My massage brings all the boys to the yard

It's the first real post of our return and I'm going to be entirely selfish and talk about Neal's Yard, massages, and beauty products, rather than dive right into the nitty-gritty of plus fashion. (All that stuff to come, promise!)

London's super-cool Neal's Yard, the tiniest, shoppiest courtyard in the capital

Right, we've had Halloween (I came as the credit crunch, thinking I was all clever, then I read the Halloween post on Stuff White People Like and had my dreams once again kiboshed), then there was some sort of election, not sure if you guys heard about that... and swiftly on the heels of that, came Guy Fawkes Night, at least if you're British. (This is where we incite religious hatred by burning effigies of Roman Catholics to celebrate the defeat of Medieval terrorism. And there are toffee apples.)

Anyhoo: the calendar moves on pretty fast in the autumn; all that's left is Remembrance Day tomorrow, and then we're on the home stretch to Christmas/Chrismukkah/Happy Birthday Jesus Day/present-giving. November through December is basically an unholy combination of cold weather, festive parties, and a hella lot of shopping. (How you guys cope with Thanksgiving in the mix is beyond me.)

One of my favourite brands, Neal's Yard Remedies (they of the beautiful blue glass bottles and delicious-smelling organic goodies), has introduced the Retail Therapy massage throughout the UK for Christmas. The massage comes in two "flavours", Refresh, and Relax, which was my chosen option.

I'm not a crazy fan of massage, as I find being touched by people - even friends, relatives, boyfriends! - quite uncomfortable, but this was genuinely a revelation. As a long-term certified insomniac, I can say it's the best sleep solution evah. I slept like the dead after my 30-minute massage last Thursday.

This somnambulant miracle was brought to me by the hands of Denise Monroe, former model and wife of jewellery designer Alex Monroe, which added a level of glamour to proceedings. Incidentally, how beautiful are these Alex Monroe pieces?

Jewellery by Alex Monroe; 00 44 (0)20 7703 8507; alexmonroe.com

Er, anyway. One post at a time! Retail Therapy massages are available at Neal's Yard stores throughout the UK. £35 (London) or £25 (regional)for 30 minutes, including a gift box of two products to take away, worth £10. These also double as excellent presents/stocking fillers (depending on how generous you are), as I can attest, having already pawned some off on friends pretending I was treating them. I'm a charmer! Call 00 44 (0)1747 834634 to book, or visit the website.

Refresh is quite zingy, all geranium and orange, whilst relax is arnica, rose and pomegranate. I'm currently also using Neal's Yard orange flower shampoo and conditioner (£10 each), which is doing excellent work and smells delicious - combining nicely with my housemate's Christmassy-scented ginger and vanilla. (Organic Ginger and Vanilla Bath Oil, organic Ginger and Vanilla Body Lotion, and a Ginger and Vanilla Candle, £27.50 the set.)

Anyway, like I said I'm not usually a big massage fan but this really was the business, totally soothing, sorted my sleep problems out for a night or two, and at only half an hour didn't interfere with my ridonk schedule. Plus anytime a beauty treatment comes with products included in the price, it's a good thing, particularly PCC (post credit crunch).

Keep tuning in for a review of Gok Wan's new lingerie range and latest TV show, Miss Naked Beauty - and a shout-out to reader Sarah for her awesome underwear (in a sisterhood yay! sort of way rather than a creepy old dude in a basement way) - and then we'll finally get round to answering your questions, I've been wading through the 50 or so emails (!!!) we've got and trying to triage according to whose wedding/party/outfit emergency is soonest!

Barefoot in the park

'Twas in the spring, then spring became the summer, it got too hot to wear a cardigan... uh, I don't know where I'm going with that too-poor-to-be-a-parody, so let's just move right along to today's topic: skincare! I don't know about you, but I've been revelling in the recent warm weather: sunbathing every day, skipping to work in skirts, bare legs and sandals, getting my skin out...

...and of course, all that sun, combined with already dry skin that's been under wraps all winter, has taken its toll. I'm in need of some serious skincare TLC, and have bust open my cupboard full of ultra-rich body butters, oils and moisturisers to try and quench my dry skin. Because when you're flashing the flesh in a summer dress, skin needs to be plump, dewy, and happy.

Annoyingly, you can no longer seem to get one of my favourite body moisturisers, the Barefoot Doctor's Damn Sexy Heavenly Body Butter. This might have something to do with the fact the good doctor had sex with a bunch of his patients, major scandal, and so on; but c'mon, what's a bit of unprofessional behaviour when moisturised skin is at stake?

Here are some of my favourites:

Bidadari Shimmering Body Souffle, by Sanctuary, comes in a pleasingly heavy glass jar with a fancy metal fastening: you feel special just popping open the lid, before you've even plunged your fingers into the jellyish souffle. The texture is soft and wobbly, like lightly whipped cream, and spreads easily and generously: you only need a small blob for each leg, rather than a whopping great handful. The scent is an acquired taste, however, and it is a shimmer product: but subtly so, adding a gentle glimmer to sheeny skin, rather than a Pussycat Dolls-style glitter overload.

Soap and Glory Big Butter Lemon, Flowers and Orange, comes in a bog-standard plastic pot, but don't let the whiff of cheap packaging fool ya: this product is scent-sational! (Yes, I went there. No, I'm not proud.) I actually like the kitschtastic Rainbow Brite-ish packaging, but it's not the chicest product out there. However, it does smell creamily, dreamily good, and butters you up a treat.

Buffy the Backside Slayer, a butt-buffing body butter bar by Lush, is practically perfect in every way: it's a little bit gritty, to exfoliate; it's a little bit greasy, to moisturise; it's a little bit scented; it leaves buttucks so peachy you could make cobbler with them; and it's got a funny name. If it doesn't leave you as bootilicious as it should, try the more emoliant Aqua Mirabilis bar instead: just as good, minus the great name.

Cocoa Buttercream Frosting Body Butter is not for the mature palate: in fact, none of Jaqua's products are. They may come in sophisticated card boxes, with elegantly stickered tubs inside, but they all basically smell like a 6-year-old sugar addict's dream. If you like chocolate, vanilla, icing, sugar, marshmallows, etc., this is no bad thing. The thick butter spreads on skin brilliantly, though it is really, really rich -- use just a couple of times a week, and be warned, wasps and bees will probably follow you around.


[Sorry everyone -- Photobucket hates booty, for some reason. Image will be restored when I'm back in my Bunker O' Photoshop. Sheesh. I bet Style.com never has this problem.]
Bidadari Shimmering Body Souffle, £9.95 by Sanctuary
Buffy the Backside Slayer, from £4.50 by Lush
"touch me then try to leave" body cream, $28.00 by Benefit
Soap and Glory Big Butter Lemon, Flowers and Orange, £9.50 at Boots
Johnson's Baby Oil, $5.29 from Drugstore.com
Cocoa Buttercream Frosting Body Butter, $22.00 by Jaqua

Enjoy showing off your beautiful new skin this summer, but: don't forget to use suntan lotion and after-sun!!! You'll thank me when you're old and yet un-wrinkly. You may feel greasier than Peter Andre, and have to wash your sheets all the damn time, but seriously: USE SUNSCREEN!!! [/End of TFFF mini-lecture]

Lip Service

Doesn't winter suck? I know I keep waxing lyrical about tweeds and leather boots, or sounding positively Julie Andrews-esque as I talk about warm woollen mittens, and, okay, I do enjoy a Gingerbread Latte or ten. But: the hair frizz! The dried skin from biting cold winds and too much central heating! The mottled hands from constantly losing my gloves! The ugh, the everything!

The biggest body victim each winter is my lips -- I'm a lip licker, especially when I'm stressed. I constantly suck, bite, lick and chew on my own face, like a reaver, when I'm writing or drawing, or whatever. (I'm doing it right now.) Add this saliva overdose to the wintery weather, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Luckily, I am a lipbalm addict. I should go to Lipbalm Anonymous meetings and take the twelve-step plan. Except I'm assuming that one of those steps would be to give up the 'balm. That I cannot do. I was clearing out my handbag yesterday, since it had become so heavy, and discovered I was toting around no fewer than SIXTEEN lip balms, glosses, and sticks. Sixteen.

A quick rummage in my coat and jean pockets confirmed that the total about my person was an almost-too-embarrassing-to-confess twenty-one. You read that correctly: in addition to the sixteen in my bag, I had scattered some further five balms throughout my pockets, just in case.

Because the thing is, winter can have its great moments: drinking peppermint hot chocolate by the fireside, eating Lebkuchen whilst watching The Great Escape for the hundredth time, kissing your honey...and what fun is kissing with chapped, winter lips? To make your winter magical, dip a finger into one of these:


Burts Bees Beeswax Lipbalm Tin, $3.00, from Burts Bees; Rose & Co. Apothecary Sweet Violet Salve, £5.00, from Rose & Co; Carmex, $1.49, from CVS; Smith's Rosebud Salve, $6.00, from Sephora; Sheer Gold Lip Shimmer salve, £5.00 from Liz Earle; L'Occitane Honey Harvest Creamy Honey Lip Balm, $10.00, from Kiss Fix; Benetint Lipbalm, $20.00 from Benefit; Lip Service, £3.95, from Lush; Vaseline Lip Therapy with Aloe Vera, £0.96, from Boots; Kiehl's Moisturising Lipgloss in Black Raspberry, $11.50, from Kiehl's.

Fresh Direct: Organic Skin/Bodycare

TFFF Beauty Coverage

I know next to nothing about organic food. I've been to a farm exactly once in my life and the only thing I took away from that experience was a pair of ruined boots. My trips to Whole Foods are comprised of picking up whatever looks "yummy" as opposed to what complies with NOC standards and my apples are no doubt encrusted in all manner of poisonous radioactive material. In short organic food, not my speciality. I am sincerely trying to catch up with everyone else on this front but at present I cannot claim to be an expert.

Organic skincare on the other hand I know something about.

Ever since people started to become more conscious of what they put in their bodies companies have been popping up to bring their own environmentally sound variations of what to put on our bodies. There's something nice about looking at an ingredients label and being able to actually pronounce the contents of your skin care as opposed to wondering what exactly dimethicone polyrenophate is. Here are few all natural, cruelty free products I love, use and am generally excited about.


Featured products from : Ren, Juice Beauty & Stella McCartney

REN: Ren, is an UK skincare line I was turned on to by a good friend and ever since I started using their products I've been hooked. Their philosophy is all about combining technological advances and natural ingredients to create "clean skincare" a concept that sounds easier than it is. How many times have you used skincare that leaves you feeling more perfumed and chemical filled than actually clean. The line itself is incredible with loads of standout products. Their Mayblossom and Blue Cypress Facial Wash is heaven sent, it somehow manages to remove all my makeup without leaving my sensitive skin dry, a problem I've had with other cleansers. I also use the Multi Mineral Detox Mask once a week to save my skin from NYC's thick layer of smog.

Juice Beauty: My local Sephora just started stocking Juice Beauty, an organic skincare line that has been getting raves all over the place. So far I've had a chance to use their Green Apple Moisturizer which is fabulous but I've been dying to try their Green Apple Peel, a mask designed to improve skin clarity and texture.

Stella McCartney CARE: Stella McCartney is a designer I've always admired for her commitment to cruelty free fashion so I was intrigued by her foray into skincare. Her just launched CARE collection is the first designer organic skin line and its really quite lovely. I haven't had a chance to try the full range just yet but I'm working my way through my Discovery set and I like what I see thus far. The Purifying Foaming Cleanser is every bit as luxurious as one would expect. Plus it smells absolutely ravishing.




Featured products from: Dr. Hauschka, Ren, Korres, Red Flower

Dr. Hauschka: Dr Hauschka is like the gold standard in all natural skincare and their following borders on cultish. The good kind of cult though, not the bad Tom Cruise variety. Now there are about a thousand things I love from Dr. H but I've been using my Body Silk Powder daily since the weather started getting warmer and the Neem Oil Pen is always in my bag to treat my cuticles.

Ren: No. I don't work for Ren I just really like their products, not just for the face but for the whole body as well. Now, everyone is going to tell you about the Moroccan Rose Otto Body Wash and thats all fine and dandy its great but its lesser known cousin, the Neroli & Grapefruit Body Wash is just as good. I like to use the Neroli in the morning to wake me up and Rose in the evening to calm me down. Clearly I have a shower gel addiction. And for you exfoliation junkies nothing beats the Guerande Salt Exfoliating Balm for getting legs ready for summer.

Korres: Shampoo and conditioner are the areas in which I'm the absolute pickiest. My hair never seems to do what I'd like it to do and I'm not one of those lucky girls who rolls out of bed with perfect artfully mused tresses. Korres Rice Protein shampoo and Shea Butter Hair Mask make my life a little easier. Whenever I use them my hair comes out glossy and soft which helps even when I can't replicate what my stylist did in the first place.

Red Flower: In truth candles have little to do with skincare but the Red Flower Honeysuckle Candle keeps me zen and surely that can only have a positive affect on my overall well-being. The scent is sweet and fresh plus these are small enough to take with you when you travel. For something that touches the body as opposed to hovering in the air above it the French Lavendar Lotion is about as creamy as it gets.