday packaging, others sadly have not. Combat this by tossing the offending boxes and wrapping the contents in tissue and then into a tiny festive bag from the dollar store. Not sure how I lived before Dollarama became an integral part of my life.

Bodtini hand wash in Yuzu, $24, from editor favourite Tips Nail Bar, is citrussy and uplifting and the black and white graphic bottle suits any bathroom. Or the lucky recipient can keep it by the kitchen sink to stop from washing their hands with dish liquid when they come in the door. Available for delivery or next day pickup in Toronto.

Nice soap is the best kind of gift - an elevated version of something everyone needs, and nothing is chic-er than black soap.

This beauty (only $14) comes from black-owned local Toronto brand Sade Baron. Wrap two or three in white tissue and you have a wonderful design-y gift. Done.

The Body Shop Warm Vanilla Duo actually contains three items in their pleasingly creamy Warm Vanilla scent: body scrub, body butter plus a bath scrubbie - all for only $10.

This Eos Limited Edition Super Soft Shea Lip Balm pack, $9.97 Walmart.ca, is a petroleum-and paraben free trio of their signature natural balm spheres in seasonal flavours of Champagne Pop, Caramel Brûlée Sleigh and Cotton Candy Snow. If shops were open, I’d suggest taking them out of their blister pack and arranging them in a small white bowl, but maybe I’m getting unnecessarily fancy.

Hand cream, like lip balm only works if you’re consistent. This Burt’s Bees Holiday Hand Cream Trio, $14.99, has clean bright sunny scents, is loaded with protective Shea butter and beeswax, and because there are three, your recipient can put one by the bed, one by the sink and one by the couch. (Ok, in a plastic bin under the couch along with at least one lip balm.)

Come ON! This midnight blue Christmas cracker that’s actually a Quo Beauty Lip Gloss Set gives you eight shades from sheer nudes to deeper berries and three fun party shades and is only $20. It may be sold out online, but they’re still available at Shoppers in-store. Run. Run now.

My Fresh Essentials Holiday Ornament, $14, from L’Occitane contains an adorable leaf-shaped soap, body lotion and hand cream in summery verveine. (In English it’s ‘lemon verbena’ which to me sounds fusty and faintly old ladyish, while ‘verveine’ sounds French and glamorous.)