Beauty: 95 posts

As the smoke of joss sticks paints fragrant curlicues in the air, I feel that I am participating in some ancient ritual. I love smoky scents in general and my favorite incense perfumes range from tender like Chanel No 22 to austere like Comme des Garçons Avignon. But the process of lighting incense, watching it smolder and then vanish into scented smoke and ashes is what I enjoy the most. The word “joss” came down to us via Portuguese from the Latin deus, god, and whenever I burn incense—even if only to enjoy its perfume, rather than to please a deity—it feels like a spiritual offering.

Continue reading →

Every couple of weeks, I devote an evening to beauty rituals. They are not fancy, nor do they require an appointment at a spa for an expensive treatment, but my evenings of beauty, as I’ve taken to calling them, are just as satisfying. I make a sugar and lemon juice scrub, a yogurt and rosewater mask and a colorless henna treatment that leaves a sweet leathery scent on my hair and everything else it touches. Sometimes I listen to music as I wait for my treatments to work their magic, sometimes I read, but most often, I simply lie down and fall into a daydream.

As I carefully apply the sticky brown paste to each lock, I remember my mother and aunts sharing their beauty secrets and relationship advice as they painted their nails, mashed strawberries for a gentle facial scrub or applied a chamomile and egg yolk mask to enhance blonde highlights in their hair. The taste of strawberry as it dripped from my cheeks and the stickiness of honey on my fingertips is how I remember those long summer evenings. I hope that when I have a daughter, she will instinctively know, just as I now know, how long one needs to rub honey into the skin to make it glowing and how to listen to a story of heartbreak before offering words of support.

Continue reading →

Despite the name George Wilson gave to his book, The Complete Course of Chemistry, he was not a chemist by training. Instead, the volume first published in London in 1691 and subsequently reprinted contained an impressive collection of recipes for herbal preparations, elixirs and alchemy experiments. Glancing through this fascinating compilation, I came across a recipe for Sweet Honey Water that Wilson used on King James II. He describes it as having many wondrous effects on one’s well-being, but it was his remark that this water “gives one of the most agreeable scents that can be smelt” that finally caught my attention. Honey, vanilla, coriander, cloves, and musk certainly sound wonderful together, don’t you think?

Continue reading →

The other day as I was helping my friend to find a new perfume, she remarked that the rules of dating have become very complicated, especially with the advent of new communication technologies. How long do you wait before you reply to his email, how fast should he text you back, etc? Thinking about this gives me a headache far faster than any of the latest celebrity fragrances. As I left my friend to select between Stella McCartney and Hermès Kelly Calèche, I went home to browse through the most famous manual on love for some dating guidance.

Continue reading →

Most makeup accessories I own are purely utilitarian, with looks to match. The exception, however, is my Caron powder puff. It is a feathery light orb of goose down, with a satin ribbon bow. The powder puff I selected is tinted bright fuchsia, although pastel pink, lemon yellow, peach, lavender and red were equally tempting. As I reach for it to put finishing touches on my makeup, I feel as if I am getting ready for a ball, rather than another day at the office. I do not know about you, but I certainly appreciate such fantasies to keep the weight of routine at bay.

Continue reading →