It’s the time of the year to start getting excited about fruit. Stone fruit and strawberries are starting to make an appearance at the supermarket, at reasonable prices and before long it’ll be cherries. Endless bowls of cherries are one of the highlights of summer for me.
In the meantime, I’ve been eating my body weight in Packham pears. They’ve been particularly good this year. I like them when they’re super crisp and very green. It’s not so much a costly habit as a slightly inconvenient one. I’ve been going to the supermarket every 3 days to buy my supply. For some reason, any pear that I keep in the kitchen for longer than this softens rapidly.
The thing about my frequent supermarket trips is that I tend to drop into other shops along the way. Like The Body Shop.
TBS’s Hemp Hand Protector ($21 these days) was the first hand cream I bought when I started working and I bought it continuously for five years straight. The scent polarizes TBS fans but I don’t mind it. It’s slightly medicinal and very distinctive. I like that whilst it is absorbed easily, it’s also a heavy duty moisturizer that managed to calm some of the irritated patches of skin on my hands. On my return to work, it’s somehow fitting that I’ve come full circle with hand cream and returned to the one that works best for me.
The Hemp range at The Body Shop has expanded over the years. One of the more recent additions is a soap free moisturising body wash (around $19). Again, the distinctive fragrance may be off putting to some but as a product, it certainly delivers. It’s non drying and soap free.
Keratin seems to be the next big thing in hair care. Taking up where Moroccon and Argan Oils left off. I had some kind of intensive keratin treatment done to my hair a few weeks back which has left it ‘relaxed’ rather than poker straight. A very pleasant bonus to the treatment was that my hair is looking and feeling the best it has in a very long while. I’ve been using a keratin based shampoo and conditioner from my hair salon ever since as well as the Organix keratin oil which I got from Priceline ($18.95 from memory). So far so good, no build up and manageable hair despite the almost daily swims.
My new things frenzy ended with a bit of a disappointment, I’m sorry to say. Coconut water is one of those wonder foods we’re all supposed to be adding to our diets but I’m going to be a conscientious objector on this one. I’m so used the Asian variety of young coconut juice that’s sweet and comes with a couple of pieces of coconut flesh which tasted too good to be healthy. Oh well, I’m sure there will be a new superfood craze to join shortly.