How to have Perfect Hair

Perfect hair is the best accessory. Best hairdresser Jessica makes her blowouts perfect with a few simple tricks she has shared with me, for better at home results.
It begins with shampoo:

• Use a clarifying shampoo occasionally to remove build up - be careful, these can be drying to the hair.
• Use a toner shampoo once a week to tone down brassiness.
• Then deep condition, preferably under heat. There are heated caps available for this too. Or, use a plastic cap, heat your head with a blow dryer, then wrap a towel warm from the dryer over to capture the heat. Letting it cool after twenty minutes seals the cuticle, creating shine.

Then shampoo and use a light conditioner. When applying Argan Oil, begin at the nape of the neck and work outward.
Super Salve has Replenishing Hair Mask and Body Nurish makes Organic Herbal Hair & Scalp Treatment  this product is brilliant for both the scalp and hair. Massage your head, or ask a friend. This relaxes the muscles, softening the face, and like all products form the Super Salve Company, it smells divine, the scent being fully a part of the experience.
An shiner spray really boosts your hair, Jessica often uses Aquage on my hair.
Never color more than a shade or two from your natural color, and ask your hairdresser for an alternative to harsh foils - glosses break up the roots and help your hair grow out the foils for a more natural and elegant look.
Make perfect hair a habit, don't wait for a special occasion - create the opportunity for a special occasion.

Audrey Hepburn and Sex Appeal

“There is more to sex appeal than just measurements. I don't need a bedroom to prove my womanliness. I can convey just as much sex appeal, picking apples off a tree or standing in the rain.”
Audrey Hepburn

Apples aid digestion, are alkaline, this means they balance the acidity in the body, and aid digestion. The pectin keeps your blood sugar stable, so you are less hungry during the day. Combined with an aged cheddar, it provides disgestiive enzymes, it's perfectly balanced, like Reiki for food. Apple cider vinegar suppresses hunger and helps removes toxins.

Apples and cheese are the most perfect match, portable, and nutritious. If you are sharing with someone who gets that apprehensive look that they are about ready to announce they are vegan, graciously pre-empt them and swoop down on their cheese and snatch it like a eagle carrying a carrying off wiggling puppy.
Power Repair Fruity Lift has natural fruit enzymes to exfoliate your skin, so creams penetrate and lines diminish.

Plant an apple tree, or have a picnic in an orchard. Make your beau a pie -it's easier than you think, and he will  gaze at you like you are a winning quarterback  - Audrey is right, sex apeal  is you.  

A Reiki Hot Stone Facial for Symmetry

Tina the Reiki Master gave me a reiki/cranio sacral/hot stone facial, followed by a serious vitamin C mask. The results are symmetry restored to my face, all signs of tension gone, and a very posh glow to my skin, like a lovely sunset, sublte and stunning.
Body Nurish has several great masks, and its fun to be creative with layering. after you exfoliate with the green clay mask, soothe with the Jelly Mask, and then layer on the Vitamin C serum generously - clerks will linger giving you your change and the extra quart of oil for your car engine is on the house.
Ahhh, with your life so much easier, you are that much closer to a book contract, it's easier to be noble and take the high road, and you never know, there could be a wondreful rustic lodge nestled in the trees at the end of the high road.

Poem 4 U

Autumn
by Emily Dickinson
The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry’s cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.
The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I’ll put a trinket on.

The Cheekbone Relaxer

Winter is snow with black silhouettes - Vincent Van Gogh

Winter is on it's way, and make the very best of it. Make a 6 am walkies date with a friend, rather than an excuse. Find joy in what there is - go to a wine tasting and dinner in an art deco hut half way up a live snow covered volcano, Mt. Hood comes to mind. Find vintage cookbooks, and entertain graciously over the course of an evening - place cards, candles, a proper dinner party from beginning to end. Plant a swath crocus bulbs in the middle of your lawn, you will enjoy color before the mowing begins.
And of course, remove tension to stay pretty:
This massage increases facial circulation and helps clear the sinuses.
Starting at the corners of your nose, apply slight pressure to your nose with your index finger. Sweep out towards your ears and fold for three seconds. Repetez as needed.
Rub Organic Herbal Hair and Scalp Treatment into your hair, and play Buddy Holly's Greatest hits while you dry skin brush. Keep the week day showers fun with Organic Coconut Sugar Scrub - it has pink clay in it, and the smell is so wonderful I have a visceral craving for that, and the coconut cleansing milk. Remember, your shower releases endorphins, it is on bit of joy in the daisy chain of the day - how much beauty can you fit into your day?

Beautiful Week-end

This is my weekend - Mt. Hood in Oregon, staying at Timberline Lodge.
Awesome, in the proper sense of the word.
Have a beautiful week-end.
When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Benefits of Microcurrent vs. Cupping

Microcurrent for facial toning gives immediate results that increase with more treatments. Microcurrent can be expensive, and while I know a handful of people who have the machine in their home, this costs more than their housekeeper's car.
Cupping is easy and inexpensive. A set of cups costs about $65.  Cupping is effective -it stimulates circulation and collagen production, moves lymph, sculpts, lifts and tones.
I use the Fruity Lift from supersalve.com to help it along.
My lovely Reiki Master Tina is amazed at the firmness cupping has given my jawline.
Both are non invasive and keep you from going down the slippery slope of more drastic treatments.
Cupping vs. Microcurrent - both!
Start the habit before you think you need to do so!
When your skin looks great, the need to shop is less as you are more satisfied with your appearance. With the money saved you can take a botanical drawing class in London, or go to an auberge and learn to make charcuterie. What a wonderful  hostess gift that will make for the holidays, something you made yourself!

Eliminate Crow's Feet

Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful. 
Ralph Waldo Emerson
This exercise eliminates the appearance of crow's feet by plumping and building the muscles around the eye so that the skin doesn't furrow when you smile. This tones the eye socket muscles.
Open your mouth making a big O, and pace your middle and ring fingers below the outer corners of your eyes. Squint up into the inner corners of your eyes, tyring to close only the lower lids keep upper lids open and stationary, lifting 10 times, repetez three times. Yes, I think was from a yoga teacher named River, or perhaps Pine, but it works.
Body Nurish Soothing Herbal Jelly Mask  is a treat it is hydrating, softening, and you can leave it on as long as you like, it absorbs and disappears.
Tina the Reiki Master today gave me her Age Defying Facial - Hydro dermabrasion, followed by a hyaluronic acid contour mask and LED Therapy. No crows feet or flaws at all.
Celebrate eliminating crows's feet by watching Hitchcock's The Birds and making Black Onyx Chocolate Pudding with Whip Cream, served in individual ramekins. And give yourself a hand for all your hard work!

Carats are Good for Eyes

To me, fair friend, you never can be old
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still.
William Shakespeare

The skin around the eye is thin, so it is more prone to puffiness. Lymphatic drainage is the key to facial freshness, and the Clarisonic Opal gently stimulates the lymph, to help it move along. It is only a minute a day, or so, depending on your level of enthusiasm. Results are visible the first time, and are of course, cumulative. Serums penetrate deeper, keeping the muscles moist and plump.
Body Nurish  and  Power Repair both make great eyecreams, and the easiest eye brigthtener is this: rub the palms of your hands briskly together, until heat is generated then cup your hands over your eyes, and feel the energy shift. After a minute or so, remove your hands, your eyes will look soft and relaxed.
Carats of course are good for eyes.

Flaunt Your Natural Beauty with an Oxygen Facial

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness.
Keats

Oxygen facials are another arrow in your quiver- they smooth and soften the skin, imparting a glow, as though you had gone for a run, or met seven other friends for a row on a glassy lake at dawn. As with many good treatments and habits, the skin is nourished.
Body Nurish and Power Repair products have Coenzyme Q10, a powerful antioxidant to protect and nourish skin at a cellular level, and the oxygen facial of course boosts this, leaving you fresh and flawless, like an Italian Countess in a  raspberry colored sleeveless silk dress and shiny hair that she hasn't washed herself in ages, preferring a Blow and Go, it's so much easier.
Prevention is better than cure, oxygen facials are a great habit. Preserving your natural beauty frees up time to do other things to enjoy the coming winter. Perhaps plant a dozen or so different sized pots thick with cyclamen in various colors to provide vibrant color on your front porch and steps, or entertain at home more, it's so intimate. Maybe consider adopting a chef.

Microcurrent Lifts, Tones, and Contours

There are so many great ways care for your skin. In addition to products, drinking water and  wheat grass, walkies, facials, sleep, thinking pretty thoughts are all part of the equation.
There are so many effective products. Some creams are made with flowers harvested at dawn while the sun's gentle gamma rays dry the morning dew, some serums are made with a baby's first  breath, but none work as well as all natural Body Nurish and Power Repair .  These are affordable so you can use them generously.
Acupuncture facials, cupping, energy work, LED, all are genius. As is microcurrent, it  works with your beauty, it doesn't introduce any new elements. Microcurrent lifts, contours and tones your face, and the better your home habits the better the results.
My favorite reiki practitioner when from sweetly mousey to marvelous with one treatment, so I had one. Any cares or aging on my face melted like the snows from a mountainside. Even though I do all the things in this blog, she did one side of my face, leaving the undone side to look as though I had had a stroke or was a cubist painting.
Good habits give better results. Maybe your beau has private label liqueur and a herd of all natural beef, served with buttered potatoes, sigh. These things are ok, in moderation. Make the next day apples from an orchard, picked by local workers chanting blessings the fruit ping pings into the bucket.
Microcurrent doesn't need to cost a fortune, and saving money at a beauty school is chic pas cher.
With the money saved you can adopt-a -seed, plant a few acres of lavender, or maybe harvest a rose petal brooch.

Charcoal for a Brilliant Detox

Charcoal has long been used to detoxify the digestive tract, removing waste and neutralizing the ph. Charcoal also removes many times it weight in water. Yes, it makes you less puffy. Activated charcoal can be found where supplements are found, and for only a few dollars.
Support your body's detox with Power Repair Salt Scrub, it contains Sea salt, dead sea salt, grapeseed oil, vitamin E oil, grapefruitseed extract, and pure essential oils of sweet orange, peppermint, coriander, clove, and wintergreen. You will glissade out of the salle de bain light as a feather, and energized from the essential oils in the scrub.
As you float through the day on angel wings, so light and radiant, and people will glance around to see where the harp music is coming from, cherubs will snap your photo. You are as pretty as you are clever, because what does coal turn into? Diamonds!

Acupressure for Facial Toning

There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting. 
John Kenneth Galbraith
Everyone is beautiful in their own way, that is what it is important to find out what makes you beautiful. Acupressure is one way to make you your prettiest.
Acupressure keeps energy flowing. Your energy is your beauty.
Begin by spraying your face and throat with Power Repair Face Mist - hydrating and full of antixodants, it smells of geranium and other wonderful things.
Points down the middle of the forehead 
Starting at the middle of the forehead at the hairline, use your middle finger to apply firm pressure for 3 seconds, release then repeat twice.
Move down to the middle point between the eyebrows, apply pressure, and repeat twice. These points ease frowning and headaches.
Points on the sides of the nose
Place your index fingers next to the base of your nose by the nostrils. Press firmly for three seconds, then release. These points may be tender as a great deal of tension is stored here.
Point in the middle of the upper lip
Place one index finger in the groove above the upper lip and apply pressure, then release, repeat twice. This point tones the lip area as well as controlling hunger.
Points at the Temples
Use three fingers together, with one hand on each temple. Press inward firmly and gently, then release. Repeat twice. These points increase energy and blood flow to the eye area, increases alertness and concentration.
Beauty is energy so create your own beauty in the day.
Be kinder than you need to be.
Listen to Sibelius on a long low couch, upholstered in pink and fuchsia Marimekko fabric, next to a very large lemon tree, that has your smart phone buried in its base, enjoying pistachio and dark chocolate macaroons from Patisserie Ines with gunpowder tea on Rose Chintz china from various years with Tiffany teaspoons from 1918, each with a different flower handle, watching the rain pour down.

Flawless Skin with LightStim LED

Beauty is one of the rare things that do not lead to doubt of God.
Jean Anouilh, French Dramatist 

It's a lovely bright sunny Saturday. Of course, you are looking forward to turning on the radio for Lunch with Led, because nothing makes a run more fun than Led Zeppelin loudly.
However, consider a different type of LED - light emitting diodes, a beauty device that tones, stimulates collagen production, and heals bumps and scars and things.
An article published in the New York Times stated that a twenty year study proved  facial aging was due to loss of fullness rather than sagging.
NASA came up with LED light therapy to heal wounds and stop the muscle and bone loss experienced in outer space. I thelps the face retain fullness.
LightStim is a home product that uses this technology. The light energy stimulates circulation, addresses bone loss, stimulates collagen production and reverses sagging skin.
Use LightStim  daily, aging happens incrementally, so do results.
To maintain beauty, use LightStim at  home. For more serious repairs, go to a salon, then maintain the results with LightStim. The price is about the same as three salon treatments. You will see a great return on your investment. Bankers like consistent results.
So for the sake of being consistently beautiful, this great means new earrings.  Faberge wins again, because if he is going to buy something wonderful, it should be what no one else has. He has an ego too!

Pretty Nose Smells Bread Baking

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.
Ophelia to Hamlet, Shakespeare
Boil a giant pot of rosemary, your house will smell clean. Rosemary lifts your mood and clears your thoughts, your skin will have clarity, and it helps move lymph.
The uplifting fragrance of course brings us to noses. Noses are cartilage, so it keeps growing.  It has muscles, and these muscles need to stay toned, for your nose to stay slim and looking like your nose. Lightly pinch your nostrils with thumb and forefinger, while the index and middle finger gently push up on your forehead. Flare your nostrils 10 times, repetez this three times for a toned and defined nose.
Does your beau's nose love the scent of baking bread?
This Irish Soda Bread is not very diffiicult, and perfect with Apple Butter. Keep your hair off your face with pearls pushed back as a headband, an Odile Gilbert pin if your hair is longer.
Irish Soda Bread

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose white flour (4 cups for a white bread loaf)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1 level teaspoon baking soda (3/4 teaspoon for a white bread loaf)
¾ teaspoon baking powder

1 cup chopped walnuts, toasted lightly on pan in oven to bring out the flavor

1 tablespoon caraway seeds

1 currants

1 ½  to 2 cups buttermilk
Butter for the baking pan, softened

Preheat oven to 375°.
Combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.  Add  half the buttermilk a little at a time until you have a soft dough, like biscuits.
Soak the currants in the other half of the buttermilk, it plumps them nicely. Or the rosemary tea if you prefer. Then add to the above mixture.
Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for 2 or 3 minutes, until it is quite smooth.

Form it into a round cake. Place it in a well-buttered 8-inch cake pan or on a well-buttered cookie sheet. Cut a large cross on the top of the loaf with a very sharp floured knife.
Place it into the oven and bake for 35 -40 minutes, until it has turned a nice brown and sounds hollow when tapped . The cross on the top will have spread into a sort of deep gash, a characteristic of Irish soda bread.
Apples are abundant! Apple Butter is easy!

Apple Butter

Drambuie

Fizzy Water

8 pounds of apples.

You have had enough tea, pour yourself a nice Drambuie and fizzy water.

Peel, core, and chop the apples.
Put in large pot on stove, or if you live in Spokane, a crockpot. 

Add 2 cups sugar, and generous amounts of allspice, cloves, grated lemon, peel and cinnamon. Cook on high, stirring for about an hour. Add one cup Drambuie.

Cover and simmer for about eight hours. I find canning a lot of work, this recipe freezes well.

While the Apple Butter simmers, bring joyous color to your entry way with pansies. Pansies are very hardy and can last most of a winter. Buy several flats and plant thickly around your front steps and walk, with  several large pots of them on your porch for a welcoming burst of color.
You never know when UPS  will bring the Pendleton Ultra Merino crew neck sweaters!

So, planting didn't take 8 hours.

How about a seaweed body wrap and oxygen and microcurrent facial, hmmm?
This bread keeps well, serve for Notre Dame game.
Bon week-end!

Goop

Today's Goop.com is a wealth of good advice.

Exercise to Lift Top Eyelid

"We are God's hands."
St. Therese de Lisieux
This little drill strengthens the upper eye lid muscle by opening up the eye and lifting the brow.
Place your index fingers flat under your eyebrows. Gently push up with your fingers while pushing down and holding both eyebrows. Hold to the count of 10, and repetez 3 times.
Power Repair Eye Cream is all natural and reduces under eye puffiness. Puffy is for ski jackets, not your pretty eyes.
Beautiful habits are wonderfully frugal, you have better things to spend your money on. Such as the Homeless Cooking Program at St.Clouds the third Wednesday of every month, where neighbors descend upon the  bistro's kitchen to create wonderful meals to feed 450 homeless, serving dignity along with the beautifully prepared food.
All that chopping and stirring needs a divine look, such as this scarab ring from Faberge.

Salt Rocks for Beauty

On the sidewalks, earthworms surfed across puddles, and the rain beat a steady rhythm on the garbage can lids, sounding like the march of chain mail boots marching into cold muddy battle at Aigincourt.  
The logical plan is escape to a Korean Spa in a funky strip mall.

We started in a room lined with  amethyst, quartz, and jade. We lay down in the dimly lit room on the floor mats, and absorbed the wonderful heat (148 degrees) and then moved to the salt room. A jump in the very cold plunge pool,  and headed for the Clay Room, at 183 degrees, and became one with the grass mat.
Easy to to do so  as the is Far Infra Red, (FIR) a frequency that heats you from inside out, boosting circulation and metabolism. 
Salt rids the body of puffiness.  

We  had a body scrub and body moisturizing treatment, that incorporated massage, shiatsu, and reflexology.
And for lunch, the seaweed soup alkanizes your blood and is full of antioxidants.
The facials and body moisturizing treatments used cucumber, honey, and warm milk.

The salt, magnesium and other stones emit the desirable negative ions that make your corpuscles happy, and the contrast between the heat and the cold plunge creates a vacuum in your venous blood, increasing circulation as it flushes out toxins. 

Leaving, we  agreed as the rain beat on the windshield that spring was just around the corner.

A Korean Spa is always a great value. With the money you saved you can go to Hong Kong and have a quilted bed jacket made of silk, with matching pajamas. And good heavens, you trekked to a strip mall, now you can afford to have your blow out and pedicure come to you.

Salt Room, Bella Luna Spa, Lynnwood, Washington

Celebrate Rocktober with Pink Diamond Earrings

This weekend was a leisurely, meandering, plaid fueled road trip to the fruit stands. The air was full of the scents of drying licorice stems mingled with raspberries and damp earth, the tables a mosaic of crimson apples, golden pears, blushing nectarines, heirloom tomatoes and organic purple and red potatoes. We had car radio tuned to classic rock, and the dj kept talking about Rocktober.
That rocks! Of course jewelry is a natural beauty! This month we will be pairing our skin care routines with jewelry and gemstones.
The revived Faberge Jewelry, which combines the spirit of the venerable jeweler to the Czars with modern resources at first glance makes as much sense as mapping the surface of the moon. But this firm foundation in elegance paves the way for exuberant and soaring creativity, a world within itself of luxury and excitement.
Prevent your cheeks from drooping
This exercise goes well with Some Girls by the Rolling Stones, loudly. Regular practice eliminates facial fat by toning three muscle groups that support the cheeks. Muscle eats fat.
Open your mouth and roll your lips inward and under your teeth, then place your index fingers  above the apples of your cheeks. Pump your cheeks up toward your finger 10 times, using your fingers for resistance, keep your eyes still, relax. Repetez three times.
Such a pretty face needs new earrings, even any City banker preaching fiscal restraint would have to agree.

Eliminate the Vertical Lines Between Your Eyebrows

It has been a year since my smart phone went overboard and it is now sleeping with the fishes. Looking at the screen made me scowl, so I don't miss it at all.
First, spray the palms of your hands with Peak Scents Lavishly Lavender, mmmmm.
This routine tones the nose and forehead muscles to alleviate the vertical lines between the brows, and prevents this area from drooping and creating a horizontal fold over the nose. Ewwww, that is so distracting!
Press firmly with 3 fingers between your eyebrows directly above your nose, concentrating on pressing down the tip of your nose. Hold for 5 seconds, then relax, and repetez three times.
Voila! Your forehead is smooth as an angel's.  To complete the divine look, take a moment to fill the space between thoughts with breath.
Learning these routines puts the focus on your lovely shiny natural buffed nails and pretty hands, hands that are saving money. Virtue is its own reward, but this Imperial Ring from Faberge  is a good idea too.
Celebrate Rocktober!

Natural Forehead Lift

"What is your fortune, my pretty maid?
My face is my fortune, Sir, she said."
English Nursery Rhyme
Facial exercise preserves your natural glamour by using movements to revitalize and strengthen facial muscles.
Facial massage alleviates stress, increases circulation, and improves the skin's ability to eliminate toxins.
A healthy lifestyle slows down the aging process, surgery and injections do not.
The Forehead Lift diminishes horizontal  forehead lines.
Spray your face with Body Nurish's  Hydrating Face Mist, and put on Carmen, by Bizet, a bit too loud.
Place your index fingers along your hairline.
While pushing up with your index fingers, push down with your eyebrows.
This brings blood to the underlying muscles, toning them.
Repeat 3 times, hold each time to the count of ten.
Think of all the money you are saving - celebrate the first step in your natural facelift with a Pink Sapphire ring from Faberge Jewelry.
Your hands are important, they can preserve your fortune.

Dry Skin Brushing Playlist

"Autumn is a second spring, when every leaf is a flower"
Albert Camus

Dry skin brushing is essential - skin removes about a pound of waste daily - brushing the skin moves this along, helps with lymphatic drainage and diminishes cellulite.

Whether you use a wooden bristle brush or large nylon cloth, make it fun to make it a habit, make it an air guitar!

This will help:

Pumped Up Kicks - Foster the People

Twist and Shout  - The Beatles

You Really Got Me - The Kinks

My Generation  - The Who

Heartbreaker - Led Zeppelin

Phew! Now your skin is ready for Body Nurish's Exotic Clay Body Wrap - a great thing to be able to do at home. Formulated with clays, herbs, sea vegetables, sea salt, nuts, and grains, this unique blend helps reduce cellulite, exfoliates, and pulls impurities from the skin. This softens and revitalizes the skin, tones and cleanses, suitable for sensitive skin.

Drink lemon water, and while the mask is drying, think what will be nice for winter.
Perhaps replace a chandelier with a globe of intensely green ivy topiary globe, it is lovely to dine under foliage!

Vineyard Beauty

A gentle breeze stirred through the tree limbs of the already warm morning, and pine needles crunched under his feet as Merriwhether walked past shimmering grey green santolina, sage and lavender to the garage. He stoped to admire his vineyard. The grapes basked in the heat, sweating a little, like rows of plump vacationers on chaise longues along a pool in December.
Merriwhether was pleased, absorbing the view, the ultraviolet rays, the quiet, and the gentle heat on the early fall day. As birds chirped and flitted on the eaves of the garage, content as Merriwhether was, one thought disturbed his peace of mind, the restful kingdom of his soul. That was, were the neighbors planting marijuana plants between the rows of grapes again?

Detox Not Botox

There are easy daily things to do for beauty - drink water first thing in the morning, drink lemon water, a tablespoon of honey in your water, go for a walk, eat vegan every other day, dry skin brush for 10 minutes, while a different mask daily dries, and weekly such as bodywraps.
Weekly body wraps can be done at home such as Exotic Clay Body Wrap - invite a friend over to paint your back. If you rowed together at school, then it's not awkward. Or try comfrey gel wrap at a salon, combined with a facial. Don't be too cool for a beauty school, this makes it an affordable habit.
Weekly hair masks prolong your cut and color. Super Salve's Replenishing Hair Mask works wonders, so does a salon treatment under the dryer.
These small habits add up to never needing a beauty intervention, and they save money in the long run.
With the money saved replace your garden shed with an Far Infra Red sauna and icy cold plunge pool, steam room, salt room, and a tea house, with a musician.

Merriwhether

Dawn broke as the sun gilded the treetops against amethyst horizon, with opals sprinkled throughout fading to rose quartz, as the amber sun lifted the sky up to aquamarine sky. Merriwhether sighed as he  nibbled on the corner of warm wheat toast, and felt the slow softening inside of contentment. It was a warm, oozing, happiness, like melted butter on a plate left on the counter to catch the stray sunbeams.

An Apple a Day

"Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness."
-- Jane Austen
An apple a day removes heavy metals and cholesterol from your body, aids digestion, and makes the digestive tract alkaline.
Apple contains boron, a trace mineral necessary for beautiful hair.
So, too, is scalp massage - a contracted muscle receives ten times the blood flow a dormant muscle does. So, while listening to Mozarts's Clarinet Concerto #5, apply Body Nurish  Organic Herbal Hair & Scalp Treatment from scalp to ends, with  both hands, go through your scalp and pull away, feel the muscle release, and do your entire head. Relaxed cranial muscles make for a relaxed and pretty face. Apply Super Salve's Replenishing Hair Mask  - you will have lush and beautiful hair.
Of course, beautiful shiny hair needs a glass of Calvados, apple brandy, to sip on while baking an apple  pie.
Your beau will be so impressed, let him watch.
Of course, serve Anchovy Puffs with the Calvados, there is no rush.
Easy as pie:
Anchovy Puffs
4 ounces oil packed anchovies, olive oil, 6 cloves garlic, and one sheet prepared puff pastry. Use a fork to mash the oil and garlic together. Chop the anchovies, and mix with 1/2 cup minced thyme. Sip some Calvados.
Cut the pastry into 1 inch squares, with a pastry brush spread the squares with oil and garlic paste. Top each square with  some thyme and anchovy. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes, or until one inch high and golden brown, serve on very old Stone Ware, so old the design has rubbed off, and pour some more Calvados.
Mmmmm, yes, the pie.
The best apple pie is James Beard's pate choux, filled with a variety of apples, and spiced with cinnamon, ginger and coriander. Voila!
While the pie is baking, a bit more Calvados and let him read aloud Ernest Hemingway's A Cat in the Rain.. Isn't he adorable?

Quelques Fleurs Meditation

"Life is commensurate with the number of beautiful impressions that can be squeezed into it. Let us have as many as we can." 
English Architect Ernest Grimson in letter to a client, 1907
The scent of all flowers and leaves is due to essential oil. In flowers that is known as attar. Put fragrant plants close to your house, so that when you walk outside you will easily catch their scent, Plant narrow beds to allow you walk close to the scented leaves and squeeze them, make low hedges of lavender, and raised beds to enjoy thickly planted cutting flowers.
Turn your shower into a scented garden. Sprinkle a generous amount of rose and jasmine essential oils on the floor of the shower. Dry skin brush, then in the shower lather up with Lemongrass Body Wash and mix it with Power Repair Salt Scrub, not missing an inch of your body with your loofah. Then spray all over with the light- as- fairy -wings Cocoa Butter Misting Skin Oil. 
Then sit comfortably, and  using your pinky finger, close your right nostril and breathe in through your left nostril. Do this five times then switch, and repeat the cycle several times or until you are ready to face the day. This balanced breath balances the energy in your body, and brings soothes the brain.
When you are done with the breath cycle, press the palms of your hands together  as in prayer. Joining the nerve endings joins the two sides of the brain, which is why hands in prayer is the same universally. Spray yourself Quelques Fleurs by Houbigant, created in 1912, and lightly spray your hair.
The day has been so elegant so far, keep it going by serving setting a table outdoors. A live string trio is always a nice touch, or maybe a classical guitar player.
Serve Prosecco and radishes with butter, and this sexy and simple recipe: Boil and drain angel hair pasta, top with a dollop of creme fraiche and a dollop of caviar, serve in low bowls.
Voila, as desirable as you are calm!

Tone Your Bottom for Autumn

Fall is here, a quick warm up on brisk mornings is heels together, toes apart, on the balls of your feet, tail bone skyward and hands on the ground on either side of your feet, go up and down fast twenty times or until you break a sweat- and you will. This tones the back of thighs and bottom.
Then scrub with Power Repair Salt Scrub, it contains pure essential oils of sweet orange, peppermint, coriander, clove, and wintergreen. Apply Body Lotion. This super product also tightens legs and bottoms, as it contains DMAE. DMAE enhances your mood and tightens skin.
Now you can celebrate the new season by painting the outside of your window frames with goldleaf to reflect the sun, giving your house a lovely glow, or having several leisurely outdoor lunches at Admiral's Inn, English Harbor, Antigua, then take leisurely launches to Galleon Beach.

Skin Cell Regeneration Meditation

The seasons change their manners as the year
Had found some months asleep and leapt over them
-Henry IV, Shakespeare

Meditation helps the transition of the seasons, so does a  Liberty print blouse, suede ballet flats, and cropped pants.
Before sitting, wash your face with your Clarisonic and Super Salve Foaming Cleanser, happily peppermint and lemon scented, then massage Comfrey Lotion into your face, applying a bit of pressure, around the eye sockets, jawline, temples and cheeks, press for seven seconds, them move the fingers outward. Voila, shiatsu.
Comfrey has cell rejuvenating properties, and the most important ingredient allatoin. Allatoin is believed to be a cell proliferator and able to strengthen skin.
Now, sit comfortably, relax the root of your tongue, release the front of your throat, let your shoulder blades slide down your back, and use the breath to create space between each vertebrae. Close your eyes and breathe in, filling your lungs as though you were filling a vase with water.
Focus on sending your breath further down then it normally goes, and higher up your than it normally goes, breathing the ribs aways from the heart. Repeat this cycle five times, or until you feel your body and mind calm.
With the money you save knowing how to take care of yourself, consider planting a few rows of grapes, or replacing your draperies with lemon and lime trees in brass pots to brighten the winter.  

Chamomile for Beauty, Inside and Out

'Though the camomile, the more it is trodden upon, the faster it grows; yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears.'
King Henry IV, WS

Chamomile works on the outside to soothe, heal and regenerate skin, making it smoother and of an even tone. Enjoying as a tea, it soothes digestion and is soporific, a sleepy-time tea. It is fragrant in the garden, and releases a delicate scent when brushed.
It is in many of The Super Salve Company products because it is a beauty essential, and great for babies and blondes. It soothes redness and eliminates puffy eyes, and is wonderful to inhale.
So, knowing this, find the Power Repair or Body Nurish products that work best for you. With skin care so effective and affordable, you can have a fete!
For an autumn afternoon wear Pendleton Beach Boy Plaid Vans, from a few seasons ago. Never wear what is the mode this minute, too obvious. Adopt a look from Ms. Wintour and wear crew neck long sleeve shirt and damask rose patterned skirt, listen to Alexander's Feast by Handel, and sip a Benedictine, from your grandmother's glassware.
Benedictine monks put herbs to aid digestion in their liqueur.
Set the table with tartan tablecloth and Rose Chintz china will be perfect for Honey Glazed Chicken with Rosemary - this is a perfect dish, can be served hot or cold. Red Potato Salad made with organic potatoes, and open a nice Merlot for wine ripened heirloom tomatoes (tomatoes splashed with wine) with fresh black pepper.
 Always know a good baker for crusty bread, find a farm stand  fresh peaches with creme fraiche, and freeze mint ice cubes for   iced mint and chamomile tea, with a generous amount of Vermouth. Vermouth contains chamomile.
With your effortless natural beauty, there is time to throw a cashmere sweater over your shoulders, and have another glass of Benedictine, and allow someone read you a sonnet.

Beautiful Hair Habits

To preserve the natural beauty of your hair, find a hairdresser you can make a habit, someone who will weekly condition and blow out your hair, and gently kiss the ends with scissors, to let your natural beauty shine through. Someone who will greet you with a smile and a non fat cocoa. A treasured gem, who knows when toner or gloss is needed, not more foils.
A Saturday with a weekly blowout, now that summer is gone, helps ease the transition into autumn, as does the luxury of having a hairdresser who knows to spray on Morrocan oil for shine, a virtuoso who knows when less product is needed, not more.
The best hairdresser in Seattle is Jessica Rockwell at Salon Blast. Her cuts are flattering, her color as nature intended only better, and her blowouts have movement and shine, shine shine.

Arnica for Pretty Eyes

Arnica is an essential herb. Applied topically as a cream, ointment, liniment, salve, or tincture, arnica  soothes muscle aches, reduce inflammation, and heal wounds.
Arnica promotes skin regeneration and stimulates blood circulation which helps white blood cells remove fluid from an injury; it reduces swollen or puffy skin and dark circles.
Headaches from sitting in traffic, or other people's mal educata, bad manners, can be relieved, and as with all Super Salve products, the fragrance is part of the equation. Arnica Muscle Easing Salve rubbed on the temples and back of neck can ease the discomfort, if not the reality of the situation. For deeper penetration, Super Salve also makes an Arnica Linament.
Arnica is useful to treat hair loss, so try rinsing your hair with arnica tea as it will stimulate hair growth.
Now you can  move onto what really matters, such as creating an outdoor room on your porch using enormous ferns in hanging baskets for privacy and winter greenery.
 Then enjoy some Mariage Freres tea, using an art deco samovar, out of Stone Bridge blue and white china tea cups, from various years, with Carmargue napkins, and enjoy slices of apricot, walnut, and sour cream tea cake, meant to be eaten with your fingers, wear a ring made of an almond shaped amethyst, and and let the melodic tinkling of your charm bracelet blend with Henry Purcell's The King's Supper, a baroque favorite that works well for tea.

Celebrate Thursday with a Picnic

The most sincere love many people have is the love of food- St. Bernard of Clairvaux

Ooh, these Indian Summer days are beautiful. Today is a beautiful day for a picnic.

What to take on your picnic needs consideration. Yes, a Pendleton blanket, your grandmother's cordial glasses, Russian Vogue, or vintage Tatler, and maybe a two tone vintage Coleman ice chest, brown and tan. A book is nice, perhaps the 1928 Esquire Book of Short Stories - Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dos Passos and others. Sometimes one finds it in a used book store, with a boutonniere pressed between the pages.

Whatever you wear it must be old, and cotton. A good cotton has such a nice fade.

Wine, fizzy water, verjus, whiskey, and almonds to begin your picnic. Try and find a friend who can play the lute or mandolin, or doesn't talk about their smart phone.
At fruit stands, everything is on at once from our cool summer, warmer September  - late apricots, pears, peaches, nectarines. The fragrance of all the fruit at the stands is such a lovely mix- dill, raspberries, and tanned legs, all at once.
Here is the best tart ever for a picnic, it's both sweet and savory:
Walla Walla Sweet Onion & Ham Tart
3 thinly sliced Walla Walla Sweet Onions
2 tbl buerre
1 tbl caraway seed
8 oz ham, diced
1/4 cup flour
2 cups sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup cream
4 eggs
1/2 cup apricot jam
1 10 inch tart (pate brise)
Preheat oven to 350
Saute the onion sand butter, add caraway, ham, and mushrooms
saute, add the flour
Bea the eggs and mix in the cream, add the onion mixture, pour into tart shell, bake for 40 minutes, glaze with apricot preserves, then bake another ten minutes.
Picnics are easy, and the drive can be half the fun.

Shiatsu in the Shower

Thou hast the sweetest face I ever look'd on.
Sir, as I have a soul, she is an angel;
Henry VIII

The shower is a wonderful place, you can step out a better person than when you step in. Keep a bottle of essential oil in the shower, try it a couple of times an you will see why. Right now I have grapefruit and sandalwood. When you begin to see steam, sprinkle a few drops around.
After you have dry skin brushed, and have The Beatles Abbey Road playing loudly, jump in and shampoo with Giovanni Organic Shampoo, the Tree Tea is very refreshing, then condition your hair with Replenishing Hair Mask.  Then apply Daily Renewal Peel  to your face, and let the enzymes work while you give yourself a shiatsu facial. Begin at the middle of the hairline, press for seven seconds and work around your face, until your fingers meet at your chin, then circle the eyes, and then the cheek bones. Press, hold, move, repeat. This takes about ten minutes but you are worth it, and your hair is being conditioned.
Scrub your face with Clarisonic. Then, take a generous amount of Sugar Scrub with Shea Butter  - the flower essences will turn your shower into a meadow, and your body into a bouquet. Scrub until transcendence is achieved. Rinsing is bittersweet, but there is always tomorrow.
The shiatsu facial is a habit that has cumulative effects, and remarkable results.
You look wonderful - with the money you have saved, have your portrait painted, buy season tickets to the opera, or adopt a pet.

Lady Garden

At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May's new fangled shows,
But like of each thing that in season grows
-Love's Labor's Lost
Exotic Clay Body Wrap is a full body treatment you can do at home. If your home is 30 acres of meadows and woods, borders on a national forest and has an outdoor shower, even better. But your salle de bain works well. This Body Nurish product comes with a dry skin brush and darling bucket. It is every bit as effective as a salon wrap for detox and reducing cellulite. Linger over the ingredients: White, red, and yellow kaolin clays, Rhassoul Moroccan clay, ginseng,  juniper berries,  rose petals, Dead Sea salt, bladderwrack, coconut milk, Irish moss, Sea brine and aloe vera, Sweet almond oil, juniper and rose essential oils.
Dry skin brush vigorously, and apply Organic Herbal Hair & Scalp Treatment to your hair, Soothing Herbal Jelly Mask to your face.
Mix it, cover yourself with the clay, and take a seat. It's a good time to catch up on gardening magazines - so many inspiring ideas and photos. Vivaldi's Four Seasons is nice, and runs the right amount of time for the mask to set. Then, shower to a new you!
With the money you have saved, your can plant a fragrant double border of hollyhocks, lilies, and grasses along your walk, or buy a nice flat at Cadogan Gardens, and we'll meet for tea!

Wrapper's Delight

Rosalind. I pray you, what is't o'clock?
Orlando. You should ask me what time o'day, there's no clock in the forest.
As You Like It  
A comfrey gel wrap is a miracle worker - it moves lymph so you lose inches, is very relaxing, and promotes skin cell regeneration - a great jump start for slimming quickly. Lounge in the warm botanical extracts for 45 minutes, and the aloe base leaves your skin so soft.  Dozing through an herbal gel wrap is much more comfortable than wearing Spanx, and not as much effort as a Bikram's yoga class. The intense release of toxins makes the next day's work out a bit lighter, movements more fluid.
Combine it with a facial, and you are as happy as you are pretty. If you go to a beauty school for this deluxe combo, it is a fraction of the cost of a salon treatment.
And with the money saved, you can have your vintage Airstream Trailer detailed, (airplane factories offer the best shine), buy a remote and pristine lakefront lot to park it on, or as the angel with the handsome jawline did, commission your own private label Irish Cream liqueur from a distillery.

Sun King Meditation

For a dazzling look at Versailles during the time of Louis XIV, read  The Sun King by Nancy Mitford. Anything by Nancy Mitford is worthwhile, including her lovely face en profile.
When kitty Louis Quartorze flew to Seattle from Paris, he had  a passport and sat on my lap the entire flight.
For a lovely meditation try this:
Close your eyes. Imagine a glowing sun above the crown of your head. Send your breath there.
Keep that sun glowing, Imagine a glowing orb at your forehead, illuminate it with your breath.
Now a radiant sun at your sternum, send your breath there.
Now, focusing on the breath going in and out the inside passage of your, light a sun at your navel,
and then one at your bikini line. Send your breath to all the suns, and draw a golden line connecting them.
See how that balances you and pulls you together.
Now rub the palms of your hands together and feel your entire body energize.
Now you can plan a seven layer cake with coconut milk in the batter and roses on the frosting, a parterre for your garden with basil, thyme, oregano and a pear tree, or figure out how to get the pear out of an empty bottle of eau-de-vie.

Balanced Beauty with Reiki

Nothing comes from nothing
Nothing ever could
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good

Maria to the Captain, Sound of Music

Yesterday I went to a beauty school for a shiatsu facial, and heaven sent a bone fide Reiki Master as my technician. Gentle reader I floated out on fluffy pink cashmere clouds, wearing a crown of fluttering butterflies and  followed by a choir of cherubs, softly singing, while nymphs scattered rose petals across the parking lot.

Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing.

Tina found an imbalance caused by being chased by a dragon and restored the symmetry to my face. Another imbalance, caused by a stuck drawbridge over the moat, left my legs and pelvis askew, and this disappeared  like dew off grass on a summer morning. An aligned pelvis gives you a flatter stomach.

The reiki combined with the shiatsu relaxed and aligned my face to a look I had not actually thought possible, it restored my looks to that of years ago. I woke up after sleeping well, looking...as pretty as the new day.

No dragons will growl at me now, instead they bring will me coffee and a croissant on a tray. NRG is more than a radio station in Paris, it's the basis of health and beauty.

Happiness is a Fragrant Shower

 If it were now to die,
'T were now to be most happy; for, I fear
My soul hath her content so absolute,
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate.
Othello

A great shower is beautiful start to the day. Dry skin brush until your skin is rosy. In the shower, start with a generous amount of Body Nurish Organic Facial Coconut Cleansing Milk. It is so delicous and creamy, a large dollop feels like covering your face in coconut cake batter, in the best way possible. Use the Clarisonic face brush. Then scrub for a very long time with Coconut Sugar Scrub, the sugar and the coconut turn your shower into a vacation. You will be so happy, you can face anything.
It's Indian summer, so wear Superga sneakers in blue with a dress. And spray your legs with Cocoa Butter Misting Skin Oil.  This sprays on so light, it makes you think of angels on clouds. Or one particular angel in colored straight leg levis.
Outside, enjoy a peach with fresh coconut ice cream. Listen, do you hear harp music? Are those moths on the lawn or fairies dancing? Don't the dahlias make you think of someone's sweet face?

BT Micro Peels, Lifts, and Tones Your Face

La plus ca change, the more they stay the same.
Preserve your face as time goes by, it's a good look.
BT Micro does just that. It is from the microcurrent lifting pioneers, Bio-Therapeutics. BT Micro is a handheld device for home use. Ultrasonic technology helps creams and serums penetrate, and peels and tones the skin.
The negative ion moves lymph and clarifies the skin. and the peel  function exfoliates.
For this step apply Body Nurish Soothing Herbal Jelly Mask, then peel over that. The soothing mask prevents dryness.
Then Step 1 positive ionic charge helps serums penetrate, with an ultrasonic spatula. Try VitaNutrient Intensive Vitamin C Treatment for this step.
Step 2 postive ionic charge the ultrasonic spatula penetrates creams, try VitaNutrient Face Cream.
BT Micro has lovely a lifting result, as it is microcurrent.
And LightStim LED is a good extra step  for stimulating collagen .
The BT Micro is an investment, but gives salon quality treatments, and it is quick.
With the money you save, you can buy a mid thigh length cashmere cape, three strands of pearls to push up over your forehead for a headband, or plant boxwood and yew along your front walk.

Celebrate Wednesday with a Poem

Roethke was a Pulitzer Prize winning poet who taught at University of Washington.
I Knew a Woman by Theodore Roethke

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek.)
How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin:
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing did we make.)
Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved.)
Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I'm martyr to a motion not my own;
What's freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways.)

Essential Beauty Points for La Rentree

La Rentree -  end of summer sounds better in French.
This essential list certainly will help ease the transition into autumn, a season that can be as sweet as summer. And because everyone looks like Shrek sometimes.
Pressing these  points help to increase the blood circulation and energy flow on the face and tones the skin. Press each point for seven seconds.

• If your face is tired or sagging, rub in the middle of the lower cheekbone on both sides of the face.
• For puffy eyes rub on each side of the nose in keeping with the inner edges of the eyes, this moves lymph..
• If your face looks tired or is sagging , rub on the outer edges of the eyes on both sides.
• For lifeless cheeks and jowls rub the dimples beneath the ears on both sides of the face.
• For eye bags and loose cheek muscle rub the space  between eye and cheekbone on both sides of the face.
•  To tone up the muscles of the entire body, rub in the middle of the palms of both of your hands, briskly, generating heat.

Now play the Don MacLean's American Pie, loudly and spray your face with Power Repair Face Mist - hydrating, soothing and lavender and ylang ylang smell divine.
With the money you save knowing how to do your own quick fixes, you can have friends over for Campari and soda, Tomato and Onion Tarte, some olives with orange rind grated on top , on a Camargue cloth tablecloth.Or put roses and dahlias in a dimpled white milk vase, faded, tattered roses are still lovely,  or buy a pair of Gina Pankowksi drop earrings - the tear drop shape dangles elegantly just right near the jawline, best earrings ever, subtle and stunning -  white gold and pink quartz.

Afternoon Delight

For a lovely afternoon break, move energy with ten minutes of facial cupping , using Fruity Lift to help the cups glide. Then apply Green Clay Refinisher Facial Mask and read PG Wodehouse's The Girlfriend, a charming short story while the mask dries. With a little Mahler playing softly in the background.
When this is dry, rinse lightly and apply VitaNutrient Intensive Vitamin C Treatment, and smile thinking of the rose gardens at Blandings Castle. And spray yourself and your windowsills with Rose Renaissance  - the pure scent of roses in aloe vera and water.
The next step in your home facial is a natural facelift with Reflexology:
Pushing reflex or facial reflexology points as part of facial improves energy circulation and revitalizes. Push each reflexology point in sequence for several seconds. The motion is a soft press and lift, the release. Each side of the face is done simultaneously.

• Press on the bridge of the nose, in between the eyes, in the bottom of the forehead, applying both thumbs, one following on from the other. Repeat.
• On top of the eyebrows, in the middle of the face, press down by the line of eyebrows.
• Repeat the motion many times, going outwards until the forehead is covered. Begin in the middle and smooth in an outward motion towards the temples, place both of your hands using all the fingers.
• Begin under inner eyebrows, press in line working outwards until the outer corner of the eyes. Press next to the outer corner of the eyes.
• Begin at each side of the nose; work outwards for the ear beneath cheekbone. Now move upwards until the whole of the upper cheek is covered.
• Start at the area between the nose and upper lip, press in an outward direction in a continual line. Repeat movement .
•  Begin beneath lower lip, press in an outward direction in a continuous line using two fingers. Repeat .
•  Pinch lightly on the jaw line, working outwards.
•  Press down the entire hairline, working towards ears. Repeat .

For an extra glow, use your LightStim LED, it can be very relaxing.
Voila you look beautiful. And with the money you have saved you can buy a beehive for your garden or an elegant bespoke carved jasper scarab ring set in 22kt. gold lotus leaves from Gina Pankowski  jewelry. Mine has been causing scarab envy to break out everywhere I go!

Reflexology for Beauty and Balance

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie
Which we ascribe to heaven.
All's Well That Ends Well, WS

There are many nerve endings in your feet. Reflexology works as the pressure techniques applied to the feet interact with  the body's nervous system creating relaxation, internal balance that shows on your face, and overall improved circulation. This allows the body to hit re-set, naturally.  
You are lucky if you live where Foot Spas abound and affordable reflexology is offered.
If not, find a good reflexology chart or book, and give your feet a good twenty minutes in the evening. It is a lovely habit, and your will go to sleep prettier, with calmer face and clearer mind and eyes. There are corresponding points on the feet to the body's organs and systems, and they need love too.
To create space between the bones in your face, interlace the fingers of your right hand between the toes of your left foot, and then the opposite. You will feel the stress of the day release, and your jaw and facial muscles soften.
For the foot ceremony, a cotton Hanro nightie and Violin Concerto #1 by Haydn is always desirable.

Body Nurish's Herbal Foot Treatment  is a great evening foot massage cream, Excellent for soothing and healing dry, cracked, and tired feet. The rich cream soothes and revitalizes tired feet, and rehydrates. Made with organic chaparral leaf; comfrey leaf; echinacea flower; hops flower; usnea lichen; beeswax; shea butter; coconut oil; grapefruit seed extract; glucose enzyme; and pure essential oils of rosemary, eucalyptus, peppermint and rosewood.

With the money you save from this lovely habit, you can get a perfectly shiny weekly hair deep conditioning and  blowout, a gold flecked Russian Triptych from a charming bricolage shop, or  a great bottle of bourbon and 20  pounds of peaches to make peach jam.

Sonnet 130 4 U

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun:
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white;
But no such roses I see in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath from my mistress reaks:
I love to hear her speak,
yet well I know that music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go:
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
as any she belied with false compare."
Sonnet 130 WS

Body Nurish Home Spa

The Super Salve Company created Body Nurish Products to renew the skin's richness and health, in the luxury of your own home.  Using these wonderful products on a regular basis restores skin tone, texture and radiance.
With all the money you save having treatments at home you can buy an 18 kt. gold heart with pink sapphires for your Tiffany's charm bracelet,  a very very large ottoman to replace your sofa, or commission handpainted wallpaper for the bathroom.

Staying In Can Be Nice Too

These routines aren't as much fuss as they seem once you have everything in place- products and oils. A salon treatment is nice, but sometimes staying home can be nicer.  Squeeze lemons, pour over ice with some fizzy water and fresh mint. Put on Stan Getz My Funny Valentine or some Brazilian Pop from the 1960's, and wear a slip for a nightie, it's so very Butterfield 8. The scene is where you are. With the money you saved, buy fresh peonies for your home, a very generous amount in a Wedgwood vase. So, for a serene yet sophiticated you:
Blend lemon essential oil with geranium, this combination is cleansing and balances oil production. Use jojoba as a carrier oil.
Place 3 cups of very hot water in heatproof bowl and add 2 drops juniper berry and 2 drops grapefruit oil to deep cleanse. Lean over the bowl, inhale deeply and hold towel over your head. Do this for 5 minutes.
After rinsing the skin, apply the oil blend all over the face in small circular movements. The oil will begin to work into the deeper layers of skin.
With one hand on each side of the face, use the fingers to smooth the skin in long strokes. This encourages lymphatic drainage and tones the facial muscles. Repeat three times.
Tapping the face. Use your fingers to tap lightly all over the face, so the skin feels invigorated and refreshed. Tap over all areas, including the forehead, this relieves stress.
do this weekly, your pores will tighten and your skin will be well toned.

Best Facial Ever- Shiatsu Facial Massage

As summer wanes, try a shiatsu facial massage - the results are soft, defined, and lovely - my TMJ disappeared like a dream at dawn.  This massage technique is amazing - the results are healthy, and younger-looking skin. A shiatsu facial massage also helps in enhancing blood flow to the face area, improving skin tone. Energy to the muscles renders them softer, fuller.  A shiatsu facial massage  improves and restores the functioning of the liver and gall bladder. By applying pressure to the key trigger points, a facial massage rejuvenates your beauty, and you are soooo zen the rest of the day.
Spritz your face with Power Repair Face Mist afterwards -a mist that delivers vitamin C ester into the skin cells, hydrating and soothing skin and contains 100% pure essential oils of lavender, ylang ylang, and geranium.
Gentle reader, I am too cool to have ever owned a television, but I am so impressed with Shiatsu here is a video: How to Give a Shiatsu Facial Massage |

Facial Clarity, Beauty, and Lifting with Lymphatic Drainage

Manual Lymph Drainage for the face is de rigueur for our French cousins, and gaining in popularity here. The face treatment works to get rid of excess fluid in the face, reducing bags under the eyes,  firming jawline, making eyes more clear and leaving the skin with an inner glow. A contoured, lifted face is the result.
After a lymphatic drainage treatment, you skin will be clear, smooth, toned and lifted, as the toxins are gently carried away. Drinking copious amounts of water enhances the treatment.
Vitamin C helps move lymph, as do products with geranium oil, such as Power Repair Face Cream. Between salon appointments, Clarisonic Opal and the Clarisonic Skin Care system both gently move lymph along daily. The LightStim LED helps too, as LED  light can promote lymphatic circulation and body metabolism.

Perfect Skin Complexion Balm

Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? As You Like It  WS

This is the best product to enhance flawless skin - it goes on smooth, completely transluscent, the look is completely natural. Your natural beauty shines through. Wear under makeup or alone for flawless skin.
Colorless, sheer,  and all natural, it contains: corn starch, arrowroot powder, coconut wax, African shea butter, carnuba wax, jojoba oil, vitamin E oil, titanium dioxide, vitamin C ester (ascorbyl palminate), and a pure essential oil blend (lavender, geranium, and ylang ylang).
The best make up allows your natural beauty to show.

Facial Steam for an Organic Facelift

Power Repair's Facial Steam is a an important step in cleansing the pores, flushing out toxins, accelerating cell regeneration, and hydrating the skin. Facial Steam purifies and clears the skin and balances oil production. The organic ingredients transport you to a lovely garden:  chamomile flower, red rose petals, pink rosebuds, purple rosebuds, lavender flower, and calendula flower.
1. Steam Pour boiling water into a bowl, with a genrous amount of Facial Steam. Maybe to the flowers add some drops of lavender oil. The latin word root is laver, to clean. In French Lavage is to clean.
Think about that as you breathe in the steam with a towel forming a tent over your head.
2.Cold water splash This is toning and helps flush out toxins. If you don't have melted snow handy, put a bowl of water in the freezer before your set up for this.
3. Fingertip Circles Take a bit  of lavender or geranium oil and apply it all over your face with small circular massage movements, working it in to areas that need attention.
4. Finger Drainage Movements Place your index fingers flat together in the middle of your forehead, and slowly push outward to the sides of the face. Repeat over the cheeks and finally the chin.
These movements encourage toxins to come out of the tissues.
Green Clay Refinisher Facial Mask stimulates new cell growth, and penetrates deeper after the steam. Listen some Bach celllo while the clay dries on your lovely face.

Sonnet 4 U

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sonnet 18, Shakespeare

Tone skin and muscles with Accupressure

Pressure point techniques can regulate the oils and moisture on the skin as well as the hormonal balance in the body. These points are deceptively simple, and yet they are vital to facial rejuvenation because they work inside as well as outside the face. This routine provide an energizing and harmonizing start to your day.

1. Finger pressures inside the eye sockets Place your index fingers on the sides of your nose near the inner edge of the eyes. Press gently for three seconds, then release. Repeat twice. This move is deeply relaxing to the area and can help ease eyestrain to the area caused by close work.
2. Finger pressures on the TMJ and edge of the eye sockets
Place your thumbs on your TMJ area and your cheekbones. You will be able to feel your teeth under the layers of muscle tissue. Hold for 3 seconds, these points help regulate digestive function and can also help control appetite and cravings.
4. Fingers over the thyroid area
With your right hand place your fingers and thumb over the dip in the clavicle. Press very gently inward for 3 seconds, and repeat twice. This helps balance the hormones in the body.

Geranium and le mois d'aout

Geranium is one thing that blooms through the end of summer fading garden tatters as the fingers of autumn creep over the lawn. Oh cheer up, fall clothes are the best! 

Geranium oil has very positive effects on the skin - it boosts circulation and also invigorates the skin, and also balances the production of sebum, and helps to improve skin elasticity. This wonderful scented fleur boosts  the lymphatic system as well.
Geranium not only helps to reduce sebum production and return it to normal levels, it also helps to clear congestion from the skin.
It is helpful in relieving water retention , making it an excellent ingredient to use to prevent cellulite. Geranium essential oil also calms irritated skin.
When boosting the lymphatic system excess water  that may have been retained in the tissue is also released, which again translates into firmer skin.
Keep a bottle of essential oil in the shower a use it with your body wash.
This wonderful smelling powerhouse is found in many Power Repair products and Body Nurish skin care products, and Super Salve's Baby Products.

LED Lights Stimulate Collagen Production for a Natural Facelift

Collagen is what keeps your face radiant and full. It is very important to not let collagen production diminish, as it is difficult to restart. Vitamin C is the most important topical treatment for skin.
Collagen is a long, fibrous protein that forms the connective tissue which is responsible for your skin's elasticity and strength. Thinning of the skin, sagging and loss of fullness, occur when the collagen begins to break down in your skin. This process is a natural part of aging, which usually begins by your late twenties. Bummer.

LightStim, is  an LED handheld device that uses a NASA developed technology to stimulate collagen production.The lights energize the cells that are responsible for producing collagen. Over time the dermis layer fills up with collagen pushing the fold of the wrinkle out. Collagen helps to plump up the skin thus diminishing wrinkles and sagging. The fullness at a cellular level helps your skin retain its fullness.

LED has no adverse effects and is quite relaxing. LightStim helps your serums and skin creams penetrate and Nurish further into the skin. Best of all, it is designed for home. LightStim costs the same as three salon LED treatments, so it makes sense to have it at home. Radiant is a great way to face the day!

Aloe Vera for Skin Hydration

Aloe vera pulp is the clear, thick substance inside of the Aloe vera leaf. Aloe vera juice is made by liquifying Aloe vera pulp. Aloe is used in many skin care products because of its ability to stimulate healthy cell growth and repair damaged tissues. Aloe vera products contain the highest concentrations of healing agent which is beneficial for the skin.
Aloe makes the skin smooth and glowing. It does this by giving oxygen to the cells which in turn increases the strength and synthesis of skin tissue. This improves the ability of the skin so that it can hydrate itself, and has the ability for effective penetration and transports healthy substances through the skin. This prevents aging.
with body-loving nutrients such as vitamin E and C.
The Power Repair Toner is a must - it feels and smells so cooling your skin, and is found in many other Body Nurish and Super Salve products.

 

Marshmallow soothes and lights the way

Marshmallow ( Althea officinalis )-the herb,has been used for centuries as both a food and a medicine. Its botanical name comes from the Greek word "altho," which means "to cure." The Romans, Chinese, Egyptians, and Syrians used marshmallow as a source of meal. To reduce inflammation on the skin Arabs used its leaves and applied on external areas. Marshmallows are incredibly cool not because of its good taste, but also a good source of light, just lighting them you can create a great light in a dark campsite.
Due to exceptional healing properties it has been used by herbalists for many centuries to heal a range of ailments, hence its botanical name, Althea officinalis, from the Greek altho, meaning 'to heal'.
Taken internally, it aids digestion.
Externally, it makes you beautiful, and can be found in Power Repair Eye Cream and Body Nurish Daily Facial Regimen Hydrating Eye Cream.

Seattle's Best Hair

See Jessica Rockwell at Salon Blast for Seattle's Best Hair cut color and shine. Deep conditioning and blow out for $30! Then walk around this charming tree lined neighborhood to show off your hair!

Facial Cupping - the Natural Facelift

Best beauty secret ever - facial cupping. Facial cuppping facial increases radiance, tones the muscles, stimulates circulation and collagen growth.

It is basically a  facial massage using facial cups specially designed for your face.  This treatment will bring collagen to the surface and increase blood flow, reduces puffiness & dark circles, diminish lines, drain nasal sinuses and lymphatic system near the ears.

Cupping releases rigid soft tissue and stubborn knots. drains excess fluids and toxins, loosen adhesions and lift connective tissue; brings blood flow to stagnant skin and muscles.  The strong vacuum, or negative pressure, stimulates collagen production, and is completely natural. It enhances the face you have already.

Power Repair Fruity Lift spread on your face give the cups oil to slide on and has the enzymes working while this is happening. After cupping, while all the energy is surging around, apply Body Nurish Green Clay Refinisher Facial Mask. Masks can be drying, so finish with a heavier moisturizer, such as Super Salve's Coconut Cream