It’s fair to say that men’s skincare has experienced a period of unprecedented and explosive growth in the past few years. While we can remember the men’s beauty section of even the more well-heeled department stores being little more than the corner of a shelf somewhere near the back, there’s now a hefty plethora of products, serums, creams, treatments, ointments and unguents to choose from.
Set in a sprawling country estate with a gentle grasp on the Cotswolds just moments away from Cheltenham, a long driveway lined with neatly coiffured hedgerows leads to The Greenway Hotel & Spa. Resident to the same lineage from its construction in 1584 until 1854, after just three subsequent owners, it opened as a luxury hotel in 1945. Relatively untouched, the Elizabethan architecture still reigns throughout the grand Grade II-listed 16th-century manor.
Half-walled with glass, a surrounding decked courtyard garden is enclosed with a stone wall peppered with ferns. Textural elements from our backdrop are mirrored in the interiors, with well-tended plants, bark-tiled feature walls, underheated wooden floors, a hanging fireplace and his and hers sinks held up by exposed tree roots.
Lingering in a stocking, waiting under the tree, or an early gift for a private moment. A scent is personal, a fragrance is meaningful, a present for the season that creates memories with every wear.
Sublimely luxurious skincare is a moment to savour, and nothing says this more than the EviDens De Beauté Essentials Collection. Comprising their most cherished pieces, you can expect ultra-nourishing formulas for supreme skin quality.
The festive season arrives more swiftly with every passing year, the world revolves at the same speed and yet the spin revs higher as each calendar page turns. It’s important not to lose sight of what is important in these winter months, moments of reflection and sentiments of gratitude are significant to share with our friends, our family and also with ourselves, for making it through another 365 days is no mean feat.
There are two types of people in this world: those who have found their lifelong match, and those who are yet to find it. A perfect partnership is based on love and trust after all, and is a relationship that takes time to build. Of course, the two halves of this pairing are the hairstylist and the client, and for many, it’s a partnership more than worth travelling for.
Scent carries our memories like music, a single note bringing waves of unexpected nostalgia. For some, remembrance can bring olfactory hallucination, the two notions having become intricately linked. A moment, a touch, a conversation, a friendship or a love… waves of beautiful, visceral emotion. Here, summer is an anthology of stories, each told by scent. Taking a mind-clearing walk on the clifftops, the waves crash below, the birds kettle high above. You brush past clary sage, eucalyptus and lavender growing wild. The ocean air fills your lungs. You notice how sea-soaked branches grasp the rocks aside your path. As your mind wanders back to your day ahead, you replace a…
“In ten or twenty years, people will think nothing of travelling to the English countryside to indulge in some vinotherapy.” It’s a bold statement of faith in the constantly-burgeoning British wine scene, but Jerome Moisan – visionary entrepreneur and leading light of Pelegrims, a rapidly-ascending skincare brand with a seriously impressive array of products – has never shied away from making an impact.
Set between Les Menuires and Saint-Martin-de-Belleville, my recent foray to the mountains offered plentiful serene moments of reflection and emotional expansion, with ample time to enjoy the last of the white stuff as the ‘23-’24 ski season came to a close.
Driving a car you love is so much more than the ‘a’ to ‘b’. It’s the feel of the steering wheel moving from under your palm, the resistance of the accelerator beneath your sole or the slick movement of the gearbox. Sometimes it’s the thrill you get when the mechanic tells you that against all odds, your pernickety classic car flew through its MOT. It’s the bond you feel and the memories you create together over the miles.
It is perhaps one of the great tragedies of my life that I don’t spend every weekend in a beautifully crafted replica of a Kyoto bathhouse, surrounded on all sides by thirty or more totally naked Norwegians, each glistening with perspiration and a curated array of essential oils. However, my trip to the spectacular Oslo wellness resort The Well ensured – within an hour of arrival, in fact – that my existence would no longer be completely lacking this experience.
My love language is quality time. The moments shared whilst getting ready for a leisurely meal, enjoyed by candlelight and accompanied by a bottle of something very special to share across the evening…
Recently, I was bestowed a great gift, and each evening my partner grows more covetous as its use becomes routine. I speak with friends, and they too desire to know how they might enhance their morning with such an advantage. What is this gift, you ask? Something that should be so simple, yet for many remains just out of reach.
A good night’s sleep.
Somehow, once again, we’ve whipped through weeks and flown through the months, and that fateful day of festive excitement, adoration-showing and gift-sharing is once more upon us.
In this inaugural edition of The Elective, we sit down with Aesthetician, Ophthalmologist and Oculoplastic Surgeon Dr Jennifer Doyle and Consultant Ophthalmologist and Oculoplastic Surgeon Mr Richard Scawn for a deep dive on The Clinic Holland Park.
The perfect gift doesn’t need to be seasonal. The occasion might be a birthday, a win at the office, or maybe a moment of self-care. Whichever way, we are here for your inspiration.
A little dress, legs out, heels on. Should I take a jacket? It’s early summer so I might need it. I will probably only want to toss it aside when I get there… I’ll grab an Uber rather than the Tube… It’s not pre-planning for a night out, but it could be. I am actually off to breakfast with Hanover and Jessie, from Discothéque. The newest, and in my humble (if not industry-specific) opinion, most exciting home fragrance launch I have attended in a long while. Now, it’s not a unique notion to use scent to take us away to another place or time, but Discothéque wants to whisk us…
I’m thinking of the perfect summer-defining scent for wandering warm olive groves at a spa retreat in The Algarve or Greece, and my ideal capsule holiday makeup bag for a weekend in Paris or Milan. You?
I don’t know where to start with my hair journey. It’s been a wild ride. Colours? I’ve had them all – quite literally during a particularly fun rainbow of pastels during a ‘My Little Pony’ phase. Blue Weekend, by Bleach London, was the darkest I’ve ever gone. In sharing a lot of that navy blue hue with the lino and walls of the bathroom, I have no idea how I didn’t lose my flat deposit. Never drink and dye, my friends.