TRIED & TESTED | Delo Water-Boosting Caps

I KNOW everyone's supposed to go mental over the Harrod's Food Hall, but, for me, it's the Selfridges Food Hall that makes me get a little spend-crazy. It's bursting with edible treasures, arranges in walls of vibrant colors and wrapping. Rows of diaphanous merengues abutt beautiful cakes and pastel rounds of chocolate across from exotic coral slabs of sushi-grade salmon. Bottles of viscous, amber Karo syrup rub shoulders with pots of glowing English mustard. In the mix, between Yo Sushi and the bakery you'll find the modern, minimal, bright and tiny boxes housing Delo Water-Boosting Caps.

Inside each is a mix of plant concentrates and extracts. Screw it onto the mouth of your water bottle (French half-litre is what they're made for) and the seal breaks, releasing the extracts into l'eau. Extracts include Ginseng, Acerola, Guarana, Ginger, Galagal, Cardamom, Carrot, Rosehip, Mallow, Hawthorn, Orange Blossom, Yerba Mate, Green Tea, Mango, Kiwi, Lychee, Bitter Orange, Walnut and Calamint.

Energy, Sexy, Slim, Sun and De-Stress are the options. I've used and like both the Energy and De-Stress on a regular basis since their launch at the Colette Water Bar in 2007.

If you're looking for the benefits of herbal tea or supplments on the run, this might be the thing for you. Plus, it's hard not to be a sucker for their pretty packaging, like a moth to the fire...

Delo Water-Boosting Caps

TRIED AND TESTED | Top 5 natural winter skincare combos

Beautywoome.com contributor Julia Rebaudo gets her skin armed and ready for the winter weather to come. Check out her top picks to from natural brands for the best moisture boost this cold season.

WINTER SKIN needs a little extra TLC to protect against the cold weather and dry indoor heat. What a better (and simple) plan of attack is there than to double up the hydrating routine? I’m already a big fan of layering on a facial oil or serum before moisturising – nothing beats it for day-long hydration and happy skin. I’ve been testing what’s on offer to give me this one-two hydration punch from the natural skincare brands, and here are the best of the bunch.

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French organic skincare from Melvita | Sponsored post

I WANT young skin. Don't we all? But it's a fact that the one thing we're not getting as we age is younger (don't believe the commercials!). That said, you can give good skin even as it matures over the years, genes and nature be damned. Sometimes it seems we can't be bothered to put in the ground work to keep it in top form though.

Which brings me to the streak of all things French that I've been on lately. My eyes have been re-opened to the military precision with which French women are rumoured to attack their daily skincare regime. A recent Mintel study stating that French women spend more on their skincare than their European sisters – by a lot – isn't surprising. Sure, they discreetly dabble with the old jab of Juvederm later in life, but, true to the stereotype, their skin seems to age better (with and without cosmetic surgery) than that of their US and UK counterparts, if my eye-witness, anecdotal evidence – and spate of articles (New York Times et al) – has anything to say about it.

So when France's top-selling organic (ECOCERT) beauty brand Melvita (owned by L'Occitane) was rumoured to be coming to both the US and UK, I nearly melted into an agitated puddle of anticipation. Melvita (honey + life for the linguists out there) is now in standalone shops in the US (San Francisco, Seattle and Newport Beach, Manhattan (opening winter 2010)) and available most readily at Whole Foods and John Lewis in the UK.

Founder and Biologist Bernard Chevilliat started his career in beauty as a beekeeper, much like Burt Shavitz of Burt's Bees. Re-locating to south-central France in the late 1970s, he started an apiary that ended up several hundred hives large. They made honeycombed soap from the bee byproducts and, what do you know, it snowballed into a range of certified organic skin care products like skincare, bodycare, fragrance, plant oils, floral waters and haircare that use ethically sourced and harvest ingredients (full ingredient lists are featured online) to do everything from fight acne to clean baby and fight the ravages of time.

To paraphrase a well-known saying – an ounce of preventative (in this case organic) skincare is certainly worth a pound of facial fillers later.

Learn more about Melvita