Health and beauty

Late Summer. That little season in between Summer and Autumn. It's an unnamed season by some, whilst others call it an Indian Summer. Summer is still here, we have the same temperatures, but there's a definite shift in energy. There's thunderstorms and hot muggy weather. The mornings are that little bit darker all of a sudden and a little cooler, and there's a final burst of growth in the garden. 

In Chinese medicine, Late Summer is as important as any other season  

and is one of the Five Elements. This ancient framework of interrelationships describes how we are influenced in...

Summer. Just that one simple name conjures memories of waterslides in the garden, jumping through the sprinkler, cicadas screeching and long lazy days. Bare feet and limbs, living day in and day out in your swimsuit over the school holidays. Salads and barbecues, more relaxed living, seemingly less rules and more trips out to have an ice-cream. Family road trips, sand everywhere, hair stiff from the salt water, skin tingling from the sun. 

Fruit and vegetables soaking up the sun for their final growth spurt so they can burst forth their intense flavour 

Summer. A party...

Deciphering the ingredients on our food is hard enough but when it comes to our beauty skin care products, some of the ingredients are so hard to read let alone pronounce that it's hard to stop your eyes glazing over and feeling completely overwhelmed. And to top things off you are fighting through marketing ploys, ingredients that get called different names or are known as numbers or acronyms, sometimes it's so overwhelming and confusing that even with the experience I have I throw my hands in the air and walk away for a while! 

Around 80% of the...

Long gone are the days where people baulked at the idea that oils would make your skin oily. Or do people still believe that? Why chose an oil over a moisturiser? Well you certainly don't have to chose one over the other, in fact they work beautifully together as a combined skincare routine. But moisturisers are made up of a mixture of water and oils, so the amount of oil you are getting from a moisturiser is lower than an oil. 

Our skin naturally produces oils. This is done for very good reason. It helps create a protective...

Spring is the long wait after winter, we can feel it taunting us as August comes to an end. We start throwing the windows open and preparing for a big sprucing up of the home and airing everything out. Shaking the cobwebs not only off the house but off ourselves too. Our step lightens with the promise of warmer weather and we start to feel ready to surge forward with both movement and action after a season of hibernation. 

Persians even celebrate their New Year on the first day of spring. Iranians today continue the practice of "khooneh tekouni" which...