Does the good life really needs to be expensive?

In times of financial crisis the thing is all about economising. Normally the first things which have to go are the so called superfluous things, or "luxury" - like eating bio food, going in museums, giving  presents, buying fresh flowers for your home, going to the hairdresser, inviting friends, giving a party and buying books. Which is a catastrophe in terms of economy, as the small businesses, your hairdresser, the bookshop and the bakery will have to close down for the lack of customers. If you stop buying the Belgium strawberries, f.e,  at a price of 8 Euros a batch and turn to the Spanish ones at 3.50 a batch, you know what will be the outcome: more planes in the sky for cheaper strawberries. Or no strawberries at all.

And it is a catastrophe in terms of health - more junk food, more waste and less socialising. Eating a cold pizza in front of the telly alone is not - at least my - a way of living the good life.

Now let's start to look at the good life from the other side.
 

Actually living the good life is a state of mind and has - ultimately - not really something to do with money. I always get on your nerves about beauty, but believe me, it is so important and helps in each and every aspect of our daily lives today.  

All of the things I spoke of, like going to the hairdresser or buying less bio food - all that is false economy, on the long run. If you do not feel well in your life, nobody else will make you feel well. If you take the wrong based decisions - nobody else will have the instrument to remedy those.

The good life is all about the things you cannot buy - OK, fair enough, having the money  at hand and not to have to think twice is making it much easier, but then, let's be honest, do we not have enough money?? I do not talk here of world poverty and the poor in our streets - they are not reading this blog, I suppose. But me and you, out there?

To live a good live is important, very much so. Why should you bother otherwise? And the good life depends mostly on your attitude, not on the Louis Vuitton Handbag.
 

The older I get the more I cherish the things money cannot buy: friends, time, health, beauty, laughter, good company, blue sky, fresh water, a good conversation, trees, a hot espresso in a street cafe in Munich, clean bedsheets, homemade confiture, my old discs of Bach and Abba, the same model of shoes for their comfort and a good beloved handbag, which has been perhaps very expensive but gets only better with wear and tear.
 

So, the good life being expensive is the one where you go to the Seychelles for the weekend or stay at the 9star Hotel  in London, buying washing powder for your clothes at Harrods and having your shirts ironed in Hongkong. All is possible. And if people want to do it, then it is their own choice and they are welcome to it. But  if that means that other mortals feel a permanent lack of possibilities, then I invite you all to have a good hard look and stop fidgeting about that nonsense.

Small children in plublic places...

Bear with me for some serious moaning.
The other day I was waiting at the dry cleaners to bring in my winter coat to have it cleaned and then to store it away- in an attack of forcing spring to arrive here sooner. It was already around 1800 hours, a normal and long work day, in a reasonably friendly neighbourhood, one where you still know your clients by name.
I was  the only customer after a lady who was standing there waiting her turn. She was there with three kids, all under 10, of which two, a boy about 10, a girl about 7 were behaving like little mice: they were sitting on the bench for people who wait, very quietly and kindly talking in a low voice to each other.

The third child, a little girl, very sweet and lovely, was hanging on her stylish mother, the child perhaps around three years old. And it was hell. The little brat did not keep still for a moment, was singing, chatting, rattling away with silly remarks, moving around and getting not only on her siblings'  nerves, who became more and more quiet. It seems a diva is born. The mother, during all that running around, touching things, showing tongues to me or funny faces to the saleslady, singing loud, in short, simply being a nuisance, did not say a word.
I, old warhorse that I am by now, was watching. And on and on it went. The poor lady at the counter could hardly concentrate, the mother did not move but was deeply in union with her mobile phone, the little girl dashing around the shop and between the clothes, the two other children being quietly sitting on the bench, trying to ignore all of us.
Then they left.

I looked at the lady, who looked back at me and said: "MON DIEU! I have never seen such bad behaviour. And I have four of my own."
And I felt I had found a sister soul.

SO, how do you turn your little loved monster in a good behaved child at least in public? What it does at home is another question, worth a full post on this blog.
But in public: Mothers and fathers, grandparents, uncles and aunts of this world, do not believe that everybody thinks your children are the best, the funniest and the most beautiful. This is a privilege of us moms and dads. Normally  nobody else thinks children behaving badly so much fun.

So, what to do? Do not ignore them. Take them at the hand. Look at them and say: Enough now, there are other people here and we do not want them to be disturbed. This applies to the child jumping up and down in front of a beaming mother in the plane, the howling child at the supermarket cash table fighting for the candy there and for the toddler with his tricycle, banging into other pedestrians repeatedly.

But back to my dry cleaners: And if the child does not hear, you  always can apologise to the salesperson for leaving just a minute, and put your child in your car, where it has to wait until you have finished your business. Not always the kindest way, but a possibility to keep sane after all, for mother child and onlooker together.

Don't get me wrong. I am the first to engage with a child which smiles at me. But this is about basic manners - OF THE PARENT. You' feel much better and in control  if you take care of your children and not just ignore them as the best way to educate them.  Your child will feel much safer for knowing the boundaries and knowing that you are SEEING her/him. They need it. Believe me, it is true.

Spring Clean your Skin - again!

Well, it has been a while that I wrote about cremes and stuff and here is spring again! Fresh game, fresh luck?

While browsing the relevant magazines - a true refreshing and relaxing activity, highly inspiring - there is still a very clear tendency  this year for this fresh and glowing bare nude skin allover. Hurrah! As I never use foundation ( though age tells me that I should consider it seriously - but then you cannot kiss your beloved ones without smearing tons of coloured grease on them) the idea of clear and beautiful skin appeals to me very much.

And as you have perhaps already read in my first steps here in this blog (3/2011), in my humble opinion, cleaning is simply the single best advice for a good skin. Simple as that. Sure, not a good idea to do this with baking soda - which by the way in careful measures is great for zapping that pimple - you use a baking soda toothpaste you have more or less the same effect. But investing in ten minutes daily in the evening cleansing your skin and while doing so doing a small massage is the best and most promising thing to do if you want to keep a nice fine texture in your face.

For me the best cleansers are still Eve Lom, the mud soap wash by Kanebo and cleansing milks from Clarins. But this is out of habit of a lifetime and it makes only sense, to stick to using the products I like if they work. Recently I have tried "Bio Cellular Super Cleanse" by the range of Elemental Herbology and I liked that very well indeed. It is a sort of balm, which gets softer on the skin and with a bit of water ends up as a milky concoction which leaves skin really nice! Another really good alternative is the "Persil Seed Facial Cleansing Oil" made by Aesop.The smell is a bit too organic for my taste, but it works great and leaves the skin glowing and clean.

Well, back to that skin. I have already written that I have become a convert to face oils, funnily enough already before the new fad for oils started. It seems the great next thing - oils for everything. Hair, skin, lips and all. Actually a good oil fits all needs you might have in the skincare sector - like the Musketeers, one for all, all for one.Surely, one has to get used to using oils to clean the skin, but then it makes all sense: for thousands of years people have used oil in their body care and beauty regimes and once you have tried it you will understand why.

One of the great concerns in older lifetimes are the open pores - the skin gets more coarse, and looses that fine and velvety texture. To be honest, apart form aggressively peeling your skin, there is nothing much to be done, really. But this  sad situation can be kept in check with cleaning regularly those zones - best not too aggressively though . But then you know your skin best and should know what you can "do to yourself" and what not. For me, for example a peeling is already very dangerous - my skin flares up and gets all red over.  Note to self: Every skin is different and when you have reached a certain age, then you should know your own skin. When in doubt opt for the gentler version ( great advice anyway in all sorts of things...) If not, brew a cup of tea and start thinking about your life...



Again the AESOP face oils are really good and worth a try - there is one rosehip oil called "Damascan Intense Rose Facial Treatment", which is for my sensitive and dehydrated skin a gods end. The best though by far is unfortunately the terribly expensive Olio Lusso from Rodin - one oil that does it all - no nights creams no day creams nor serums nor tonics, nor lotions - exactly my cup of tea. And if you do not have to buy all those things, then it is not sooooo expensive after all. I am not so very fond of all the praising and publicity around this new brand, but must admit that it is really good.

Of course it is essential, once in a while to reconsider ones beauty routine - and again, the secret lies in the fact that you follow it, whatever it is, really regularly.

There are also an awful lot of new face creams out there - I used to dream to become beauty editor at Vogue just to be able to try all that stuff - but now I am not sure about this any more. The sheer offer screams at your face ( good joke) and is simply overwhelming. When I stroll through the beauty alleys I am almost fed up with all the possibilities being thrown at me, my skin and my purse. Feels like shopping in the Soldes, I rather buy nothing because I cannot make up my mind and do not know what to choose. I for one love the personal touch, I would like the people to know me and my skin and love to have the little chat about this and that product and then I like to stay with a thing that works for me - definitely not the ideal customer for all those 1001 new things, which come up every year. Well, good buy, is all I say....

To tell the truth, if you cleanse and hydrate, you can take what ever you like, be it a very expensive or a less-heavy-assault-on-your-purse cream. You get my point, Creme de la Mer against L'Oreal  - is it not more about the prestige of the pot sitting on our bathroom shelves??? It is more about doing some pampering for ourselves than actually the rock bottom science behind it all. We all know this, but then what we buy is in fact really the "Hope in a jar". We buy our little part of eternal beauty we would like to have with us for ever. A lovely pot full of deliciously smelling face cream or a lovely little flakon with some oil is simply beautiful and satisfies that need for beauty I am always  coming back to. Essential for a good life - sorry but this is what I really want you to understand....

And to prove my point: My mother for example still belongs to that generation which lived all her life with Nivea cream and her skin looks simply wonderful, soft, wrinkly and velvety 90 years.

All that does not hinder me to still mourn my best beloved cream and never found a substitute: Dior, "Icone" - it was THE cream for me for over two decades, moved with me to Portugal, to Delhi and to Ankara. Until it was no more.  But then nothing lasts for ever as we all know. Not even Dior Cremes! Shame.