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Bee Nice to Your Bod: The Body Shop’s Honeymania Line

/ MANY BRAVE FOOLS / Leave a comment

My favourite term of endearment is ‘honey’. I don’t know why, it just is! And it’s not something I ever gave much thought to, until I was lucky enough to avail of allll the bits of the Honeymania line, that The Body Shop have recently laid on.

Made from Fair Trade honey sourced in the Ethiopian rainforest, this honey has a social conscience, and also exhibits the benefits of the natural moisturiser, without being sticky and unwieldy. Here are the products, in descending order of love.

Honeymania Body Butter
Many have raved about the brand’s body butters, but this is the Body Butter {€18.95} that has convinced me. It has just the correct amount of honey fragrance, so you smell inviting, much like the original blossom to the original bee, but you won’t be walking around making people wonder if they’d not like a nice cup of herbal tea. Fantastic coverage and day-long softness — this claims to impart 24hr hydration, and it’s one of the few that I’ve tried and tested that comes close!

Homeymania Bubble Bath Melt
This should have probs come before the Butter, in the interest of fragrance layering, but the Bubble Bath Melt {€13.95} isn’t something I’d avail of every day. Just writing about it now, when there is manky raining pouring down, makes me want to fire up the immersion and run myself a tub. This is as near a dammit to the texture of edible honey; it froths up fantastically under running water, and the bubbles last for ages. Heart this deeply.

Honeymania Beeswax soap The Soap {€3.95} is great for the fragrance layer-ers amongst us, and this too bubbles up nicely on your exfoliating mitts or your shower puff. Again, not so overwhelmingly honey-scented — just the correct amount. It has the added bonus of being glycerin-like, so when it dries, it doesn’t leave much residue, which doesn’t leave one with a sense of waste and mess. I have three soaps on the go at the moment, and I keep reaching for this one. I will use this until it is the very sliver of its former self.

Honeymania Lip Butter
We all now about my issues with baume pour les levres, so no one is more surprised than I that I am not completely mad about this Lip Balm {€7.50}. It is good, once applied, but I am having an issue with the texture — slightly gritty — and the scent — it is a bit much in this incarnation. Once it gets where it is meant to go, it feels soft and lovely, and will probably pay dividends under the mistletoe this holiday season. Is your Honey a sweet-aholic? They will be very happy. {The restraint I have exhibited just there!}

Honeymania Scrub
My least fave: I found the Body Scrub {€18.95} to lack enough scrubby bits in it, and its texture was far too slippery, under circumstances that were slippery enough already. If your skin is so, so sensitive to a common-or-garden scrub, I think you may find this to be gentle enough.

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See thebodyshop.co.uk or thebodyshop-usa.com for prices in £ and $.

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B&B! Q&A: Sabrina Lucey, Cloisters Spa, Muckross Park Hotel

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

SABRINASabrina Lucey is head therapist of the award-winning Cloisters Spa in the Muckross Park Hotel in Killarney. Eight years into her career as a beauty and massage therapist, she’s worked in television for such programmes as Ireland Am and Xposé, and she’s been loving every minute of it.

At Cloisters, she says she’s ‘fortunate to have a team of excellent and experienced therapists, who are all highly trained in all aspects of conventional beauty treatments.” They also are proficient in holistic massage, reflexology and many other alternative treatment, so you’d be spoiled for choice.

I myself was fortunate enough to have experienced a new treatment, the Wilderness Ritual, which featured a full body exfoliation with tailor-made body scrub, followed by full body application of body butter, and a massage using essential oils, administered via sea shells. I am just about crying, looking back on it now.

I chatted with Sabrina about certain aspects of this terrific experience, which totally puts the treat in ‘treatment’.

I know we’re supposed to exfoliate — and believe me, I love it! – but what exactly are the benefits, for face and body?
Simply put, it keeps the skin soft and glowing. Buffing the dead skin away will keep your pores from clogging, which keeps acne under control — both on the face, and on places like the back. It also speeds up your skin’s natural renewal process, and helps your moisturizer penetrate even deeper.

Getting rid of the dead skin cells helps with skin discoloration and unevenly toned skin — and if you keep up a routine, your skin will not only be visibly brighter, you’ll be keeping fine lines and wrinkles in check.

Can you tell me about the scrub and the body butter you used?
In Kerry I wanted to source something local, and met Alice from Skellig Soaps, at a Christmas shopping fair. I wanted an exfoliator that involved our signature scent of Lemongrass and Lavender, and Alice combined these two and created our exclusive scrub.

The oil I use in the seashell massage is her creation as well, and combines Ylang Ylang, Rosewood and Jojoba oil, which is very relaxing on the skin.

And I also know that essential oils are good for us, but don’t know exactly why…?
Essential oils have been proven useful in killing off viruses, bacteria or other pathogens. They are also considered to be powerful anti-oxidents.
They also can act on the mind, as well as the body: when the brain’s limbic system is stimulated, the realeas of neurotransmitters such as pain-reducing encephalin, pleasure-producing endorphins, relaxing serotonin, and stimulating noradrenaline, encourage the body, and also the mind, to chill out!

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So, how was it?
CLOISTERS poolMy first thought as I descended the long, spiralling staircase down to the spa was, ‘No wonder they keep winning awards.’ If you’re going to set the stage for luxe, ensure that your guests feel like Scarlett O’Hara — albeit in a towelling robe, rather than swathed in the curtains — as they enter your domain.

It is all about relaxation in the thermal suite: that pool is not for laps, something that I always have a grá for, but I was happy enough paddling around for a while. The big draw is the outdoor hot tub: the bubbles were the correct amount of froth and warmth, and as the Blue River lazily wound its way around the back of the spa, l let go of some tension I hadn’t even been aware I’d been holding onto.

There are numerous places to lounge, and a sauna that I highly recommend. That hot tub, though, had my name on it, and I dunked myself back in until it was time for the treatment.

Now. I am am avid exfoliator, and equally as assiduous in applying lotions and potions on the bod. But let me tell you, there is nothing like having someone else do these things for you. The full body exfoliation with the lemongrass and lavender scrub was as thorough and aromatic as it gets — more thorough than I could ever manage for myself. A quick shower to rinse it off feels like it may be a bit harsh on the mellow, but the mellow is fully regained when the application of the body butter ensues.

Then, the shells. I eyed them somewhat dubiously when I arrived in the treatment room, but they are so effective. The shells had been warming throughout the exfoliation/body buttering, and were the perfect temperature by the time it was their turn in the process. They felt pretty spectacular: used to apply pressure to the body, they felt firm but not too hard on the muscles; they worked out several knots that I had been walking around with, and bunch of others I hadn’t known were there.

As always, it was over all too quickly, even though the session is the guts of 90 minutes. Afterwards, I was lead to one of the daybeds in the relaxation area, given a light treat of almonds and a smoothie, and left to breathe deeply under a muslin-canopied day bed. Bliss.

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The Wilderness Ritual is €150 for 1 hour and 30 minutes, and includes full body lemongrass exfoliation, Cloisters Body Shea Butter application, followed by an 80 minute warm sea shell massage.

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Muckross Park Hotel & Cloisters Spa
Muckross, Killarney,  Co. Kerry.
T: +353 (64) 662 3400
F: +353 (64) 663 1965
E: info@muckrosspark.com

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Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Smudged: Clarins Delectable Self Tanning Mousse

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

So many things happening here.

CLARINS DELECTABLE MOUSSE

>Delectable? Because it’s a mousse? Is this meant to work inside out? {Noooooooo! Do not eat this, Credulous Reader!}
>Mousse? I am used to my non-edible mousse coming out of an aerosol can, or a pump thing.
>It’s white. A white cream. That smells very self-tanny.

It was not love at first sight.

I very haphazardly, with disdain, rubbed this all over my belly. I didn’t want this showing, because due to the smell, I reckoned this would be majorly orange, and not fit for human sight.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

In these days of instantaneous tan, we may have forgotten the virtues of colour that comes up in its own good time. Clarins have got a pretty good thing going on in this wee jar, and I admit I treated it with disrespect. Mea culpa: the warmth of its toasty brownness was perfect, and the streaks that resulted from my derisive application were all my own fault. My belly was brown for the guts {ha haaaaa} of five days.

Let that be a lesson to us all.

Seriously, though, the scent needs work, and a tiny bit of hue in the cream — the wonderfully textured cream, it has to be said —  wouldn’ go amiss, particularly for those among us who routinely go amiss with their autobronzant, even when giving it all due respect {Me.}

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Clarins Delectable Self Tanning Mousse, 125mls, €35

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Platitudinous Truisms {Even So…}

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

I begin this post by copping, absolutely, to the fact that I have been really fortunate to work my way into my beauty duties. I’m grateful for all the stuff I’ve had a chance to try, and all the procedures and treatments I’ve been lucky enough to avail of, for review. And despite all that, I still can be lax about self-care.

Self-care, as a term, makes my cringe a bit: a hackneyed catch-all covering everything from footbaths to talk therapy. I am fairly positive I’ve pitched and written more than one feature story in more than one newspaper or magazine, under this very umbrella. The reason I’m not one hundred per cent positive is that they all tend to blur after a while, and whilst suggesting that someone nip off to a spa to pamper herself is, at its core, reasonable advice, the notion of cost + time adding up to something manageable — well, it often isn’t.

We don’t really know what we’re walking around with, what we’re holding in our muscles and tissues, because we get used to it so quickly. And we get used to it so quickly because we have to. We have to get on, we have to keep going, we have to manage all the aspects of our lives, keeping all the plates spinning.

And then we read an article exhorting us to take care of ourselves, and it’s easy to come over all cynical and roll our eyes. So, despite my own eye-rolling even as I write this — jayz, we really need to mind ourselves!

It’s hard to do! Even organising a home spa day for oneself may require the kicking-out-of-the-house of many beloved relations, and even then, in the quiet, it’s maybe not so amazing because it is your own house, and your own bath, and you had to clean prior to and will have to clean following your gloriously indulgent scented bath. {I highly recommend this, as ever.}

I suppose you could swap with a pal? Like, clean your own bath, and she cleans hers, and then you go to the other person’s house and she comes to yours… and then if you are lucky enough to have kids, make them clean it? Lucky enough to have kids who would not tell you to go get stuffed?

Or maybe you do set your sights on a weekend in a spa hotel — maybe do a crowdfunding thing? Not, like, for some random weekend in October, but for a birthday. Get the whole family to send you happily on your self-caring way. Maybe?

I think it is worth every penny to be able to have an amazing treatment under professional, luxurious circumstances, but I completely get that it’s not always viable. Hell, I can barely remember to set aside a few quid to get a ten-minute chair massage done — which are generally always great, and as soon as I get one I think, Ah, yeah, must keep this up — and then don’t.

Consistency is an issue, atmosphere is important, and the opportunity to simply lie down and switch off… surrounded by rose petals and scented candles, with fresh fruit kabobs and sparkling water within reach, all the while gazing upon some bucolic view that includes copious amounts of blue sky, or a mountain, or both.

It is true that a change is as good as a rest, and a change that involves rest has to be off the self-care scale. It’s also irritating and frustrating when you want to do something, and you find yourself constrained.

One small thing a day, though… like, going to visit the cygnets in Stephen’s Green. Now, that just happened, I didn’t even know why there were all those people clustered around the side of the pond furthest from me, and then I saw the little grey furries swimming around with their mum and dad. Ah! It was such a pleasure, and so delightful to be with everyone else who thought they were great, and the kids who just couldn’t even believe what they were looking at. I suppose there are all manner of ways to restore oneself, and nature is as good as a facial.

CYGNETS — YEAH!

CYGNETS — YEAH!

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/sincerity

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Dude Week: Things That Make Me Go Ooh! In the Shower

/ brightandbeautyfull / 1 Comment

Alas, not this, unfortch.
B CUMBERBATCH DUDE WEEK SHOWER
A tenuous connection to Dude Week, indeed. Anyway! Shower! Ooh!

I don’t know how many body scrubs I’ve tried. I could figure it out, but how tedious would that be? I bet, though, that I could safely guess… between 30 — 50? Seven a year for the past seven years? Let’s just say 45. So when I dispensed some of Elemis’ Sp@ Home Skin Nourishing Body Scrub on my shower pouf and was inspired to exclaim, ‘Ooh!’ as I applied it — well, that’s a professional opinion, dontcha know. It is spectac.

It’s mainly about the scent, I reckon. Everything that Elemis produce smells divine, and the scent off this is so luxurious, it really does live up to its spa-at-home promise. Is it the macadamia oil? It is the sweet almond? I doubt it’s the wheat germ, but who knows?

‘Tis spendy, at €39/£28.50/$53*, but this does the pricey-product thing of lasting a long time, since you need to use so little. Also: the effect of the scrub — it’s the bora bora sand, I am sure of it — is comprehensive, and you won’t have to exfoliate as often as you would. Srsly, I was shiny and new for a week. Love it.

SHOWER OOH!

When a face scrub tells me to keep away from the eye area, I pretty much ignore it. Not that I am scrubbing that sensitive area directly! I am not that foolish! I don’t really mind the proximity of scrub to eye, though, and perhaps get a little too close for comfort.

I can confirm that that is the case, as the use of freeze 24/7 IceCrystals Anti-aging Prep and Polish {€54/£46/$65**} has converted me to caution.

This is the perfect facial scrub for those among us who sleepwalk into the shower every morning. It is fiercely frosty, the result of specially calibrated pure magnesium oxide crystals encapsulated in Advanced Silicone Emulsion << now, you know I so rarely just spout product info, but I really had no idea what it was that made this literally make my skin freeze. Smelled like menthol eucalyptus? I think I may have been trained over the years to think that everything briskly resin-y is eucalyptus. I don’t know that I feel at all enlightened by words like ‘magnesium oxide crystals’ and am particularly intimidated by ‘Advance Silicone Emulsion’ but this was invigorating, thoroughly exfoliating, and it made my eyes sting. It made them sting intensely. So, mind your eyes, like the directions say. Listen to the tube.

Like that, I didn’t bother to read all about how to use Nivea‘s new In-Shower Body Moisturiser {€3.99/£3.65/not in USA?}, which is: use your regular soap or gel, rinse, then apply this. Then rinse. It saves you the post-shower moisturising step, which I usually quite enjoy, but when I’ve had the need for speed, this product has proven to be a good thing. When I used it correctly. When I didn’t, I couldn’t figure out why I was smelling not-so-fresh? When you do it right, it is as nice as, but much more efficient than, applying oil to the damp bod and then towelling off. It’s the same principle though, which is to trap moisture so your skin will be refreshed during the rest of the day.

I think that’s it… I’ve got some hair care products in the queue — what a surprise! – so stayed tuned for more ‘ooh’!

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*Whoops: price point differential!
** Whoa: only 70gs in the tube!
*** Whew: that’s great value!

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Screen grab via the entire flippin’ internet, in fairness.

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Soz, Mr B Cumberbatch, for, you know, objectification and all that, but srsly: ooh!

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AOTD: Tanned, Glowing and Manicured {Partially}

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

LOL.

AOTDAll it seems to take is that first swipe of self tan, and I am a goner. I did the legs, and then got some sun from horseriding, and then decided it was the arms’ turn.

Behold, one of said limbs, adorned with Xen-Tan Weekly Self-Tan with Moroccanoil {€30}. I was actually quite alarmed when I dispensed some on my tanning mitt. It was dark! Even more taken aback when I applied it to my arms. It was really dark! I mean, there’s fake and then there’s fake. Luckily, I slept on it, having showered post-horse, and had enough for it to dry before I retired for sleepytime.

Next morning, the sheets were free of skidmarks, but I did get some water on my arms from washing up, and things went a tad streaky. I’d say this needs the full monty, in order to stop it developing. Maybe? I’m not sure now that I should have gone to sleep with this on? Ah, sure, it’s grand. It looks like I’ve been on a cruise in the Aegean. It’s the kind of brown that I struggled to achieve in high school. This is my inner teenager’s dream tan.

It’s grander still, with the application of Pixy Glowing Body Butter {€12.99}. The tin, she is small, at just 100gs, but the glow, she is large. I wouldn’t expect to use this all over the bod, perhaps only on highlight points like arms and legs and collarbones, so that’s no big. It smells gorge, too.

And, finally, may I present the ESSIE MORE MERRIERWorld Famous Supermodel Thumbnail™, proudly displaying one of essie’s new summer nail varnish colours, the more the merrier {€9.99}. Oh, yeah! And this is after a few hours spent in horseriding gloves, and with no top coat to speak of. Impressive!

And, honestly, that really is the colour of the arm, maybe even a little darker. Photoshop and I decided that there was to be no fakery because it looked true, even for an iPhoto.

Well, that’s me, bronzed for the duration. At least as long as the sun is shining…

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Xen-Tan is available at Debenhams, and/or on debenhams.ie.

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A Word to the Wise: Do Everything You’re Told Regarding Self Tanning

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

That phrase, I don’t know, it doesn’t really make sense. If you’re wise, why would you need a word from me? I had to google that to make sure I was using it correctly and I was. It’s what you say before you give someone advice.

Oh, advice. It’s what we give away, for free, because we’ve no use for it ourselves.

The sight of the sun sent me into a joyful panic. OMG, I have not done any tanning! It is June! I know it’s a year round gig here in Éire, but I am stubbornly sticking to the seasonal aspect of bronzing. So when Apollo finally dragged his auld chariot our way, I found my self feeling pale, uninteresting, and yes, panicked.

So I decided to just whack on some tan, on my legs, and see how they all worked. I had one on each section — calf, calf, thigh, thigh — and since I am an avid exfoliator, I reckoned that I was as ready as I was gonna be.

Oh, I was so, so wrong. Hadn’t shaved my legs, couldn’t really truly remember that last time I’d scrubbed down properly, and I think I may even have been spotty on the moisturising! Shock and horror.

I shaved the next day, and buh-bye browniness. Huh. Everything that us beauty types write is Actually True.

So here my words, wise ones:

A} Exfoliate the day of, or the night before — maybe even both. ELEMIS SCRUBI am adoring Elemis Skin Nourishing Body Scrub, beyond measure, and will talking more about that soon.

B} Moisturise, for the love of the little baby Jesus. Between that and the scrubbing, you will have primed yourself to be a masterpiece of at-home tanning.

C} And if you are a leg-shaver, just do it. Or even better, go get a wax. I had the full leg procedure at Shavata in Harvey Nichols, Dundrum, and I have never felt shinier. I think I may be saving me beans for another go.

COCOA BROWN 1 HRIt’s just a waste of time otherwise, and I hate the time it takes to walk around the house waiting for this stuff to dry. Oh, but when it is dry, and perfectly applied? There’s nothing like a bit ‘o’ colour to warm up the skin tone.

I am off to work on testing SPFs — I know, I know, so selfless of me — and tonight will be treating myself to a Cocoa Brown 1 Hour Tan. I am such a grudging tanner, it’s taken me forever to try this. I’ll have to put it on then shower it off, which is grand, and I have been assured by the reviews of others that it won’t come off on my sheets. But then, those others are probs much better at this self-tanning lark than I, so fingers crossed. I’ve also seen the result on the woman herself, Marissa Carter, who has brought out this particular tan. I only hope I can look as well…

Okay, so. I think I’ve followed my own advice, but if not, sure, it’s another cautionary tale to put the fear of Bad Tan into ya.

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Elemis Skin Nourishing Body Scrub: €38
Shavata Full Leg Wax: €42
Cocoa Brown I Hour Tan: €8

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Sweet Sixteen Minus Six: bliss vanilla + bergamot

/ brightandbeautyfull / Leave a comment

The first time I posted this, I upper-cased the b, the v, and the other b, even though it is not the style of the brand. This lower-case-ness is all well and good on a shelf — not so much in a post or in anything editorial. I think it looks weird. It’s weird, right?

I forgive it, though, as I love this line entirely. Number 2 in the series; at this writing I continue to long for something for The Hair that smells of this lovely, lovely scent…

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I’ll always remember the first time I got a whiff of Bliss’ cunning combination of vanilla and bergamot: I was working as the art director of a super cool female’s magazine, and one of my colleagues pretty much thrust an open tub of the Body Buff under my nose. ‘Oh, my God!’ I sighed. ‘It smells like the beach!’*

V+BIf ever there was a hoard-worthy product line, it is this one. I couldn’t bear to not have it around, just in case — and ‘just in case’ = the possibility of sharing my fragrant, beachy, perfectly exfoliated skin with a… ‘friend’. As it is, this scent almost exists almost entirely in my memory, because I allow myself to use it so rarely. (Which either says sad things about the state of my… ‘friendships’, or implies that I choose my ‘friends’ with extreme care. Let’s agree on the latter, shall we?)

Oh, but when I do decide to break out the V+B, I do it thoroughly and completely. The Body Buff is truly superb, and one of the top five I have ever used. The Soapy Suds come next, naturally, and of course it is all capped off with the wonderfully rich Body Butter. I only wish there was a shampoo and conditioner. And a perfume. And a — a hat, or something. I wish there were clothes that smelled like this.

You think I’m kidding, don’t you? I am so not. The smell of the seashore is hardwired into the pleasure centre of my brain, so that, like a rat in a Skinner box, once I get a whiff of beachy goodness all I want is more. Some of the best times of my life were spent oceanside, and a tonne of unencumbered joy is triggered by the glorious scent of the auld V+B. I am a great believer in aromatherapy, and the days in which I walk around, wafting the joyful fragrance of undiluted joy and optimism, I have a very joyful and optimistic day. It is totally true.

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Body Buff £28/€39/$36, Body Butter £20/€25/$28, Soapy Suds £16/€22/$18

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*I have absolutely no idea why the combination of vanilla + bergamot smells like the beach, but it does.

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I have a line on a scent that will complement this perfectly, but is not Of The Brand. Can you guess what it is?!?

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Sweet Sixteen Minus Six: Nuxe Huile Prodigieuse

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I keep losing track of — hang on — right, okay, this is number 3 of 10, and it is all I can do, on a daily basis, to not lash a bottle of this in my handbag so that I can re-apply it with the same regularity as I do with lip balm. This is delicious, and also so great for me pelt. And I absolutely can spell prodigieuse without looking.

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I am sensing a trend.

I really like things that smell nice.

Here’s another extraordinarily lovely-smelling thing, and it is also a thing that comes in another version with sparkle in it. Can it be more perfect?

I love it so much, I can actually spell Nuxe Huile Prodigieuse without looking it up.

NUXE-06This is a multi-use dry oil, which means it is not greasy, which means you can use it all over your entire self without worry> Hmm, yes, well. I used it once in my hair because there was a Nuxe shampoo that didn’t have an accompanying conditioner; it was recommended that I use this, and the result was not happy. I may try it again as an intensive scalp treatment yokie bob, because what else do I have to do with my time — but I also like to give things their fair dues.

Otherwise, using this everywhere else is highly recommended. The scent is delicious, and I suppose it is the result of the perfect alchemy of its ingredients: Borage, St Johnswort, Sweet Almond, Camellia, Hazelnut, Macadamia Plant Oils. Now, I wouldn’t know what borage smelled like if it crawled up my nose, but I do know the smell of almond as used in product, and suspect that the Huile errs on the side of this natural element.

Does it? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. This stuff is great first thing in the morning, as applied on damp, shower-fresh skin and massaged in deeply; all the way to last thing at night after you’ve cleansed and toned.

As if that’s not enough, there’s a Huile Prodigieuse Or that is a summertime essential. This is the one that brings the golden sparkle; I’ve decided not to wait for June, and will be dousing myself in this, liberally, to beat the January* blues.

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For 100mls: €30/£33/$45

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*Or the March blues, as apparently yees are up to your oxters in the horrible, cold white stuff.

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Sweet Sixteen Minus Six: Jo Malone Body Crème

/ brightandbeautyfull / 2 Comments

Into the final four! I had a hard time picking the top top of my Top All-Time Faves For Now, so, I don’t know, I think from here on in, they are all number one. I adore number 4 the way I adore my loved ones, no lie. May I acquaint you with a beloved member of the Conley family?

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Everything about Jo Malone feels rich: the beautiful cream-and-black branding, the boxes, the ribbons, and most particularly, the heavy glass tub that contains the luxurious body créme.

There is absolutely nothing like the Jo Malone Body Créme. I don’t like all the scents — and frankly, I wouldn’t blame you feeling completely suspicious of me if I did — but the ones that I do, I adore. Unconditionally. Without reservation.

Lime Basil & Mandarin. Pomegranate Noir. Amber & Lavender! Oh, I forgot about that last one. I went to swap the places of LM&B and PN, but I can’t. I don’t think I can. Can I? No, not possible. Even though I layer PN with pleasure, and everyone knows what it is, and I don’t mind everyone recognizing it, because it is so delightfully sensuous, and something of a signature scent for me … I still can’t put it first, because it wasn’t my first.

JO MALONE LBMLime Basil & Mandarin. I had no idea that this Sweet Sixteen was going to be so nostalgic, but I have just gone off into a mental video memory of the first time I got a whiff of the stuff. I had been hanging with some pals, enjoying the bubbling hot tub at the SPORTSCO Leisure Centre in Ringsend {why do I remember it as the ESB gym?} and then after repairing to the changing room, one of the women passed around the body crème. Its heavy glass jar immediately communicated its splendour, and an obsession was born.

I had to have it. I had to have it for myself. I didn’t care that I was suddenly smelling that scent everywhere I turned; rather, it became the clarion call of a little club of ladies who knew what was what when it came to self care, and about splurging a mad amount of money of a thing that didn’t last for an appreciable amount of time.

Ah, now! That last bit is not so true. Because it so well-crafted, you need less than you think to enfold yourself in the fragrant goodness that is a Jo Malone body crème. So all of us who were amongst the vanguard were less annoyed at smelling ourselves coming and going {oh, dear, that sounds nasty} and more keen to appreciate the savvy of our fellow Malonistas.

It’s like being a member of a club whose only agenda is to smell gorgeous. I consider myself to be a lifetime member, with honours.

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€63/£48/$75

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