For a happier digestive system, chew your food well. Digestion is a demanding task requiring a great deal of energy, especially when it is forced to deal with improperly chewed food. Take small bites, chew until the mouthful is liquefied or has lost its flavour, then swallow completely before you take another bite.
Ditch the wipes. Really, DO ditch the wipes. Apparently, 80% of plumbing blockages in UK sewers are attributed to wipes (face wipes, derrère wipes, baby wipes...) If there's really no alternative (and we would point you in the direction of a stack of flannels), then put the wipes in the bin (or, if they're compostable, the compost bin).
Feeling stressed? Tidying your desk may really help. Research by Catherine Roster at the University of New Mexico identified a vicious circle in which stress and high work demands increase indecisiveness and our propensity to accumulate work-related clutter. This clutter reminds us of tasks left undone, increasing stress levels still further. Spending five minutes creating some order around our keyboard and screen may be repaid many times over may well make us more productive.
Not yet a convert to double cleansing? Facialist Nichola Joss starts by taking her make-up off the minute she walks through the door. 'I start the first part of my cleansing ritual as soon as I get home,' she explains. 'The first cleanse removes make-up, grime and pollution; the second cleanses the pores and nourishes. I then put on my army of defence – retinol serums, for instance – so they have time to absorb and start doing their work. At bedtime I massage in a facial oil, which relaxes the muscle tissue, nourishes the upper layers of skin, traps the retinol I've applied earlier and reactivates it. And this eases me into a good night's sleep...'
If you're a fan of body brushing, switch to a more delicate, softer facial brush for the décolletage and neck. Just 10 seconds of gentle, northward strokes will rid the neck of any dry, flaky skin.
If you're someone who meditates but you know you have a tricky week ahead – a packed schedule, travelling for work and/or staying in a hotel with noisy neighbours – pre-plan for failure. Happiness expert Gretchen Rubin recmmends that you anticipate as many challenges as you can and specifically think about what you'll do and say to overcome them. (For instance, a walking meditation in a nearby park, rather than trying to zone out the person in the neighbouring hotel room who's got breakfast TV on too loud...)
For a soothing soak, try Himalayan salts, which contain the same trace minerals as the body. 'As you bathe, they enter the body to replace lost minerals and diminish toxins,' says Anita Kaushal, co-founder of Mauli Rituals. She recommends adding to a warm bath and bathing for 20 minutes once a week. If dry, itchy or irritated skin is your problem, meanwhile, try Dead Sea salts, said to improve skin's barrier function and also improve its texture.
Want the best cut for 'you'? This is not the moment to dress up or dress down; stick to your style, for best results.
Look for alcohol-free self-tanning products, if you’re heading pool-wards. They can ‘lift off’ in the pool quite swiftly, especially when SPF is layered on top.
Poet Amanda Gorman – who you may remember from her moving reading at Joe Biden’s inauguration – believes in having ‘beauty playlists.’ ‘When I’m doing my make-up I have a playlist called “Shampoo” that I put on. I have no idea why it’s called that, because weirdly I don’t listen to it when I shampoo my hair. But when I play it, it does feel like a metaphorical spiritual shampoo. It has Beyoncé, Dua Lipa, Ariana Grande on it and it makes me feel sexy, confident and hyped-up when I;m trying on an exciting make-up look.’
Need to fix a fading tan? Jules Von Hep recommends hitting the pool. ‘The chlorine will soften the tan, then take some exfoliating gloves and scrub off your tan in the shower.’ (Best for bodies, not faces, though.)
Do saunas just feel good – or do they offer actual beauty benefits? Well, a short stay in a sauna can naturally deep cleanse skin, as the dry heat stimulates sweat glands and can help flush out pores, giving that great-looking glow. But if you have a chronic skin problem – rosacea, broken capillaries, inflammatory acne, eczema or severe dryness – that can make matters worse. Even if skin is healthy, it can become dehydrated in an enclosed, heated setting; minimise the impact by limiting your stay to 20 minutes, and drink at least one large glass of water for every 10 minutes of sauna time.
Don’t have a dedicated nail oil or cuticle cream? Honestly, anything will do – a touch of olive oil, an eye cream (we’ve even been known to use a dot of butter, at a pinch!)
If you’re having a facial in a salon, never feel shy about telling the facialist that you feel intense burning or tingling after a cream or mask is applied. That’s your skin being irritated, not a sign that the product is ‘working’. (A tiny tingle or warmth? OK. But more than that? NOT OK.) The facialist should then remove the product, and if says she’d rather not (it’s happened to us), press the point home.
When giving yourself a manicure at home, add in the step of exfoliating with a facial scrub. It’s amazing how bright hands look, afterwards.
Love lipstick, hate the way it leaves a kiss-print on cups and glasses? One very smart woman we know has a sleek silver straw that she whips out, when drinking in public.
Don't apply hair masks to soaking wet hair. Too much water will dilute the mask's powers, so squeeze out as much excess water as possible before working the mask through your hair.
Because it's so hard to reach, the back is one of the most common areas for melanoma to develop (especially in men). If you don't have a willing partner to apply your SPF, it pays to invest in a back applicator. Apply a liberal amount of sunscreen to the centre of the applicator and then, holding the handles, glide over the areas you find tricky to reach.
Bamboo is an ingredient that's turning up in quite a few cosmetic formulations. Why is it interesting? As well as the sap being a rich emollient, it has properties that cool and calm the skin; in Chinese medicine, bamboo is used to treat eczema, atopic dermatitis and other inflammatory skin diseases. Ground up, the tiny particles make a gentle exfoliant.
As well as spritzing pulse-points on neck and wrists, we like to spray a little fragrance onto the palms of hands, and gently rub them together, to get little wafts as our hands move. (Works – albeit pricily – as a sanitiser, too!)