MAC Viva Glam compacts

This little product is fantastic for the holiday season, not least of all because red lips are the accessory to be seen in this season. The nicely baroque compact is pretty in and of itself and MAC was wise enough to create two palettes -- a warm and a cool one (with reds it's especially important to get that right or you might end up looking garish). And, every single penny of the sale price goes to the MAC Aids foundation. Not just a sliver of it... ALL. OF. IT.

Another compact of reds we like, and think merits a mention here, is the 3 Custom Color Specialists A Century in Red lip palette which has 10 different reds to represent each of the decades. We bring it everywhere.

You heard it hear first: Dr. Alkaitis skincare

There's a new brand of beauty product on the market in the US, soon to hit UK shores. Any unfortunate pronunciations aside, this range of products is super effective and natural, a trend that's become a mainstay in beauty nowadays. After all, prior to 100 years ago, that's pretty much what we had to work with anyway -- natural ingredients by default.

Apparently, no Dr. A product is more than two weeks old at the time of shipment, everything made (and overseen by Dr. A himself) in California. We like their company philosophy that 'the essential foundation of beauty is health.' Here, here. They even go so far as to say 'if you can't eat it, don't put it on your skin.'

I'd be a hypocrite to say that I don't sometimes use products that contain harmful chemicals. For a large part of my young life, that's all I knew (knowledge is power and all that...). That said, I make an effort not to, and since I've starting using the Dr. Alkaitis Purifying Cleanser and Nourishing Treatment Oil my skin has been unusually soft and the clarity is amazing. I don't generally endorse products this heartily. Maybe it's to do with the fact that all Dr. Alkaitis's products are organic aloe-based rather than water based. Maybe it's because of the high concentration of all those lovely ingredients. Whatever it is, I'm sold. Along with my Kirsty Mcleod Clarifying Clay Exfoliator (and a nightly combo of the Dr. Alkaitis oil and the Kirsty Mcleod Revitalising Vitamin Booster (NB for white western women of the world: stop being scared of oil! The right kind is REALLY good for your skin, even on your face).

They might not be a classic cult item, but they'll no doubt become a regular feature in die-hard beauty junkies' bathroom cabinets soon.

Someone finally comes clean about the American obsession with deodorant

AS an American myself, I have never been able to fully embrace the national obsession with INCESSANTLY scrubbing, bathing, showering, cleaning, washing and deodorising one's self into a puritanically clean tissy. Maybe said obsession exists because, being the land of the poor immigrant (who was, fair enough, free and probably very brave), we consider cleanliness next to godliness (my youthful Saturday mornings were lost to cleaning rugs with an old-fashioned wire beater). In any event, one thing's clear: we have an unhealthy relationship with the shower nozzle.

Frankly, a good wash a couple times a week (punctuated by a bird bath in the sink and perhaps a sprinkling of dry shampoo) would do the trick. How do I know? Because I'm a card-carrying member of the infrequent showerers club. Plus, the less you lather up with all that alluring tat from the supermarket shelf, the less you'll be using loads of things that aren't exactly great for you (especially in larger quantities), like triclosan and the aluminium additives in so many anti-perspirant brands (no, there's no direct link to breast cancer on this last one but ask someone who has had it what the first thing was the doctor told them to do... it will usually be to immediately stop using their deodorant/anti-perspirant. True story.)

In any event, this is an interesting read on the history of the American obession with body odour.