Beauty Brands: Young and Pure to launch next week

The second natural range for teenage skin to launch this year hits the shelves of Whole Foods Market next week. Young and Pure is a natural range for teenage skin (read: acne, oily and combo complexions). Face Boutique launched in the Greene Street SpaceNK in NYC last month and will make its way to the UK soon.

We think it's the way forward with teen skincare. When we were whippersnappers the only things to help us get through the dark days of red, inflamed skin were harsh, medicinal astringents (chock full of alcohol, which is the devil), drying lotions, oil-free face lotion (which is silly. You need oil on your skin. Duh. Like Dr. Hauschka's Normalizing Day Oil) and blemish zapping makeup... all of which just made our skin drier, more acne-prone and redder.

Aedes de Venustas

There are many many scent blogs out there that do their perfume paces better than I ever could because, well, I'm not a scent expert, clearly. It's very specialised and my olfactory senses have been so dulled after years of living in polluted areas (not that it was ever the highly trained tool that scent masters and sommeliers possess). But we like reporting on little nuggest of scentful information that we think you'll appreciate.

So next time you're in Manhattan check out Aedes de Venustas. They do endless cult fragrances (although they don't do Le Labo, for which you need to go to Elizabeth Street) and even carry our favourite Annick Goutal and have a magazine.

Swiss beauty brands: Arbonne

I can't figure out if Arbonne is the Swiss equivalent of Avon or what. Any thoughts or insights?