The Scent of Water

“I know I cannot paint a flower, but maybe I can convey to you my experience of the flower.“

— Georgia O'Keeffe.*

Serge Lutens Parole d’eau is this quote in fragrance form, evoking the sensation of being in or near a giant body of water.

We all know that water doesn't have an actual smell (beyond, say, the chlorine smell of our Toronto tap water) but Parole d’eau, $165, Holt Renfrew, unerringly creates the feeling of, say, getting inadvertently misted by a sprinkler when you walk by one on a scorcher of a day. Or cracking open an icy bottle of water as a shimmering wall of heat rises up from the sidewalk.

The notes in Parole eau are apparently citrus, pine needles, eucalyptus and musk. Cannot confirm, but given that one of the best summer smells is ‘hot sun on dried pine needle’, I am going to believe the internet stranger that came up with this list.

Didn’t make it up to a cottage this summer? All the more reason to spray a cloud of Parole d’eau to walk through so you and your (hopefully breathable) summer clothing hang on to the light scent.

It is a perfect way to arm yourself against August’s insane and unceasing humidity.

* A letter from Georgia O’Keeffe to William Milliken (1930), quoted in Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of Georgia O'Keeffe, Laurie Lisle (1981), p. 128 1930s.

Sunscreens For People Who Hate Sunscreen: City Edition

When it’s unbearably hot and humid (“air you can wear” as it’s known in the American south) the last thing you want to do is apply sunscreen to a damp and sticky face.

But apply sunscreen you must, both as protection against cellular damage that can mutate into skin cancer and for vanity’s sake, to keep your skin from mottling and wrinkling up like an old leather shoe. Sunscreen is so powerful it can even reverse the passage of time because (louder for the people in the back) wearing sunscreen allows your skin to heal from any prior damage instead of just compounding it. This from a 2016 study in the Journal for Dermatalogical Surgery.

And If you are truly sunscreen averse, especially during these dog days of summer, the three ‘best of breed’ lotions (pictured above, top to bottom) deliver on lightness with protection.

Garnier Ombrelle Ultra Light Advanced SPF 60 face lotion, $18.99, Shoppers Drug Mart, is a high SPF, broad spectrum screen (i.e. it protects against both UVA’s aging and UVB’s burning rays) that is so pleasingly lightweight, you will actually use it. And the non-sticky lotion absorbs into skin immediately so it’s perfect under makeup.

Because Shiseido Oil Free Urban Environment Oil Free sunscreen SPF 42 $45, Sephora.com, is oil-free, it’s perfect for those brutal days when your skin is unpleasantly slick. It plays the clever trick of actually hydrating your poor depleted skin while leaving a soft suède-like finish, so you can look fresh while everyone around you is melting.

Burt’s Bees SPF 30, Gentle Day Lotion, $29.99, Well.ca, is perfect for anyone whose skin reacts to temperature extremes by immediately going scarlet. This mineral, paraben-free lotion is gentle gentle gentle, and restores your moisture barrier and calms redness while protecting skin against UVA and UVB damage.

Sport Sunscreens For People Who Hate Sunscreen

Is this a trend? I have friends who use mineral sunscreen on their faces and chemical protection on their bodies. It’s like the sunscreen version of being mostly vegetarian but still enjoying a barbequed hamburger in the summer.

I have no horse in this race as I am an equal opportunity sunscreen user and will go to any lengths to protect my skin from UV rays. Chemical screens are, admittedly, much easier to wash off. The tenacity of mineral sunscreen is something to behold. I use a gentle exfoliating cleanser, like Tatcha’s Rice Polish, $84, Sephora, to remove it.

This sunscreen duo, above, is a perfect summer pairing for full-on protection when you’re out being active. Vichy Idéal Soleil SPF 60 Sport sunscreen, $29.95, Shoppers Drug Mart, is sweat and water resistant for 80 minutes and the light lotion formulation absorbs virtually instantly when applied (it feels like sorcery. No lie.) It leaves a faintly satin finish on your skin which is the polar opposite of those 1980s tanning oils that sat on your skin like you’d been dunked in a deep fryer. If you basted yourself with Hawaiian Tropic or Bain de Soleil during regrettable backyard teen tanning sessions you know what I mean.

I handed the Blue Lizard Sheer Lotion Face SPF 50 Mineral sunscreen, $22, Shoppers Drug Mart, off to a friend for her to test out on the water. She swims in Lake Ontario year round (impressive, right?) and wants a high SPF face sunscreen because her olive skin freckles quite easily, so anything under 50 SPF is a no-go. Blue Lizard, from Australia, home of the world’s most discerning sunscreen consumers, is also water-resistant for 80 minutes and while it “goes on white, it does sink in after about a minute” and most importantly “doesn’t migrate into eyes” which is critically important when you are in the water or sweating on a bike or tennis court.

These two are perfect for a day on the water (Lake of Bays, Ontario.)

Chanel Paris-Paris is Sunny and Dirty

As any Parisian woman worth her Isabel Marant boots will tell you, it’s imperfection - a larger nose, charmingly crooked teeth - that elevates a conventionally pretty face to truly beautiful. It’s the same in fashion. Adding something old and beat-up, or sentimental or just plain offspeed to your outfit ensures you still look like you and that you didn’t just buy your whole ensemble straight off the store mannequin.

Chanel’s latest ‘Les Eaux’ Paris-Paris abides by this unspoken rule as well. It has a quiet, unexpected edge that is ineffably, truly Parisian, because the real Paris isn’t only those endless perfect cups of coffee on marble tables that you see on Instagram. The real Paris can actually be pretty gritty - the traffic, jostling with a sea of humanity in the Metro, inhaling diesel fumes belched from trucks as you sit in a boulevard café - and it’s that contrast that Paris-Paris embodies. It’s a rose scent, but it is much more than yet another rose scent.

Paris-Paris opens like a light, summery fragrance. There’s freshness courtesy of citrus and pink pepper and damascena rose, bright but still plush. But give it a minute and there’s a surprisingly insistent patchouli rumbling away underneath, adding a whisper of (and I really hate to use this word in case it gets misconstrued) ‘dirty’ to that bright rose. It’s the perfect alluring scent for a languorous dinner — one those evenings spent around the table for hours, while the candles gutter and dessert is long finished. Paris-Paris is earthy, but it’s quietly, discreetly earthy. Not quite unwashed, but it definitely alludes to the human animal wearing it.

So whether you read Paris-Paris as light and unimpeachably daytime chic or as more of an evening fragrance, consider it your summer-in-the-city scent that will easily go into fall and beyond.

Guerlain Terracotta Bronzer: Mistake-Proof Chic

Guerlain Terracotta Light Healthy Glow is the best ‘Training Bronzer’ For Bronzing Newbies

Oh, bronzer. The fastest way to look glowy and well-rested. Even well travelled. (Did you get that tan in Bali?) But one errant sweep of your fluffy brush and you might look like you were attacked by a can of Hershey’s cocoa powder or that you are an aspiring Love Island contestant.

Guerlain Terracotta, the first and still the best compact bronzing powder (it launched back in 1984) can save you from this fate. The colours are carefully considered and natural-looking and - hooray - they have brought back their best, and my favourite, multi-hued version, Terracotta Light Healthy Glow Bronzer, $66 CAN, Sephora.com. It’s pleasingly luxe in its translucent, rosin-coloured case and the mix of bronze, tan and pink pigments creates a natural, warm tan with just enough soft shimmer to keep it from looking flat. The shade ‘Light Cool 00’ is the perfect training bronzer if you are timid, or it can be your all year round go-to if you like to keep things subtle. Level up to deeper shades as desired.

Sweep it on where the sun hits your face, building up the colour slowly. Remember that you can always add more but you can’t add less. Try the classic ‘draw a number three’ sweep: temples, under the cheek and under the jaw, or follow the example of Violette Serrat, Guerlain’s Creative Director of Makeup, in this video (starting at the 1:07 minute mark.)

In her Vogue Paris video, Jeanne Damas epitomizes effortless Parisian cool.

As you can see, casually sweeping on some Terracotta scores incredibly high on the French Cool Girl Beauty Meter. Here is further proof, via model/designer Jeanne Damas in a recent Paris Vogue video. Even if you don’t have your own French clothing line, a quick swipe of Terracotta over the high points of your face and I promise that you will sport the glow of someone who spent the morning perusing endless flats of just-picked strawberries at the farmer’s market.

Menopausal Skin Heroes: Vichy Mineral 89 Probiotic Fractions, Biossance Squalane + Copper Peptides

Vichy and Biossance weren’t necessarily thinking of women with dry, ‘mature’ skin when they created these two serums, but I would like to thank them both from the bottom of my desiccated little heart.

Just adding moisture to dry skin always struck me as a wasted opportunity, so thank god for serums in general for their high water content plus skincare ingredients. But thank god for these two specifically, for boosting my skin’s defences for the long-term, while keeping me from looking like a wrinkly sphynx cat in the short term.

Vichy Mineral 89 Probiotic Fractions Regenerating and Repairing Booster, $49.95, Shoppers Drug Mart, is a Six Million Dollar Man (better, stronger, faster) version of Vichy’s classic Mineral 89 hyaluronic acid and thermal-water-loaded skin booster. Vichy Mineral 89 Probiotic Fractions adds 4% niacinamide to help even out skin tone and juice up your skin’s defences to protect against moisture loss while probiotic fractions optimize the good bacteria on your skin and strengthen its barrier function. All this in the original, cooling, jellified water formulation. It’s great straight out of the shower.

Because the entire Biossance line is built around squalane (a sugarcane-derived version of squalene, a component of our skin’s sebum that sadly diminishes as we age) it’s perfect for menopausal women. Squalane is a truly lightweight oil that absorbs easily to lock in moisture and its anti-inflammatory properties help reduce redness. Biossance Squalane and Copper Peptide Rapid Plumping Serum ($88, Sephora) gives menopause-dried skin elasticity, softness and moisture while the copper peptides stimulate the growth of skin-firming collagen and elastin to plump skin and soften fine lines.

Rosy Lips and Flushed Skin For Cheap

If you are sharp-eyed or just into beauty products, you may remember Cherry Chapstick’s brief appearance in the opening scene of The Devil Wears Prada as Ann Hathaway’s Andie absentmindedly swiped it on before heading out the door. It was cinematic shorthand to show her disinterest in elaborate grooming rituals, but actually served as a pointed reminder that quickly-applied reddish lip balm is a cheap and speedy way to get some enlivening colour on the fly.

Just to drive the point home, Andie’s Cherry Chapstick is the only item in focus.

Burt’s Bees new Gloss & Glow glossy balms (Shoppers Drug Mart, $11) in ‘Eat, Drink and Be Cherry’ (transparent red, pictured above) or ‘Wine Wednesday’ (a titch deeper) are loaded with coconut oil and mango butter and give your lips just the right amount of sheer, youthful colour. And a trio of dots stippled onto your cheeks blends easily for a natural ‘no makeup makeup’ flush.

I would be amiss if I didn’t give a shout-out to Maybelline Baby Lips balm in Cherry Me ($4.96, Walmart.ca), long a favourite of my dear friend and colleague, Janine Falcon, to use on both lips and cheeks.

And Cherry Chapstick? Well, it used to leave a hint of red, but Pfizer sold the brand to GlaxoSmithKline in 2019 and they must have reformulated because, even though the balm itself is still pinky red, it sadly no longer deposits any colour. End of an era, really.

Shaving Face: Peach Fuzz Belongs on Fruit (repost)

Gillette Venus Extra Smooth Sensitive multi-blade razor is the best dermaplaning tool.

I’m reposting this from two years ago to remind you that you do NOT need single blade ‘dermaplaning wands’ to shave peach fuzz and dead skin cells from your face. Schick just launched a pack of six such ‘wands’ for $25 and I know you have better things to spend that money on. Keep reading to find out how to dermaplane safely with a well-made, proper razor and stop buying unnecessary things.

***

Some of the things that my mother didn’t warn me about turning 50:

• Thinning lips

• Increased chance of UTIs (That one was definitely unexpected)

• Overnight, weed-like growth of facial hair

And I don’t mean chin hairs — the stealthy ones that you don’t see until they're an inch long, that you tweeze and wonder if you’re becoming a werewolf.

What’s a real nuisance is the all-over “peach fuzz” that appears at menopause when your estrogen levels fall while androgens (primarily testosterone) rise. This ‘vellus hair’ (unlike the thicker ‘terminal’ hair of whiskers, brows, lashes and the hair on your head) may appear in a “male pattern distribution” that starts as pale, downy sideburns and can soon colonize your entire face. Get enough of it and you look fuzzily Muppet-ish when the light hits it just right.

You can go to a med spa for dermaplaning, where someone in a white coat goes at your face with a sharp, single blade, removing that top layer of dead skin to stimulate cell turnover and enhance the penetration of your anti-aging skincare products. As a bonus it takes all that peach fuzz along with it.

But because I am semi-lazy while also being high maintenance, I do it myself and remove the fuzz and dead skin with a proper, multi-blade razor. I don’t trust dedicated, lady face-shaving devices or single-blade ‘wands’ that come in multi-packs. Plus, using a razor with multiple blades “allow(s) you to cut more hairs with less strokes and less irritation," California-based dermatologist Dr. Peterson Pierre recently told Good Housekeeping magazine.

I want the sharp, safe razors built by the obsessives at Procter & Gamble who spend their days worrying about blade-on-skin friction ratios, say things like “we do more welding than most car manufacturers” and get excited by the fact that “the radius of the blade’s tip is 25 nanometers.” (That’s one millimetre divided by 40,000, in case you didn’t know.) 

The Venus Extra Smooth Sensitive razor is perfect for any face-shaving newbie, and with five ‘low cutting force’ blades and a lubricant strip, designed to minimize irritation, it’s already meant for sensitive skin.

Please note that this is an off-label use, that is NOT RECOMMENDED BY THE BRAND. They would say that their Gillette blades for men are designed for faces while the women’s are meant for the straight-away real estate that is your underarms and legs. 

But unlike men who have to go under the chin and down their tender necks and all over uneven terrain (a skill that takes years to master), female vellus hair really just grows in that afore-mentioned sideburn pattern, so you will only be shaving flat areas anyways.

Which I do. I make a point of shaving the fuzzy outer portion of my face in the shower whenever I change blade cartridges. That way I'm using the sharpest blades possible, ensuring an easier and closer shave. And don't worry about the hair growing back thicker if you shave it off. Hair is dead when you cut it, so that’s a myth. It might feel spikier because you razored the ends which makes them pointier. That’s it.

And do remember that peach fuzz and dead skin cell removal will leave your skin receptive to the brightening properties of a Vitamin C serum.

So shave, and then apply some vitamin C and consider that a morning well spent.

Spring Scents for Rain or Shine

Spring does not know her own mind. Chilly and rainy? Sure. Hot and blowy? Also possible. Both extremes are epitomized, above, by Christy Turlington, all bundled up on top, but with bare legs. If Christy were shopping for a blazer in Canada, surely she would get it from Smythe, known for beautifully made toppers and impeccable tailoring, season after season.

And they now have their own eponymous fragrance created by niche perfume house Fueguia 1883 (eau de parfum, $275, shopSmythe.ca) that is genderless and deeply, deeply sexy (I try never to use that word, but it applies here.) It’s loaded with sandalwood and cedar, like a fire roaring in the fireplace at the Gramercy Park hotel (going forward, all my references will be hotel-based because I yearn to travel) and is smokily earthy with patchouli. But then it’s shot through with sharp, sunny, almost astringent bergamot. I predict it will become the scent you smell on striking women as you attempt to dissect what makes their outfits so cool.

Feuguia 1883 also created the signature fragrance for Stockholm’s luxury Ett Hem boutique hotel, that was briefly available at Toronto’s Holt Renfrew for an eye-watering $514 CAN (photo, right.) I couldn’t spend that much on something ephemeral, no matter how much I wanted the cozy, black pepper, cedar and sandalwood scent. But I did take this picture, because I knew I’d never believe a perfume could be so expensive.

No-one does discreetly elegant and achingly expensive-smelling floral perfumes like Valmont. Just spray on their newest Collezione Privata, Just Bloom (eau de parfum $380, Holt Renfrew) and I swear a Chanel tweed jacket will magically appear draped over your shoulders, and instantly you will be ready for tea at the Paris Ritz. Just Bloom, which layers optimistic white flowers (lily of the valley and gardenia) over an enigmatic ‘damp forest floor’ scent of ambergris, has that transformative power.

Aerin Cedar Violet eau de parfum ($155, esteelauder.ca) may have came out last fall, but it quite accurately bottles the sensation of being out on a rainy spring day. Cedar Violet opens all fresh and positively herbal with bright violet leaf and lily of the valley before warming into creamily soft gardenia and cedar. It’s protectively cozy like wearing a paper thin, soft merino wool T-shirt under your rain gear when the skies open up.

Shower Joy: Shampoos that smell like favourite perfumes

There’s nothing as deflating as heading into your morning shower, half asleep, only to be jarred awake by the smell of aggressively scented, ordinary shampoo. We need beauty in those early hours to gently coax ourselves into the ‘what fresh hell awaits us today’ world.

These three haircare products above are excellent and their fragrances are “inspired by” best-selling perfumes. Do I like them more because they smell so good? Yes I do.

Left to right: Unbreak My Blonde Leave-in Treatment from Matrix, Chatters,ca $24.50, softens and strengthens straw-like, bleached blonde hair, all the while evoking Bvlgari’s classic Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert, ($130, Holt Renfrew), the smell of the early ‘90s. Endless copied since its launch in 1992, Bvulgari’s mix of seemingly disparate notes like bergamot, coriander, orange blossom jasmine and rose on a woody and green tea base still smells new.

Bounce.Me Curl shampoo from DesignMe, $27, (centre) is note-for-note Bobbi Brown’s Beach, $105, Sephora, another classic, this one an homage to 70s sunscreens like Coppertone and Bain de Soleil. Remember that metal Bain de Soleil tube of orange ‘gelée’? Nothing was more glamorous. Bounce.Me transforms even the most egregiously fuzzy steel wool hair into soft waves and defined curls. (I always adored the Beach scent and never forgave Bobbi Brown for discontinuing their Beach-scented ‘sandbar' soaps, with their thick crowns of sand for handy exfoliation. They were probably massively injurious to skin, but I loved them.)

From the singular white flowers and sandalwood scent to its suede-finished, parchment coloured bottles, Authentic Beauty Concept’s line for damaged hair both looks and smells like Donna Karan iconic Cashmere Mist deodorant (the Bay, $39). It makes sense given that - fun fact - Cashmere Mist stick deodorant, has been the #1 best selling prestige body product in the US since 1996. ABC’s replenish line (conditioner, above) provides much needed moisture to restore winter-battered hair. And the sueded bottles are especially nice to grip with soapy hands when you are still asleep during that morning shower.

For screen-capping: