Caudalie Fig Body Oil: Practically Perfect in Every Way

Caudalie’s new Smooth & Glow Oil Elixir, (Sephora Canada, $66) is for anyone who spent the summer in the water until their fingers got all pruney and their hair turned to straw. Or it’s for that optimistic soul who stayed too long in the sun, trying to bank enough residual heat to keep them warm throughout the winter. Pity that doesn’t actually work.

But dreading winter aside, this is the oil blend to take your dried-out, late summer skin from faintly reptilian to a hydrated, ‘let’s turn the clock back, shall we?’ dream state. Loaded with antioxidant-rich prickly pear, argan and shea oils, Caudalie Smooth & Glow Elixir also adds softness and shine to crispy, frizzed out hair. All with a wonderful, ‘fig bush after a summer storm’ fragrance. And while the scent is epically figgy, there’s also a faint undercurrent of warm cedar to temper the sweetness. (If you like Diptyque’s Philosykos, Caudalie Smooth & Glow is for you.)

But I’m betting you won’t truly appreciate this oil until you crack open a bottle in deepest darkest November. Then you’ll get a serotonin jolt of happy from the scent and your skin will be very grateful for the much-needed moisture. But why would I even mention November? That seems unnecessarily negative.

Sunscreen For People Who Hate Sunscreen: Shiseido Clear Sunscreen Stick

Choosing a sunscreen can bring out your inner Goldilocks — this lotion is too thick, this one is weirdly greasy,  this one makes your face ghostly white. It’s a boring exercise, especially when all you want is applause for your diligent sunscreen use.

So cynical me, I was immediately skeptical of Shiseido's clear sunscreen stick which promises to avoid all those issues and seemed too good to be true. But it is actually that good.

Shiseido’s Clear Sunscreen Broad Spectrum Wet Force stick ($40, Sephora) is a gel solid in a swivel-up stick that you swipe on with broad strokes, so your fingers never touch the product. When sunscreen application is simple and mess-free, you are hopefully more inclined to reapply, because for sunscreen to work, you need to keep topping up every two hours if you are outdoors and wet (preferably from being in a pool or lake, if it’s a day like today.)

Shiseido’s Clear Sunscreen stick protects against both UVA (aging) and UVB (burning) rays with broad spectrum SPF 50, and Shiseido’s proprietary Wet Force and HeatForce technologies that cleverly leverage heat and water to amplify the sunscreen's effectiveness. (It’s as if Shiseido is compelling you to get in the water.)

And because it’s a gel solid, It won’t drip into your eyes when you ride a bike, play tennis, tend to your garden or just live your life in our unreasonably humid climate. And if you are a makeup wearer (and props to you for wearing makeup in this heat) you can even swipe it over top and it won’t disturb your makeup at all. It is the easiest sunscreen to use by far. So no excuse. Go get it before it sells out again.

After Sun Bliss: Exfoliating Bar Soap

Oh, the pure, unalloyed joy of unwrapping a fresh bar of soap to take into the shower. Specifically, this one, the SheaMoisture 100% Virgin Coconut Oil & Shea Butter Soap, $7.50 CAN, amazon.ca. A hefty half-pound of lightly scented, skin-nourishing happiness, it also contains finely ground coconut fruit and shell to gently exfoliate. All you have to do is rub it all over your skin after a day spent outdoors to gently remove grime and now past-it sunscreen. It’s as soothing as a head scratch but for your entire body.

Ah, bar soap. The world has slowly capitulated to body washes and in the mid teens bar soap sales declines precipitously as millennials viewed it as unhygienic and hard on skin so only men should use it on their rough, beardy faces. Body wash was convenient (shudder) and bar soap was a fusty relic of your grandmother’s powder room. (Remember all those pale blue, shell-shaped guest soaps in milk glass dishes?) And thus began the global domination of body wash and pump hand soaps and we lost the sensorial delight of unwrapping a fresh bar, the engraved letters still crisp under our fingers. I remember reading someone declare that if they won the lottery, they would open a new bar of soap every day for their bath.

Unlike pricy scented bars from fragrance brands — my favourite Sisley soap is now $135, which is patently absurd — SheaMoisture’s coconut oil and shea butter soap is very well priced. Each half pound bar (227 grams) is only $7.50, so you can make a pleasing stack of them in your linen closet to greet you every time you open the door to grab a towel. Because that too is one of life’s great pleasures: being welcomed by tidy, all-white towers of neatly folded linens, towels and an ample soap stash. It’s the little things.

The 'I Want To Be Invited Back' Cottage Gift Guide 2022

Lake of Bays, 2022.

Bringing generous and practical gifts for your cottage-owning friends all but ensures an invitation next season. For more suggestions see the last cottage gift guide here.

Instagram’s new favourite account is @ironicboatandtote because the hive mind discovered that LL Bean will embroider whatever you like on their signature sturdy canvas carryalls ($39-$59.) A cleverly monogrammed, oversized tote to haul necessities from the car to the cottage and down to the dock is always welcome.

You can take inspiration from the irreverent folks above (our favourites include ‘ Zoloft’ and ‘Prada’) or embroider your host’s name or initials or their cottage name on a tote. The all-cream LL Bean version is very chic, especially with the same colour embroidery, for a truly monochromatic look. But if you can’t get your hands on one, the dark blue or black straps are still the classic choice.

Put the boat in the water, take the boat out of the water, haul some rusty, scrap metal to the dump, clear the overgrown brush by the road.

Having a cottage is a never-ending chore list, so Awaye pain relief cream, $23.29, Amazon.ca, is a very thoughtful, if rather unexpected, gift. Not a CBD cream, it contains β-caryophyllene that blocks the pain receptors in the body’s endocacannabinoid system (ECS) like CBD creams do. Added capsaicin, (with its pain relieving properties) amplifies the effects of the β-caryophyllene making Awaye more effective than CBD alone. And because Awaye doesn’t actually contain cannabis, it isn’t subject to cannabis regulation and costs much less than CBD cream.

Endear yourself to your friends by clearing some of that afore-mentioned brush (obviously ask first.) A sandvik, aka Swedish Clearing Axe, $76, Leevalley.com, slices through unwanted saplings (I’m looking at you, poplars) and underbrush like butter.

A new Maglite flashlight for the bunkie or a guest room is always welcome, because you can literally never have too many flashlights at the cottage. A Maglite is sleek-looking, reassuringly hefty and the light it throws can illuminate a scary walk back to your cabin.

If you are borrowing a family cottage for a week and need to make a huge gifting splash and Homer Simpson donut pool floats are not the right vibe for the lake, a Yeti Tundra 35” cooler, $375, is rugged, super practical and just this side of fancy.

And if an almost $400 cooler is too rich for your blood, (remember - this is a hostess gift. I’m not suggesting you buy this for yourself!) then an oversized Yeti 1 litre water bottle is a more practical gift choice.)

Not only does this Citronella Night Jasmine candle, snapdragondesigns.ca, $59.50, contain bug-repelling citronella, it smells wonderfully of jasmine and orange flower (aka neroli) and its graphic illustration is chic and suitably cottage-y.

And don’t forget to spell off your host and bring all the ingredients for at least one complete meal for everyone. If your wallet allows, this is the time to blow the budget on seafood and steaks (especially appreciated if your hosts have children and their disposable income now goes towards extracurriculars and orthodontia.)

And finally — just for fun, throw in some multipacks of TP. (This idea courtesy of a lovely cottage-owning friend.) It began as a Covid-inspired idea two years ago, but given the price of everything now, this is both a practical and luxurious gift.)

Gucci Westman Loves Jergens Natural Glow Self Tanner

The tubes are not chic, you find them at the drugstore or the grocery store, and yet Jergens Natural Glow instant and gradual self tanners are just so good that even celebrity makeup artist Gucci Westman, lover of expensive beauty products and founder of Westman Atelier (my favourite ‘clean beauty’ line, hands down) uses them, as seen in this YouTube screen grab. (Yes, this is the self-same Gucci Westman who did Gwyneth’s wedding makeup, which must be the biggest clean beauty flex of all time.)

Jergens Natural Glow products create a beautiful, authentic-looking tan, come in two strengths (for fair or deeper-toned skin) so you can’t overdo it and the gradual tan lotions are on sale right now at Shoppers Drug Mart, possibly getting cleared off of shelves for winter (which makes no sense, because that’s when we need self-tanner the most.) So I would humbly suggest you go get some immediately.

Pedicure Secrets From Essie Nail Pro Rita Remark

Essie’s Tangerine Tease and Bikini So Teeny

After feeling like a hobbit these past many months, I’m happy to be pedicuring again. Pedicure appointments are up 200% from their pre-pandemic numbers, because freshly done toes make you feel instantly groomed and provide a happy hit of serotonin each time you catch a glimpse of your feet.

But if a salon visit is still out of the question, a DIY pedicure can also provide a happy feeling even if your execution isn’t 100%. After all, your feet are far away, so you or anyone else can’t be inspecting them too closely. (That’s at least one bonus to having failing eyesight.)

As we age, getting glossy, perfect toes may require overcoming such dubious delights as ridges on nails and ever-drier skin. So we asked Essie’s ebullient and super-talented lead nail artist, Rita Remark, how to handle these obstacles (with product recommendations too), as she is a firm believer that you can do it yourself with a bit of insider knowledge.

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Oldish: I understand that you have your own optimal pedicure posture?

RR: For a lot of us it’s common to sit on a chair, and fold ourselves in half like a compact, with our head between our legs and we’re polishing that way. That just makes me dizzy.

When you apply polish with your chest on your knees it’s really not comfortable, so I always recommend you sit on the floor and prop your foot up on a book. If you get your foot a little higher off the ground at a better level, it makes the whole process much easier.

What are your favourite summer colours?

It’s not summer until I have Bikini So Teeny (above) on my toes. It’s beyond sky blue –if you took sky blue and made it neon. And Tangerine Tease is such a bright orange, a traffic cone orange.

Are there any polish finishes you should avoid over 50?

I would absolutely avoid anything frosted or metallic because these shine a light on the ridges. If you want a glamorous look, instead use a glittery polish (small or large glitter bits work) which obscures imperfections on the nail. Other textures that work great for ridged nails are cream, sheer and jelly. Just make sure to always pair them with the ridge filling base coat.

Do you recommend buffing and/or using a ridge-filling base coat?

Essie Smooth-e base coat

A light buff with a buffing block will be helpful for superficial ridges, but it's critical to not overdo it or to buff too often. Once every couple weeks is fine, but too much will thin your nails or cause peeling. 

To conceal ridges, start your manicure with a ridge filling base coat like Essie Smooth-e, $12.99, Shoppers Drug Mart. it doesn't just even out the surface of the nail, it also contains ceramides that lock in moisture for dry nails. 

Any special top coat?

A more voluminous topcoat like Essie Gel.setter $12,99, Shoppers Drug Mart, will fill in any left-over ridges or uneven areas on the nail, leaving a glass-like shine.

When you apply top coat, always use a light touch and make sure the brush doesn’t press into the polish – the brush should just glide down the nail. Just hover and bring it down lightly and always cap the tip, to prevent chips. 

Dry skin seems drier now. But even diligently applying a rich lotion doesn’t seem to do enough.

As we age, our nails, like our skin and hair, have a tougher time retaining moisture. So it's important to use a cuticle/nail moisturizer daily (or many times throughout the day) to keep nails and cuticles soft, strong and beautiful. 

Essie Apricot Nail & Cuticle Oil

I love Apricot Nail & Cuticle Oil, $12.99, Shoppers Drug Mart, because it uses apricot kernel oil which mimics our skin's own sebum so it's absorbed easily without a greasy residue. it also smells delicious which is a great incentive to use it all the time.

And cuticle oil will extend the life of your pedicure because if your cuticles are intact, your polish grows out really nicely.  

Forever Summer: Caudalie Soleil des Vignes

Caudalie Soleil des Vignes is pure beach in a bottle

Here’s a counterintuitive take: summer fragrances should be released in August to help ease you into fall and give you something to hang on to during the cold, coming months.

Whether by design or not, Caudalie’s summery Soleil des Vignes ($46 CAN) eau fraîche just launched in Canada, And while I’m wearing it now because it smells like monoï oil, I will be gripping it with ice-cold hands throughout the winter. It is pure and potent summer-in-a-bottle and I’ll need that more in January than I do now.

Monoï oil is tiare flowers (aka Tahitian gardenias, see photo below) steeped in coconut oil to create a singular, complex, vanilla-ish floral, coconut scent. And while that sounds like a lot, it’s actually ethereal, sunlit and very beachy, but in a glamorous, non-Hawaiian Tropic way. (In France, monoï is available in every pharmacy, like it was toothpaste for heaven’s sake. Lucky French.) Caudalie’s homage to monoï is spiked with bitter orange and mandarin, transforming it into an energizing but still beach-evoking eau fraîche.

There’s also a Soleil des Vignes bath gel, which I am not even cracking open now, but saving for my February box, because I am forward-thinking and I know how much I’ll need it then.

Monoï oil from Tahiti via France. (See the now-darkened gardenia floating just above the label?)

A February Box is an assortment of summery gifts you collect now to give your future self when you will be at your lowest, olfactorily and psychologically speaking.

This is not to be confused with the November box, which is stuffed with cozy treats, because in November you’ll need things that aid in creating your winter nest.)

And yes, I make it through the endless Canadian winter with a variety of targeted boxes. Sue me.

Weekend Dinner: Summer Pasta Lets the Sun do the Cooking

These simple ingredients mean dinner is almost ready.

Summer pasta is the best sort of recipe. A no-cook sauce that uses the heat of the noonday sun to infuse roughly chopped tomatoes with the flavours of basil, garlic and olive oil, you prep it in the morning, so when dinner time rolls around you only have to cook (and drain) the pasta and add it to the bowl. Plus all the tedious (and potentially dangerous) chopping was done hours earlier, which is great if you’ve now consumed a glass or more of rosé and shouldn’t be allowed near knives.

A 1980s artifact from The Silver Palate cookbook, Summer Pasta bears the hallmarks of that more-is-more decade. The original recipe went heavier on the olive oil and called for an indulgent, entire wheel of camembert. Sure it’s a whole wheel, but if you’ve removed the rind, that has to reduce the calorie count too, right?

But maybe I’m just rationalizing. If it still seems like too much, you can use less cheese, but I wouldn’t recommend it. This is not the time to be mingy.

Summer Pasta

Ingredients (serves four)

·       5 fist-sized tomatoes or 7 roma tomatoes, cored, seeded and cut into ½ inch cubes

·       A half-pound wheel of very ripe camembert, rind removed (don’t substitute a strongly flavoured brie, because the sharpness will dominate. You want bland creaminess.)

·       ½ cup basil leaves, torn up or chiffonaded (rolled up and cut into thin strands)

·       2 medium cloves of garlic, finely minced

·       ¼ to ½ cup of olive oil (the original recipe called for 1 cup. Ugh. No.)

·       1 box (450-500 grams) of spaghetti or small pasta shapes

·       Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Dice the tomatoes into a bowl and add the torn basil leaves, finely minced garlic cloves and a healthy glug of olive oil (a quarter cup is more than fine.)

Remove the rind from a half pound wheel of ripe camembert and put its gooey interior into the bowl along with everything else. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and place it in direct sun for the flavours to meld. And finally, while you’re still feeling all briskly industrious, put a lidded pot of salted water on the stove, ready to go. (Obviously, don’t turn the stove on yet.)

When everyone starts thinking about dinner (and when you feel least like it), drag yourself to the kitchen. Cook your pasta as directed and then drain (reserving maybe a quarter cup of pasta water) and place back into the warm empty pot.

Add the very warm, sun-melded tomato and basil sauce and fold in quickly with a wide spatula. The cheese will melt and vanish, coating each pasta strand. You will not need parmesan. Divide into bowls and garnish each with fresh basil leaves and then take them outside to join your friends.

The ‘I Would Like to be Invited Back’ Cottage Gift Guide

Lake of Bays July 25, 2019

Cottage host gifting is all about largesse.

If someone is lending you their lake house this summer, or you’re lucky enough to have cottage-owning friends or family in your ‘bubble’, this year’s essential gift is not a sold out Provençal rosé, but rather hard-to-find Lysol wipes. (I recently got some at Dollarama. Go figure.) But that’s only your opening gift salvo. 

Bring snacks (healthy and otherwise) as well as all the components for one very nice dinner. Throw in a special bottle for the host to enjoy later, apart from what you’ve brought to consume during your stay. And if you are positively giddy with the thought of leaving the steamy city for a cool, quiet lake, then add a gift so nice and unexpected that every time your hosts look at it they’ll think, “oh, we must invite her back.” 

And don’t forget to sweep up the bunkie on your last day, strip your bed (or even better, bring your own sleeping bag so you’re not sticking them with laundry) and maybe leave some gas money if they took you out in the boat for a tour of the area or wake surfing.  

Enjoy your stay!

Images clockwise from centre upper right

• If your hostess was a bookish young girl in the 1970s, The Long Secret is a trip back in time. The darkish 1965 sequel to Harriet the Spy spoke directly to outwardly polite girls with hidden reserves of intensity. And it takes place in Water Mill, on the south fork of Long Island, New York, i.e. the Hamptons before they were “The Hamptons”. 

• Hand sanitizer is part of our daily lives now, so make it pretty. Vancouver’s own AG Hair’s Hands Free Clean Hand Sanitizer Gel, $13, in a sleek pump bottle, looks chic on an entry hall table and its 73% ethyl alcohol formula is effective, while aloe and glycerin calm skin and restore moisture. AG Hair has donated 5,000 bottles to BC area frontline and health care workers.

•  A family sized bottle of Bioderma Photoderm SPF 40 High Protection Spray sunscreen, $37.90, contains almost half a litre of sunscreen, with a trigger sprayer that makes it easy to keep the entire brood protected.

• Draped over the back of a couch during the day (cannily hiding that patch that the cat destroyed) and over your shoulders on the deck on chilly nights, The Bay’s 350th anniversary sterling wool caribou throw, $170, is a monochromatic take on the classic multi-hued Hudson’s Bay point blanket and its subtle gradations of pale to dark grey stripes will elevate any room.

• If those tubes and jars in the cottage bathroom have Zeller’s price stickers, they’re probably pretty old. Restock the medicine chest with Canada’s own Zax’s Original brand natural remedies like arnica-based Bruise Cream, $19, and soothing Bug Bite & Itch Cream, $16. (Zax’s is donating twenty per cent of online sales to the Red Cross in support of Covid-19 initiatives.)

• Saje x Jillian Harris Aroma Carve ($94) diffuser’s fluted cylindrical cover looks beautiful on a shelf. Too many diffusers just look like diffusers and that utterly defeats the point. Include Saje Deep Breath Diffuser Blend, $16, a mix of eucalyptus, peppermint, and lavender that is not only calming and invigorating, but also refreshes musty cottage and cottage bathroom air.

• A French market basket can corral towels indoors or get loaded up to stylishly transport a picnic lunch to the beach.  

• Nude’s Glacier Wine Cooler, $118, is so elegantly sleek and unfussy that your hosts might even decide to bring it back to the city. Include a fresh bag of ice from the gas station en route and be the cottage hero.

• Sure you can bring the ingredients for a summer cocktail (Remember Greyhounds? I would like to bring them back) but a modern classic like Cave D'Esclans Whispering Angel Rosé is always a crowd-pleaser.

Neutrogena Sunscreen Mist Makes It Easy To Stay Protected

Keep this by your side for the remainder of the summer

Of course you’re diligent with sunscreen in the morning, after you shower. That’s the easy part. It’s when the sun is at its highest and it’s time for your lunchtime sunscreen re-up when it all falls apart. Who wants to get their hands all sticky adding a layer of goo to an already heat-dampened face?

Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Face Sunscreen is a fine mist, so it’s easy to apply as your critical midday top-up, no face-touching required. Reapplying sunscreen throughout the day will protect you from dark spots and expensive IPL (intense pulsed laser) spot-removing treatments down the road, so why wouldn’t you?

At 100 mls, it can go in your carry-on (I’m not, but some of us are flying) and it’s small enough to slide into your straw summer tote. And arguably not that important, but very important to me, the delicate fragrance is nicely ‘chi-chi beach club with white chaise longues’, so you get an olfactory reward for using your sunscreen.