Beauty Therapy: Two-for-one luxury
The range has been created with environmental awareness in mind
Clever new body washes that are also bath soaks? Yes, please!
When is a bath not a bath? Perhaps when it’s filled with body wash. Because that seems to be increasingly what I do these days when it comes to plunge time: pump some product from a bottle of wash rather than glug in something bath specific. And, honestly, it largely works just as well.
A case in point is Land & Water, a really special bath and body range founded by the family behind the equally special Watergate Bay Hotel in Cornwall. Given that the hotel is right by the sea, the range has been created with environmental awareness in mind – all bottles are made from 100 per cent recycled plastic (hence their dark hue) and it’s manufactured in the UK in small batches using natural ingredients. But just because the hotel is coastal, you needn’t expect the fragrance to be all about saltwater breezes. They have a sister hotel in the Lake District, so the emphasis is on feeling grounded – in both nature and yourself.
I love this fully vegan range, and a few pumps of the Body Wash (£16, land-and-water.co.uk) provides you with a wonderfully bubbly bath (sometimes I chuck in some of their Bath Salts, £17, too, for extra relaxation). Products contain spike moss (good for hydration) and aromas of grapefruit, mint and lime blended with star anise and neroli for something that feels both restorative and a treat.
Also riding the environmental bathtime bandwagon is Miller Harris with its new bath and body collection (from £18, millerharris.com). Natural raw ingredients come from a sustainable supply chain and bottles are made from 50 per cent post-consumer recycled plastic. I like the crisp green notes and smoky birch in Tea Tonique (£20), but there are seven other fragrance options and the wash gives decent levels of foam in the tub.
Finally, a great under-a-tenner option can be found in the & Other Stories Riviera Postcard fragrance range. Its Body Wash (£8, stories.com) nods to vintage South of France glamour with notes of peach bellini and lemon zest, but the presence of coconut, vanilla and pineapple make it more fun in the sun than F Scott Fitzgerald.
And for a splash of indulgence…
Portrait of a Lady in Foam Bath form (£95, fredericmalle.co.uk)
In related (and very dedicated) news comes the arrival of Frédéric Malle’s classic, super-sophisticated fragrance Portrait of a Lady in Foam Bath form (£95, fredericmalle.co.uk). This is a fine development indeed, and a lavish one – its sumptuous foam encouraging you to lie back and luxuriate. At this price you’d want to anyway – this is less the stuff of a daily dip, more precursor to a very wonderful evening.
It’s classic Hollywood in a bathroom setting. Whether you gift it to yourself or to someone else, when it comes to beauty glam time it really doesn’t get finer than this.