Leah's Beauty Review: Episode One

I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you want, an adorable pancreas?

Jean Kerr

This proves that I am probably not qualified
to talk about beauty so don't take my recommendation
too seriously.

Being a teacher, I get my fair share of balms and lotions and body scrubs as gifts.  As well intentioned as they are, I'm not a big fan of rubbing myself with butters, and the smells always mingle unpleasantly with my ever-present tiger balm.

(Note to parents: gift cards, gift cards, gift cards.  All teachers love them!  Amazon, iTunes, Starbucks...you can't go wrong!)

Anyway, inspired by my good friend's Prairie Grlz blog (prairiegrlz.blogspot.com) and by a delightful experience in the tub just now, I have decided that a beauty segment now and again would not be misplaced.  I am, after all, a vain gal, and can impart my female readers (and sometimes male) with many a recommendation that could change your life or at least the texture or color of your pallid skin.

I'm not usually a fan of fruity scents because of the aforementioned Tiger Balm addiction, but I had some self-tanned ankles and knees that were looking decidedly dirty, and in my shower just now I decided to work in the direction of scrubbing some of that dirty tan off.  I reached for a forgotten tube of - here it comes - Body Shop Strawberry Body Polish - and just opening the cap brought me right back to the back-breaking strawberry picking fields of my teenage summer holidays where I labored under the hot sun to make enough money to keep me in candy and potato chips.

It was almost a religious experience inhaling the intense esters that really did make me want to squirt some into my mouth.  And, yes, the seeds were there too.  A lot of them, in fact.  Actually, I could plant a small garden with what's left in my tub.

I succeeded in a vigorous, sensuous and heavily scented exfoliation that left me pasty white, my usual shade of skin, and in need of another dose of self tanner.  That being applied, the strawberry scent has all but vanished, but I am left with the sweet memory of it, and skin that does indeed feel polished in the same way that sandpaper might hone a two-by-four.

Okay, maybe this wasn't exactly a beauty recommendation of the highest order, but it's my first try.  I do hope you'll tune in again.  Next week, I might move on to the self tanner.

New start?  Apparently exfoliating.  I'm definitely using that strawberry body polish again.