Jo Loves... Summer 2025
Jo Fairley’s finds for summer include a fab dual blush-bronzer, the best foot file on the planet, and ‘magic’ mushrooms…
Gucci Westman Atelier Bronzer/Blusher duo
I have to thank India Knight’s Substack, Home, for this recommendation. Yes, it’s W-A-Y more expensive than any blusher that I’ve ever bought (and it was not a press sample). It’s a powder blusher – longer-lasting in our recent heatwave than creams, when it has earned its keep – and swooshes on with a brush on for an almost cherubic-cheeked effect, with the blusher, and a subtle, matte touch-of-tan, with the palette’s bronzing pan. It’s such a soft formula that at a pinch, I can actually get away with blending it with fingers.
A gulp-making purchase, yet, but I reckon the cost-per-swoosh will be negligible by the time I’ve finished this (and I don’t expect that to happen for years; a little goes a long way!)
£69 - buy here
I love sandal season, but it does require ongoing upkeep of feet, to keep them Fitflop-worthy. (I have a wardrobe of colours of the same sandal, incidentally – the Gracie design (on sale at time of writing, with 40% off) has the minimalist look I like in a sandal, and they are as comfy as you’d expect from FitFlop.) We have raved before about the Ruby Hammer Foot File – a sleek, red glass file, which buffs feet to marble smoothness with just a few easy strokes. Place a towel under your feet while filing, to catch the ‘foot dandruff’, but this way you’ll keep your feet as soft and showoffable as if you’d just emerged from a medi-pedi. NOTHING comes close to this. I use it every night at the moment, before bedtime.
£22 – buy here
Photo: Jo Fairley
Meadow Farm Smoked Honey & Orange candle
I’ve heard so much about these made-on-the-farm home fragrances from my brilliant fragrance writer friend Alice du Parcq, and at May’s Barnes Fragrance Fair – the most glorious fragrance festival – I got to meet the lovely founder Rachel Scott, and sniff my way through the range. They say they are ‘Inspired by Yorkshire, made in Yorkshire’.
There are now several other options in the Meadow Farm range – bath salts, diffusers – which I have yet to try. But the two candles that I’ve bought – Smoked Honey & Orange Candle and Into the Woods – are both absolutely fantastic, offering literally the best ‘burn’ of any candle brand I’ve ever tried. That means burning right to the edges of the vessel, rather than tunnelling down the middle as alas, so many do. The ‘throw’ is also brilliant, so that you don’t have to virtually set fire to your hair to make out the fragrance. This honeyed orange candle is proving the perfect, summery home fragrance – fresh but also drizzled in sweetness. I’m already nearing the end and look forward to using the gorgeous glass vessel as a mini-vase (or even building up a collection as drinking glasses). Incredibly reasonably-priced, too.
£25 for 180g (1 wick) - buy here
£40 for 400g (3 wicks) - buy here
Ah, Instagram. How you like to entice me with a late-night purchase, in bed. But I’m honestly so pleased that I discovered Ankhway, a British start-up supplement brand specialising in mushroom-powered health products. In this case, gummies formulated for focus, clarity and energy (as well as immunity and gut health), featuring a raft of mushrooms including Lion’s Mane, Cordyceps, Reishi, Chaga, Shiitake, Maitake, Turkey Tail and more. I had not expected results as quickly as I experienced them. Next day, I almost remarked to myself out loud, ‘Gosh, I feel clear-headed today’ – and realised that the only thing I’d done differently was add these gummies into my supplement regime. I’m now getting them on subscription, which says it all.
£29.99 for 60 gummies – buy here
I am not a fan of most lip glosses – but Cosmetics à la Carte’s are the exception that proves the rule: non-sticky and nourishing (think: vitamin E, lanolin, candelilla wax and peptides), in a brilliant range of shades, to which King’s Road was recently added. (TBH, a lot of other brands would be pitching this as a lip oil rather than a gloss, because of that nourishment factor – indeed, on their site, they do accurately describe this gloss as ‘a light, nourishing liquid lip balm’.) King’s Road the perfect summer slick, a hot pink that is a lot less scary on the lips than it looks in the tube – it’s simply sheer, flattering and pretty, pretty, pretty.
Cosmetics à la Carte King's Road Lip Gloss
£34 - buy here
