L’Oréal Infallible Brow Lamination is the Lift We Need

I will not list all the physical indignities that menopause wreaks on your body. Suffice it to say, they are numerous and unwelcome.

Even though downward-pointing brows do not rank up there with, say, bladder issues, it’s still a shock to unexpectedly catch your reflection in a shop window and see sad, old Eeyore staring back at you. Brows that used to be obedient, if rather thin (thank you, 1990s tweezing) are now skimpier and coarser as they wing off in any direction but most often south.

To combat this, there is L’Oréal Paris 24H Brow Lamination, $18.49, Shoppers Drug Mart.) Made for Gen Zs, for whom ‘brow lamination’ is shorthand for a brow perm that lays brow hairs flat against your skin while pointing straight up, L’Oréal’s take home version is an industrial strength brow glue that turns curly, menopausal brows into obedient little soldiers and keeps them lifted which makes you look more awake and un-Eeyore-ish.

Brush it on, first downwards to get as much product on the brows as possible, and then brush them up and they will stay put for hours. Anything that makes one look more rested and just better without looking like ‘makeup’ is a total win, right?

The Nice List: Gifts for Hosts

That’s me on the right. So happy to be invited when someone else cooks and serves.

Choosing a gift to take to a party should never cause stress. I love receiving the classics: flowers or a bottle. Getting flowers reminds me that I never buy them for myself, so I’m going to make “buy more flowers” one of my new year’s resolutions. Certainly easier to stick to than, say, giving up sugar (as if.)

In the meantime, here are some gifts to bring to any holiday or New Year’s fête or beyond.

Nothing makes me happier than a well-provisioned pantry, so when I saw this huge, catering-size 1.5 kilo bucket of fancy Maldon sea salt flakes (the best finishing salt for salads, fish, meat, a roast chicken, anything really) I thought it was both fantastically practical but also deeply glamourous. When do you ever get both those qualities in one item? It looks extravagant, but at fifty odd dollars (Canadian) it’s not really that expensive. Pair it with a wee ceramic bowl from a local pottery studio (or a marble dish from Homesense? haha) that the recipient can keep by the stove, forever topping it up from their now bottomless salt stash.

Bring this Cranberry and Walnut Baked Camembert and make a splash.

Did you know that camembert melts better than brie and is therefore just better? It also has an earthier flavour, often described as mushroomy. (Where else would you learn such important things? We are not just a beauty site.)

If you volunteered to bring an appetizer or are attending a pot luck or New Year’s Day brunch, I highly suggest bringing this dish. A generous, entire round of camembert crowned in maple-glazed craisins and walnuts comes together quickly and can easily be transported ready to slide into the oven. (Recipe at the end of this post.)

And remember, #cheeseislove, so make this at home even if you’re not going to take it someone’s house, because there are still three more months of this nonsense weather.

Us 70s children thought After Eight Classic Mint Thins were the most elegant thing imaginable. Was it the sharpness of the mint? Or the crackly individual, glassine paper sleeves? They are still brilliant and this limited edition Skyline tin ($22, drug and grocery stores) holds the contents of two regular cardboard boxes, so even your greediest friend will be properly stocked up well into the new year.

Grown Alchemist’s Hand Heroes gift set ($49, Sephora) of hand scrub and lotion smells heavenly and goes with literally every decor. The happy recipient can keep them together or put the lotion in their bathroom and the scrub by the kitchen sink to deal with hands that have been chopping onions.

Diminutive and perfect for a coffee table, a rosemary topiary from your local nursery smells wonderful and looks Christmassy by virtue of its shape. But it won’t look too seasonal or out of place when the calendar clicks over to January.

Include a card with the recipe for the Union Square Cafe’s famous brown sugar, cayenne and rosemary glazed Bar Nuts. The Nigella Lawson version is easy to whip up. I like a pecan cashew mix or even just cashews instead of a full on nut array, so no one has to feel guilty when they pick out just the cashews.

Happy weird week between Christmas and New Year’s.

Cranberry and Walnut Baked Camembert

Ingredients

1 wheel of ripe camembert

1/4 cup roughly chopped walnuts

1/4 cup roughly chopped dried cranberries (aka ‘craisins’)

3 Tbsp. maple syrup

1 sprig of thyme

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350°F.

In a bowl, mix the cranberries with the roughly chopped walnuts and maple syrup.

Place the camembert in a baking dish or 9 inch cast iron pan.

Spread the cranberry topping over the camembert and add the thyme on top.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes and serve immediately with crackers or small toasts.

Recipe courtesy of European Cheeses. @fromages.europe.cheeses on Instagram.

All I Want For Christmas is You (And These Gifts)

The grinch whizzed down Mt. Crumpit with a sleigh full of gifts for the Whos, but I prefer this little car.

If I were in charge of buying my own gifts, without a spending limit, anything here would be perfect. Although as alluring as all these are, I’d be happy with a bag of Chicken Bones cinnamon candies (see below.)

The evil geniuses at Chanel have turned their Les Exclusifs Sycomore, the greatest vetiver fragrance ever (as I wrote about here) into a lush Body Oil, ($140, Chanel.com.) A little different from the perfume (I swear the forward-facing vanilla and cedar give the oil a ‘skin scent’ quality) it’s still a smoky, vegetal and earthy declaration of vetiver brilliance.

With jojoba and meadowfoam seed oil, it’s a dry oil that sinks right in, leaving you smelling like perfume royalty. This kind of extravagance doesn’t come cheap, but it’ll turn your morning and evening skincare into a heady paradise every time.

Our new apartment comes with a rather complicated electric fireplace insert that I am shamefully afraid to switch on.

While I work up the courage to dive into the byzantine instruction manual, I will, in the interim, ask Santa for this extra large, multi-wicked Diptyque Feu de Bois Candle ($297, Holt Renfrew) with its incredibly evocative, room-filling wood fire scent and its beautiful greige ceramic vessel.

It’s quite sad how badly I dress. I don’t care nearly enough, and more often than not, I will look down and see that I’m wearing terrible jeans and an ancient, lint-flecked sweater. So I try to carry a nice bag and wear my late mother’s jewelry to distract from the untidiness of my hair, the weird fit of my Nordstrom Rack jeans.

A Sidney Garber Scribble scribble ring ($10,900 US sidneygarber.com) with its six conjoined sparkly bands is the perfect attention-getting diversion. It would stand out beautifully against a plain black sweater with black trousers and some glossy lug-soled chunky loafers, and no other jewelry. I could manage that, I think.

A casually draped sheepskin is a clever solution if the cat has clawed an arm rest, or shredded an ottoman. And you can get a perfectly credible, if rather smallish, one, at IKEA any day of the week.

But for a real splash, I would love a curly, smoke-grey Gotland sheepskin, ($553, blacksheepwhitelight.com) from Canadian online retailer Black Sheep White Light. And here’s a rationalization for you: it’s cheaper than paying for reupholstery.

Ganong Chicken Bones are a Canadian east coast Christmas candy dating back to 1885, even though they seem faintly Mexican in origin, given their singular mix of cinnamon candy with a chocolate filling.

Hard to come by, but worth hunting down here in Ontario, I had to order mine online this year, but luckily Sobey’s carries them, $7, Voila.ca. (As does Amazon.)

The Nice List: Beauty Gifts for Girlfriends

I am going to use this table setting as inspiration when I host my girlfriends before Christmas.

When I was little, I’d ask my mother what she wanted for Christmas and I would always get the same, unhelpful answer: “I just want everyone to be healthy.”

Now, of course, I understand completely what she meant. All I want is for my favourite people to be happy and healthy. And what I want most is to sit with them and have a cup of tea (or something stronger.) And gift wise? We’re now at the age where we don’t really need anything, and if we do, we can buy it ourselves.

But an unexpected, possibly frivolous beauty gift? Any of these (below) would be most welcome.

DESIGNME’s Bounce.Me haircare range smells like Bobbi Brown’s classic Beach fragrance. (I wrote about it here.)

This ‘Bounce.Me Bliss Bundle’ ($39, Chatters.ca) of anti-frizz Bounce.Me shampoo, conditioner, smoothing balm and a light hold spray is perfect for someone who travels a lot, or goes to a gym and the windowed zip pouch is a perfect travel size.

Pair it with a super absorbent microfibre waffle towel like this one from Canadian brand Everist ($38, Well.ca.) Towel drying reduces frizz and packing one for travel means your giftee won’t have to rely on hotel hair dryers of dubious provenance.

From Neuraé, Sisley’s new line that focuses on the connection between skin and our emotional well-being, the Emotion Booster roll-on in ‘Joie’ ($85, Holt Renfrew) is an uplifting scent to dab onto your wrists and behind the ears for immediate comfort. It’s perfect for anyone who is into wellness or who loves all things French and hyper-elegant and needs soothing.

The roller ball is pink quartz (charmingly new age-y,) which, in crystal lore helps control anger and anxiety and bring harmony and love to our lives. And the citrus and white flower scent provides a feeling of being cosseted and happy, akin to walking into a sunlit bedroom where someone has made the bed for you with freshly laundered sheets.

Caudalie’s Prep & Glow set ($66, Sephora.ca) contains a full-sized Eau de Beauté which is enough to spray on your face and then extravagantly in the room to banish stale wintery air (my god, it’s so dry right now) as well as fun-sized versions of their Instant Detox Mask to clear out congested skin and a brightening Vinoperfect Radiance Dark Spot Serum for some tender care during these shortest days of the year.

My girlfriends and I used to discuss problematic boys when we got together and now we chew over our inability to sleep through the night. Orange Naturals Magnesium Glycinate ($25, Shoppers Drug Mart) taken before bed can calm anxiousness, relax muscles and contribute to better sleep. Not a beauty product per se, but definitely a caring gift.

Pair it with the caffeine free teas below or a silk sleep mask.

This ‘Taster’s Suggestion’ box of five different herbal infusions from Quebec’s Camellia Sinensis ($30) including an Ayurvedic blend, African rooibos and bright lemon ginger is a caffeine-free, non-sleep-interrupting comfort gift. Pair it with a hand thrown pottery mug that requires upper body strength to lift because weight training is crucial at our age.

I’m rather cross at how mingy and pricy and overdone beauty advent calendars have become. But ‘discovery sets’ in zip bags are still a favourite way to try a brand’s offerings with a minimal investment. Here’s another travel winner, this one from British skincare brand Byoma. Only $30 at Shoppers Drug Mart, it contains five items perfect for the dry air on the plane make yourself feel more human and less parched. All in a cute mesh necessaire.

A Fall (Faux) Tan With Tanologist & Caudalie

Dear beauty industry: why is self-tanner easy to buy in the summer, only to vanish from store shelves in the fall? Now that it’s chilly (hello sweaters, my old friends) my skin has dried out and paled out overnight, and I could really use some moisture and colour.

The same November week that I assess the contents of my tea cupboard in preparation for winter, I also pull out my Tanologist Daily Glow Hydrating Gradual Self Tan Lotion, $38.01, Walmart.ca, the moisturizer-slash-self-tanner that will be my staple during these ‘dark by four thirty p.m.’ days. It does double duty, resuscitating desiccated skin with ingredients like squalane, hyaluronic acid and fatty acids, and providing natural-looking, buildable colour so I look healthier than I probably am.

Now comes the clever bit. Once I establish my ‘I do sunrise yoga on the beach’ (faux) colour, I apply my favourite Caudalie Smooth & Glow Oil Elixir, $70, Caudalie.ca. I evangelized it at length here. Its name in French “Huile de soin” means ‘care oil’, and I find that much more accurate and less of a mouthful. The fig in question is figue de barbarie, aka anti-oxidant rich prickly pear, which along with argan and shea oil gives your skin a light-reflecting gleam and a really elegant, definitely transporting fig scent. It’s some much-needed happy frivolity for these times.

Rush Hour: Maybelline Lifter Plump Lip Gloss

Maybelline New York Lifter Plump in Blush Blaze.

Maybelline New York’s Lifter Plump lip gloss in ‘Blush Blaze’, ($12.99, drugstores) is the perfect fix when you’re in a makeup as afterthought state of mind. This hefty tube lives by my front door, so I can swipe on some colour before hurtling myself out the door, invariably late for something.

I love this shade because it’s both sheer and just bright pink enough, so it enlivens my whole face even though it only goes on the lips, which is a neat trick. There’s also added chile pepper to make your blood vessels swell up for a brief lip plumping effect. And best of all, because it’s gloss, not lipstick, you don’t have to be too precise about application. Which is why mine lives at the front door, waiting patiently, ready to serve.

Towards a Better-Smelling Bathroom

I have officially given up doing things I don’t want to do. I refuse to engage with tricky parking spots (no more backing into traffic at the mall) and I will not let air fresheners with scents like ‘Clean Linen’ or ‘Mountain Air’ cross my threshold. I want my bathroom to smell like the spa at a fancy resort, not the cleaning products aisle at Sobeys.

The best spa scent for home is Lotus Aroma’s Eucalyptus Home Spray, $21, Shoppers Drug Mart. And it’s Canadian. I give the air several blasts before my shower, so when I emerge, it is into a herbal, steamy fug. Just like the spa, but with no towel-wrapped strangers in my sight-line.

The internet discovered the joys of eucalyptus-scented bathrooms in a ‘complicated, but makes for a nice picture’ way early in Covid lockdown. Soon Pinterest was littered with images of twine-wrapped eucalyptus branches suspended from shower arms. But steam alone wouldn’t release the scent. It turns out you first had to crush the eucalyptus leaves with a rolling pin to release the volatile oils, which was a step too far.

I enjoy a silly craft as much as the next person, but spritzing Lotus Aroma Home Spray is much easier and way faster. And most importantly, you won’t be picking up dried eucalyptus shards for days afterwards.

Milk Makeup Jelly Blush Looks Real, Stays Put

Milk Makeup Jelly Tint in Splash (a deep berry).

Does your blush vanish by noon? My face eats makeup and I’m certain that my blood is 25 per cent blush and concealer by this point.

Applying a metric tonne of colour on your cheeks to ensure there is still some left at midday will only make you look dementedly clownish. Topping up with powder blush, although it’s easy to brush on, can add a dusty, dowager aunt vibe if your skin is dry. For a believable-looking flush, a sheer stain works best.

Enter Milk Makeup’s new Cooling Water Jelly Tint lip and cheek blush stains ($33 CAN, Sephora) that once applied, stay bullet proof for the whole day. They work as wonderful transparent lip colours as well (just add a wee dot of lip balm, because they can be drying.) The four shades look vivid when swatched (see below), but sheered out on cheeks, the effect is quite natural. The only caveat is that, as stains, you have to blend them out quickly before they set on your cheeks.

This means using your fingers (you’ll have to wash them afterwards) or, if you’re so equipped, a blush brush. But for this effort you will be rewarded with a glow that lasts well past lunch.

And not just any glow, but the lit-from-within glow of someone who attended a reformer Pilates class this morning while everyone else was still in bed.

I did swatches! (OK. Those four arms of various skin tones aren’t me, but they are helpful.) The colours, from the top down are Burst, Chill, Spritz and Splash. While swiping makes these shades look alarmingly bright on the lighter arms, once blended in they provide a natural looking healthy glow.

Why is Decluttering So Hard?

Uncluttered but not spartan, this Paris apartment belongs to designer Domitille Brion.

The New Yorker’s Helen Rosner once tweeted that she would happily “pay for a service where people with good taste come to my home while I’m out and throw away everything they think is superfluous."

Right now, Mother Nature is having one of her snow-and-ice tantrums, and I’m indoors wishing someone with taste would magically apparate and start wordlessly filling garbage bags with all my junk. I want a home that looks like the one in the picture above, even though I recognize that high Haussmann ceilings, intricate mouldings and chevron chestnut floors are in short supply in Toronto’s condo offerings.

Things Aren’t People

I don’t understand folks who have an easy time throwing things out. Every item I possess is a friend with its own little soul. One of my actual human friends, who is also in the middle of a grand clear-out, put it best: “It’s hard to remember that things aren’t people.”

To compound things, like Rosner, I’ve “internalized that throwing things away is morally bad” which led to chaos when I became the self-appointed family archivist for people long since dead. It’s hard to look at items dispassionately when you’ve lived with them since birth. They are a proxy for a house that was torn down years ago.

According to the tenets of Swedish Death Cleaning, the practise of pruning your belongings to leave less trash for your heirs to wade through, you are supposed to start around age 40. So I’m already two decades late. That sounds about right.

Makeup brand owner Bobbi Brown, who is “self-diagnosed OCD” once told me in an interview that if you get rid of all the things you don’t like, you’ll see the things you do like more clearly. That is the only thing motivating me right now. I am almost jealous that Brown is so tightly aesthetically wound that she is physically unable to sleep if her slippers aren’t placed perfectly on the floor. I would rather have that tick instead of constantly feeling guilty, like I murdered someone, when all I did was dispose of some tea cups (although the teacups were Meissen, and I regret it enormously.)

So if anyone has any ‘decluttering’ (I hate that word) tricks, please pass them along. I have the garbage bags. I am ready to do this.

Eat Spray Love: Cozy Meals, Perfect Scents

As a general rule you should always use your nicest things first. So many of us do this bass ackwards, believing that we should go through our dull, practical purchases first and save the good stuff for some notional future day. This is a terrible idea. Crack open the good stuff now because if not now, then when? Every day needs to celebrated. (This is also one of the reasons that I fundamentally disagree with wedding culture and its ‘best day of your life’ extravagance. But that’s an argument for another day.)

Ostensibly tied to Valentine’s Day, but really more of a mid-February uplift, here are some fragrance and meal pairings to inspire you to treat yourself better. The recipes are not grand and show-offy. They’re cozy, so if you want to eat sitting on the couch instead of at the table, then definitely do that.

And three of them contain cheese, because cheese is love.

Gris Dior and Cacio e Pepe Scrambled Eggs

Sprayed throughout Dior boutiques around the world to olfactorily transport you to the Avenue Montaigne mothership, Gris Dior is earthy (hello, oakmoss and patchouli), gently floral and ineffably elegant. I made a vow to myself to not use the expression ‘quiet luxury’ but boy, does this fragrance epitomize that notion. Spray some on yourself and notice how you immediately feel more put together even if you are in your most stretched-out, not-for-public-viewing sweats.  

Gris Dior will also magically turn you into the sort of person who easily elevates even the most basic breakfast-for-dinner into something special. Cacio e Pepe Scrambled Eggs from much-missed New York City restaurant Maialino fits the bill perfectly. it’s very easy to make with none of Cacio e Pepe’s complicated emulsion building, so please try it. Serve with sourdough toast soldiers or flatbread crackers.

Cacio e Pepe Soft Scrambled Eggs

Recipe by Maialino Chef Nick Anderer  
Serves four

Ingredients
10 fresh eggs
½ c. whole milk
1 c. grated pecorino, plus more to taste
2 tbsp. coarsely ground black pepper
1 tbsp. butter
Salt to taste

1. Melt butter in a nonstick skillet (9 to 10 inches in diameter) over medium heat.

2. Whisk together eggs and milk; pour into the skillet.

3. Stir continuously for four to five minutes with a heat-resistant rubber spatula until the eggs begin to lightly scramble.

4. Stir in the pecorino, black pepper, and salt.

5. Transfer eggs to a platter before they cook to a hard scramble. The final product should be creamy and loose.

6. Sprinkle more pecorino over the top and serve with the bread of your choice.

Carolina Herrera Good Girl Blush and Truffled Grilled Cheese

Carolina Herrera Good Girl Blush is what happens when a big, attention-loving gourmand perfume decides to have a quiet night at home.

Image from Stacey Todd Boutique instagram (I added the chips. Duh.). Model is wearing Another Grey Day cashmere sweats.

Soft and powdery, Carolina Herrera Good Girl Blush eau de parfum might at first telegraph a luxe clean vibe. But it also has an irrepressibly narcotic white flower and thumping rose heart that says “I can pull off a big night out. I just choose not to.” Even with its signature Good Girl gourmand heart, Good Girl Blush is way more sophisticated than any of the scores of baby girl candy fragrances out there. If you wear this to stay in, do not cook. Maybe have some truffle chips, but eaten from a porcelain bowl, never straight from the bag.

And if you must eat cooked food, have someone prepare it for you. I have a friend whose husband makes truffled grilled cheese sandwiches for her whenever she wants. May everyone have a partner like that.

Cheese is love.

Narciso Rodriguez All Of Me and Pastina

Narciso Rodriguez All of Me eau de parfum is a skin scent masquerading as an irreproachable floral fragrance. What starts out straightforwardly floral unfolds into an elevated sandalwood and musk that is equal parts soothing and sexy. Wear it while eating the classic Italian comfort dish, Pastina. ( It was given new life when it went viral two years ago on social media and the video recipe at this link is my favourite and is dead easy to make.)

Pastina is baby-sized pasta stars cooked in chicken or vegetable broth instead of water, with a healthy amount of butter and a generous grating of cheese for the perfect, nurturing meal. Giant blanket to wrap yourself in like a human burrito optional but encouraged.

Aesop Ouranon and Nigella’s Pumpkin & Chickpea Thai Curry

Aesop’s Ouranon Eau de Parfum is time lapse photography in a bottle. A journey through the changing seasons, it starts with sun-warmed lavender, then takes a spin through harvest season with dried hay before ending up at a giant stone fireplace welcoming the warm embrace of a smoky fire.

It’s what to wear when eating Pumpkin and Chickpea Thai Curry from Nigella Lawson. This stew is vegan but hearty, full of soluble fibre (my new obsession) and you can adjust the spice level from lightly warming to yeow. Perfect for a cold or rainy night when you need to thaw your poor bones.

Nigella Lawson Pumpkin and Chickpea Thai Curry

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 1/2 cups finely chopped onion

1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste

2 teaspoons Thai red curry paste, or to taste (available in Asian markets. If you can avoid the grocery store versions made for western palates, then do so. The best Asian ones are Maeploy, Aroy-D and Maesri brand.)

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

2 pounds peeled seeded pumpkin, cut into 1 1/4-inch chunks

2 (15-ounce) cans coconut milk

1 cup chicken or vegetable broth

1 Tablespoon Thai fish sauce*

4 15-ounce cans chickpeas, drained

Freshly ground black pepper

1 cup loosely packed finely chopped cilantro leaves.

Place a large wide pan over medium heat, and add oil. When hot, add onion and salt, and saute until softened but not browned. Add curry paste, and saute for 1 minute. Add cumin and coriander. Raise heat to medium-high, and add pumpkin. Stir for about 1 minute. Stir in coconut milk, chicken broth and fish sauce. Partly cover with a lid, and reduce heat to low. Simmer gently until pumpkin is almost tender, about 20 minutes. Add chickpeas, partly cover, and simmer for 10 minutes more. Stir gently, and adjust salt and pepper to taste. If more heat is desired, add more curry paste. Ladle hot pot into serving bowls, sprinkle with cilantro, and serve.

* As reader Tracy points out in the comments, fish sauce is not vegan, so you can substitute miso paste or tamari or just skip that ingredient entirely.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings.