What Your Body Scrub Says About You

Summer is almost here, which means it’s time to:

1. Switch your closets from winter to summer clothes.

2. Confront your flaky-skinned limbs that have been hidden under clothing during a long winter of dry air and central heating.

3. Choose the right body scrub that aligns with your worldview and current state of mind.

Do you need at least two cups in the morning to be a civil, functioning human? Is your blood roughly 50% shade grown Arabica? Would you kill for an on-demand, cold brew tap in your kitchen? If so, then Drunk Elephant Sugared Koffie Almond Milk Scrub ($37, Sephora) is the perfect reward for waking up and making it to the shower.

Not only is its ground coffee and raw sugar blend a gentle natural exfoliant, coffee seed oil is an antioxidant to calm winter-beaten skin while its heady scent subliminally tells your brain that you’re getting caffeine. Jojoba, marula and coconut oils soften skin, and almond milk moisturizes and soothes and makes the whole thing smell like a custom latte made by angels for the Good Lord herself.

Do you wish your home was a spa? Do you have white terry hotel slippers by the front door to keep guests from wearing their gross ‘outdoor’ shoes in your house? Do you only drink water spiked with fresh mint and cucumber and do you put bowls of cubed watermelon in the fridge and pretend your 'staff' did it?

Clarins Tonic Sugar Polisher ($52, Shoppers Drug Mart) gently exfoliates with hazelnut oil and shea butter while its geranium and rosemary scent will leave your bathroom smelling like the Four Seasons Tribeca (a hotel so luxe it makes Toronto's Four Seasons feel like a Motel 6.) Clarins Tonic is a gorgeous mood-lifter and even its translucent yellow jar glows with the promise of endless summer days spent reclining on a poolside chaise.

Aveeno Positively Radiant 60 Second In-Shower Facial ($13.99, Shoppers Drug Mart) is meant for faces but works brilliantly on bodies too. The glycolic acid effectively dissolves the bonds between dry skin cells and natural cellulose helps sweep them away. It’s a full body spa scrub experience at home.

You may feel wanton using a significant chunk of one tube on your body, like when Kim Basinger allegedly rinsed her shampooed hair with Evian water — there’s a pop culture reference only women my age will get.— but if you do feel guilty, just buy multiple tubes when it goes on sale at Shoppers. This is a perfect example of being extravagant, but never wasteful, which is a useful trait to carry to the rest of your life.

Do you miss travelling? Is your favourite lockdown pastime pouring a large glass of Pinot and “strolling” the streets of Paris on Google Street View? The Body Shop Spa of the World French Grape Seed Scrub, $32 smells brightly green and luxuriously fancy to remind you that you weren’t always a homebound, elastic-waist-pant-wearing drudge.

With powdered grape seeds and evening primrose to gently exfoliate and grape seed oil to soften skin, it can psychically transport you to the vineyard of your choice. The tub is massive which makes its already reasonable price even more of a good deal. It’s a given that you will want to travel once lockdown is over, so if all that online comfort shopping you did over the past year depleted your plane ticket fund, it’s time to build it back up.

Do brightly coloured personal care products give you seizures? With its sleekly minimalist packaging and energizing herbal scent, Necessaire Eucalyptus The Body Exfoliator ($45, Sephora) is all business and a perfect companion for anyone who uses their shower time to brainstorm projects and make endless To Do lists in their head.

The Body Exfoliator contains physical exfoliants bamboo charcoal and volcanic pumice, along with a trio of chemical scrubs: glycolic acid to sweep away dead skin cells, lactic acid to moisturize and salicylic acid to dissolve oil and unclog pores. Now go forth and conquer the day, you sleek-limbed thing, you.

Olay Regenerist Mineral SPF is Your Holy Grail Non-Whitening Sunscreen

Olay Regenerist Mineral SPF is Your Holy Grail Non-Whitening Sunscreen

There’s nothing like trying to run out the door, but being stuck in front of the mirror, rubbing in mineral sunscreen. The “hey, I’m a mime!’ white cast it leaves is annoying on pale faces and completely untenable on darker skin.

We put up with the whitish finish and load up on bronzer and blush to look less corpse-like because mineral has its benefits over chemical sunscreen (it’s instantly protective the second you apply it - no 20 minute wait, and if you have sensitive skin, it’s less likely to sting.)

But Olay Regenerist Mineral SPF 30 sunscreen (Shoppers Drug Mart, $44.99) is a non-whitening revelation. It’s a light lotion containing micronized zinc oxide that rubs in quickly, so you couldn’t sport Elle Macpherson’s striped 80s ‘zinc nose’, even if you tried.

But like a late-night tv ad that says ‘wait, there’s more!’ Olay Regenerist Mineral SPF 30 has added benefits. Because it was created by the obsessives at P&G (I am a longtime fan of their next-level attention to detail) not only does it go on easily to protect your skin from damaging UV rays, but it’s a twofer that also tackles existing damage with powerful skin-building peptides to stimulate collagen production and Vitamin B3 to smooth texture and minimize large pores.

Which means you don’t have to apply your skincare and then your sunscreen, because your healing skincare ingredients are in your sunscreen. Saves time, saves money and you aren’t piling on layers of product.

A+.

Mother's Day Gift Guide

The chicest thing ever is to buy a vessel, like this bold and cheering Casa Cubista stripe jug, ($50, Saudade Toronto) and take it to your favourite florist for filling. The recipient gets both the ephemeral gift of flowers and the enduring reminder to keep buying flowers for themselves.

This Mother’s Day, let’s honour the women we love who kept it all together this past year despite 24/7 childcare, Zoom meeting tyranny, virtual house arrest and unending meal prep. And let’s recognize those friends who mothered us when we needed it- the ones who dropped off baked goods or emergency booze. It’s time to spread the love.

The lockdown-inspired resurgence in creating home bars is also a reminder that gorgeous presents can come from the liquor store. Canada’s own Laneway Distillers No. 12 Vodka ($51.45, LCBO) with its pale green label and frosted bottle is too beautiful to hide in a cupboard and pairs beautifully with a gold Japanese jigger ($32, Cocktail Emporium.) And a Moscow Mule made with ginger kombucha is perfect for Spring.

This brass-clad home bar belongs to Ett Hem hotelier Jeanette Mix.

This polished swoop of rose quartz is a Gua Sha ($40, The Fix with MC) a tool used in traditional Chinese medicine to get a depuffing, drainage massage (follow the steps in this video from MC herself.) An application of facial oil prevents the Gua Sha from tugging on delicate skin and Biossance Squalane + Vitaminc C Rose Oil, ($95, Sephora), is a rose-scented and moisturizing skin brightener as well.

A Slip silk pillowcase ($119, Sephora) sounds like a a frivolity but silk stops hair frizzing up overnight and prevents pillowcase creases from marking one’s skin. Plus, the giddy sensation of sinking into a smooth, silk-covered pillow at the end of the day cannot be overstated.

With its overdose of raspy, sunlit bergamot, Malin & Goetz Bergamot eau de parfum (Sephora, $120) is the perfect mood-booster that effortlessly punches a hole in a cloudy sky to let the sun shine through. And because it’s an eau de parfum, it lasts longer than cologne (which frugal moms will appreciate.)

Bring Those Skimpy Brows Back to Life

Around age fifty, you’ll see a photo of yourself and realize that your brows and lashes have done a slow fade, like someone turned down the contrast on your face. Bringing brows back to life is actually pretty easy and enlivens your face the way smiling or a good dose of blusher can, and no one will figure out what you’ve done. You’ll just look better rested or like you had a vacation.

Brow rescue is a two-pronged affair. Part one is brow serum, which as a former tweezer enthusiast, I can affirm does actually work to repair what youth and cluelessness put asunder. RapidBrow Eyebrow Enhancing serum, ($43, Shoppers Drug Mart) contains peptides to stimulate growth and spur those snoozing, dormant hairs on to greatness, while biotin and panthenol strengthen the age-diminished hairs themselves.

It takes a couple of months of twice daily applications to see results, so diligence is key. And you have to keep at it once your brows have returned. Some people may squawk about having to continue using brow serum, but just remember that you also need to eat food every day. You can’t just eat for a month and then never eat again, so it’s like that.

If like me, you recklessly tweezed away the little ‘fan’ hairs at the inner corners of your brows in the misguided belief that wider-set brows make eyes look wider set, (they don’t) Rapidbrow serum can bring those back. (God, all those unhelpful, ancient beauty stories that instructed you to hold a pencil beside your nose to determine where your brows should start.) Not to mention the 90s skinny brow trend that too many of us succumbed to. Even Canada’s national treasure, Celine Dion, is a cautionary tale of inner brow over-tweezing and while you could argue that that’s her look, I don’t want that for you.

Maybelline New York Tattoo Studio Longer Brow pencil in Blonde,

In the meantime, while you wait for your brows to awaken like Sleeping Beauty, you can do an artful patching job with Maybelline New York’s new Tattoo Studio Longwear brow pencil in Blonde, ($12.49, Shoppers Drug Mart.) This shape-shifting, ashy taupe ‘blonde’ shade will invisibly fill any sparse areas even if your brows are dark. It’s also magically perfect if you have some silver hairs mixed in there as well. Just apply tiny, feathery strokes to the sparse areas. Go slowly, and always step away from the mirror to see your handiwork before adding another stroke.

And Maybelline New York Tattoo Studio brow pencil claims to last 36 hours, which is longer than you’ll need, as we are now past the age of dancing all night in illegal clubs and emerging at 4:00 a.m. with our make all smudged, in search of breakfast.

Best Smell of the Week: Deciem ‘Shop’ Room Spray

In my dreams, an invisible fairy places fresh flowers in every room of my house twice a week. That’s most likely not going to happen, so finding a great room spray seemed like the best alternative.

For the longest time, I would walk into Deciem stores and be struck by the smell: elegant, woody, leathery, yet light - like commingled, very expensive men’s colognes. But whenever I asked, the cheery salesperson would always say something like “Brandon created it exclusively for the stores. We might start selling it eventually…” This went on for years.

Sadly, Deciem founder Brandon Truaxe died suddenly in 2019 and after that I assumed the room fragrance would never see the light of day. But now Deciem’s new owner, the Estée Lauder companies, have released it under Deciem’s newish Abnomaly brand. It’s called Shop and it is brilliant.

Shop is fancy, like actual perfume and its list of notes reads like the afore-mentioned pricy men’s scents: sequoia and cedar wood, resinous labdanum, musk and patchouli. There’s even ‘Iso E super’ a perfumer favourite ingredient that brings a transparent woody and earthy aspect to a scent- like a forest shot through with light and air and sun.

Angela Tsementzis’ Concrete House in Toronto

The result is a scent that is woody, leathery and resinous to create the sensation that you’ve entered a deceptively simple and restrained, light-filled modernist house with an enormous picture window overlooking a thickly treed valley. And Shop is only $23 CAN which is a bargain for something of this quality. It could easily go head to head with Aesop or Diptyque’s interior fragrances.

I have been furiously spraying my disorganized office in the hopes that I will be inspired to finally wrestle the space under control. The room is untidy, but if you close your eyes, it smells like everything is perfectly arranged on uniform shelves or hidden away in custom walnut built-ins. Such is the power of Shop.

Charlotte Tilbury Multi-Miracle Glow Cleansing Balm: Necessity or Luxury?

Charlotte Tilbury Multi-Miracle Glow Cleansing Balm, Photo: Janine Falcon

My friend Sydney, who is juggling all the usual stuff (a life, a family, a house with all its expensive moving parts) recently asked if I knew of a cheaper substitute for her beloved Charlotte Tilbury Multi-Miracle Glow Cleansing Balm, $70. She thought she should be spending less on a cleanser, even though she is completely devoted to this one. “The fragrance is heavenly, so that’s a huge draw for me,” she says, “and the texture is so luxe that even smearing it on feels lovely.” She also uses it as mask, applying it thickly before “sitting in the bath for 15 minutes.”

After a few minutes of fruitlessly trying to think of an equally rich and scented dupe, I realized that because we all live under a cloud of uncertainty, now is not the time to jettison something that unfailingly makes you happy once a day. Are pleasures so thick on the ground that you can afford to lose even one? No, they are not and no, you shouldn’t.

Food writer Nigella Lawson likes to say “I am extravagant but never wasteful,” which I take to mean as ‘squeeze every last bit of enjoyment out of your pricey treats, but make sure they are incredibly high quality treats and carefully chosen.’

Even if you are in an ok place financially but especially if you’re not, it’s always a good exercise to audit your monthly expenses with a metaphoric red pencil and cut out anything excessive. (I need to seriously drill down on having so many streaming services.) It’s easier to keep a death-grip on your expenses — hello, buying household staples at No Frllls instead of Loblaws — if your reward is guilt-free enjoyment of a happy-making and very fancy skin cleanser.

And if you also use Charlotte Tilbury Multi-Miracle Cleansing Balm as a mask, then you’re getting two products for the price of one. That’s like getting it for half price. Right?

Gucci Bloom Profumo di Fiori Beats WFH Gloom

Gucci Bloom Profumo di Fiori is not for shy or retiring types.

Is it time to burn our Work From Home outfits yet? I am so ready for a Visible From Space™ bonfire of faded t-shirts and elastic-waisted sweatsuit bottoms. Until then, I keep trying to distract from my practical (yuck) ensembles by accessorizing with fuzzy new Birkenstocks and drowning myself in fragrance.

The perfect scent to counteract the endless parade of boring, machine-washable everything is Gucci Bloom Profumo di Fiori, (50 ml, $119) the most recent addition to the Gucci Bloom family. A longer-lasting take on original Gucci Bloom’s riot of white flowers, it brings even more tuberose to the party along with powdery iris and an undergirding of sandalwood and musk to keep it modern. Tuberose has an almost narcotic effect, so a good dousing of Profumo di Fiori can easily take you out of your day-to-day.

This floral overload head-fakes me into believing that my stretched out t-shirts are actually box-fresh $200 cotton and cashmere numbers and that I’m sipping an iced latte and covertly people-watching in an overseas airport lounge, instead of just shuffling from couch to kitchen to put the kettle on.

Gucci Bloom Profumo di Fiori is what we need right now as we count down the weeks (ok, maybe months) to vaccination and real zip-up trousers. I can hardly wait.

Your Lips But Better: Tinted Balms Bring Colour Back

As a general rule, while the central heat is still on, you should never be more than an arm’s length away from a tube or pot of lip balm. One in every coat pocket, one by your desk, and at least one on your nightstand. (I keep this beach stone-shaped lilah b. balm on the coffee table as well. Sneaky.)

If you’re already applying balm throughout the day, why not try a tinted version to imbue your lips with the rosy hue they had way back when? (The number of your blood vessels in our lips decreases with age, so yes, you’re not imagining it. Your lips are getting paler.) And unlike ‘faffing about’ (I love that expression) with lipstick, which requires both a mirror and a steady hand, balm can be applied absentmindedly in front of the television.

A trio of new favourites (clockwise from bottom): Burt’s Bees Squeezy Tinted Balm in Watermelon Rush ($10.99, Shoppers Drug Mart) tastes like a Bonne Bell Lip Smacker, brings soothing moisture, thanks to lanolin, beeswax and cocoa seed butter, and has the perfect amount of ‘your lips but better’ transparent red colour. Indeed Labs Hydraluron Plus Tinted Lip Treatment in Red ($14.95, Shoppers Drug Mart) provides sheer natural colour and contains a lip-plumping peptide and water-retaining spheres for the appearance of more generous lips.

Milk Makeup’s Electric Glossy Lip Plumper ($33, Sephora) is technically not balm, (Sichuan peppercorns provide a light, piney tingle that plumps lips) but It also contains protective jojoba seed oil and mimosa flower wax. A sheer swipe of the shade Lola subtly deepens lip colour for a ‘Who me? No, I’m not wearing makeup’ look.

The Best Balm for Your Poor Cuticles (Repost)

This originally ran last summer in response to all our frenzied hand-washing, but add seasonal dry air to the mix and your cuticles are once again in dire need of attention. Since that original post, Lano has repackaged their healing Gold Dry Skin Salve, so here it is in its new, shiny tube.

Twice now, during lockdown, I have squeezed some Lano Golden Dry Skin Salve into a mini pot and run it over to a friend whose cuticles were in dire need. Apparently our desire to treat friends during these tough times is called caremongering — a play on ‘scare-mongering’ that I just love.

Lanolin, the heavy, natural coating on sheep’s wool makes the best occlusive protectant for cuticles that, because of repeated washing or nervous picking, are raggedy and cracked. Lanolin on its own is rather sticky, which is fine for lips, but rather unpleasant on fingers. This salve blends lanolin with honey, beeswax and vitamin e, making it more lightweight but no less effective at reversing what anxiety, dry air and relentless hand-washing have done to our fingertips.

The salve is also an excellent lip balm and while the new tube isn’t as massive as the former 50 gram one, it costs less (always a nice surprise) and still contains enough to last a long time (it should be applied sparingly anyway.)

Spray Every Room Like a Lunatic With The Body Shop French Lavender Pillow Mist

The Body Shop Spa of the World Lavender Pillow Mist is sunlight in a bottle

Lavender suffers from such bad PR. Long associated with dusty sachets forgotten in lingerie drawers, some brands tart up their lavenders by adding notes of vanilla (shudder) and chamomile, making them even dustier. Thank god that The Body Shop's Spa of the World French Lavender Pillow Mist is pure, uncut Provençal lavender. Intensely herbal and brightly floral, it is literally sunlight in a handy spray format.

Lately, I’ve been going overboard and spraying not just pillows, but every room. ‘Cozy’ feels oppressive now and we’re all ready for winter to take a hike. But no matter how much I open windows and wash floors, I still need the actual smell of spring.

Sprayed throughout the house, The Body Shop's Spa of the World French Lavender Pillow Mist creates the sensation that someone (not me) vacuumed every piece of furniture, deep-cleaned the oven, scrubbed the baseboards and (be still my heart) did all the laundry and aired it outdoors in some parallel-universe lavender field.

Sadly, drenching the house in the Body Shop’s Lavender Pillow Mist is not a substitute for actually cleaning. That still needs doing. But if the thought of getting down on your hands and knees to scrub baseboards puts you in a funk, then read this wonderful story by Rani Sheen for the Kit: Let’s All Angry-Clean Our Houses, Shall we? and you will feel like a member of a heretofore unnamed sisterhood of raging women.

And, in the meantime, pillow spray.