Summer is almost here, which means it’s time to:
Switch your closets from winter to summer clothes.
Confront your flaky-skinned limbs that have been hidden under clothing during a long winter of dry air and central heating.
Choose the right body scrub that aligns with your worldview and current state of mind.
Do you need at least two cups in the morning to be a civil, functioning human? Is your blood roughly 50% shade grown Arabica? Would you kill for an on-demand, cold brew tap in your kitchen? If so, then Drunk Elephant Sugared Koffie Almond Milk Scrub ($37, Sephora) is the perfect reward for waking up and making it to the shower.
Not only is its ground coffee and raw sugar blend a gentle natural exfoliant, coffee seed oil is an antioxidant to calm winter-beaten skin while its heady scent subliminally tells your brain that you’re getting caffeine. Jojoba, marula and coconut oils soften skin, and almond milk moisturizes and soothes and makes the whole thing smell like a custom latte made by angels for the Good Lord herself.
Do you wish your home was a spa? Do you have white terry hotel slippers by the front door to keep guests from wearing their gross ‘outdoor’ shoes in your house? Do you only drink water spiked with fresh mint and cucumber and do you put bowls of cubed watermelon in the fridge and pretend your 'staff' did it?
Clarins Tonic Sugar Polisher ($52, Shoppers Drug Mart) gently exfoliates with hazelnut oil and shea butter while its geranium and rosemary scent will leave your bathroom smelling like the Four Seasons Tribeca (a hotel so luxe it makes Toronto's Four Seasons feel like a Motel 6.) Clarins Tonic is a gorgeous mood-lifter and even its translucent yellow jar glows with the promise of endless summer days spent reclining on a poolside chaise.
Aveeno Positively Radiant 60 Second In-Shower Facial ($13.99, Shoppers Drug Mart) is meant for faces but works brilliantly on bodies too. The glycolic acid effectively dissolves the bonds between dry skin cells and natural cellulose helps sweep them away. It’s a full body spa scrub experience at home.
You may feel wanton using a significant chunk of one tube on your body, like when Kim Basinger allegedly rinsed her shampooed hair with Evian water — there’s a pop culture reference only women my age will get.— but if you do feel guilty, just buy multiple tubes when it goes on sale at Shoppers. This is a perfect example of being extravagant, but never wasteful, which is a useful trait to carry to the rest of your life.
Do you miss travelling? Is your favourite lockdown pastime pouring a large glass of Pinot and “strolling” the streets of Paris on Google Street View? The Body Shop Spa of the World French Grape Seed Scrub, $32 smells brightly green and luxuriously fancy to remind you that you weren’t always a homebound, elastic-waist-pant-wearing drudge.
With powdered grape seeds and evening primrose to gently exfoliate and grape seed oil to soften skin, it can psychically transport you to the vineyard of your choice. The tub is massive which makes its already reasonable price even more of a good deal. It’s a given that you will want to travel once lockdown is over, so if all that online comfort shopping you did over the past year depleted your plane ticket fund, it’s time to build it back up.
Do brightly coloured personal care products give you seizures? With its sleekly minimalist packaging and energizing herbal scent, Necessaire Eucalyptus The Body Exfoliator ($45, Sephora) is all business and a perfect companion for anyone who uses their shower time to brainstorm projects and make endless To Do lists in their head.
The Body Exfoliator contains physical exfoliants bamboo charcoal and volcanic pumice, along with a trio of chemical scrubs: glycolic acid to sweep away dead skin cells, lactic acid to moisturize and salicylic acid to dissolve oil and unclog pores. Now go forth and conquer the day, you sleek-limbed thing, you.