A Pink Box Full of GGGs (Glossy Girly Goodies)

The latest Brit-born girly start up, called Glossybox, brings you an innovative and fun subscription service, offering its members a selection of 5 beauty product samples each month, from the most up-market and coveted brands to the most niche and exclusive, and that for only £10 a month. If you're an avid cosmetics consumer, love experimenting with new products but would rather die than to spend the money or time on products that you try once, hate and ultimately throw out, this is your new girly discovery. Or better yet, if you're fed up with the regular Boots run, gag at the sterile smell of over-the-counter pharmaceuticals on your daily lunch Cosmetics trip, you'll want to read on.

Glossybox is a fantastic consumer proposition insofar as it's easily digesteable and user friendly. This is how it works. It's a 3 step process.

1. First sign up to receive your monthly Glossybox and complete your Beautyprofile to allow the experts to carefully match products to your likes and personal beauty.

2. Every month you'll receive a beautifully wrapped pink and purple polkadotted box full of girly goodies in the Royal Mail.

3. Enjoy 5 cherry-picked luxury products each month and avoid the hassle of long queues and the pressure of sales people.

Provide feedback and with every survey, receive 20 points. After collecting 1000 points, your next Glossybox is free. You'll want to do this.

With brands ranging from O.P.I, Nars and Lalique, to All For Eve and batiste shampoos, you'll be able to sample from all sorts of products for nails, skin and hair alike.

Plus enjoy regular style and beauty tips via their online magazine. This week, Glossybox talks you through Olivia Palermo's beauty tips on how to look effortlessly glamorous. You can subscribe to news updates on Facebook and Twitter as well.  All of this from the comforts of your cozy living room. What are you waiting for? Check it out here and sign up now, zesties.

The Latest Addition to the Bruton Street Fash Pack

No, this is not a joke and this is not a tease. Your heard me. It's happening and it's true. The cult Parisian designer Isabel Marant is coming to town and bringing her delicious garments to Mayfair's finest street to reside at 29 Bruton. While no official opening date has yet been announced, you can be sure that there will be buzz, fashion lights and beautiful people populating the new space and strutting their stuff with her latest collection through the streets of London. Marant will move into a 3,5000-square-foot premise, and will become neighbour to Matthew Williamson, Stella McCartney and Diane Von Furstenberg. Yes, dear. I did say the Finest.

Being a hardcore fan myself since 2004, I've never once not seen her catalogues, and never once not bought anything from one season to the next. I've always clung like glue to her ankle boots, floral prints and skin-tight leather trousers. And her knits have a way to make any look seem effortless yet feminine. There's something to be said about laid back French fashion. It's just undeniably cool.

Take a look at her exquisite A/W 11 collection here.

Like Ham & Cheese on Crack

You've probably been to Pret numerous times on your daily breakfast run and thought to yourself, God, it's that same old thing again; "a yoghurt and raspberry jam parfait, please, take away". Off you go, with a grunt and a softly-dying appetite, at the thought of swallowing down yet another tasteless breakfast this week. It's doesn't have to be that way, zesties. Weekday breakfast can be fun again! This morning, I took the adventurous road down the bakery aisle at Pret and bought myself a melty crispy, goldeny brown Ham & Cheese croissant. I did it. Carbs for breakfast, zestie, it's a fact. So sue me.

It's got all the winner ingredients for a happy breakfast and a splendid start to the day: the ham, the bacon, the cheese, the juicy tomato sauce, the crispy crust - it basically is 352 calories of pure goodness. I can't wait til tomorrow morning. Did I just hear my alarm clock?

In the Pret a Manger near you.

Strong in Body, Peace in Mind

Have you ever had an itching urge to kick all bad habits, smoking, alcohol, bad food and lack of exercise in a desperate effort to cleanse yourself? It's a spring cleaning thing, I reckon. It happens to me every year around this time. 2010 was the Grape Diet year. For four days straight, I "cleansed" my body with this supposed anti-oxidant miracle remedy. I cut out alcohol and all things toxic a week after wards. I felt light on my feet, strong in my body and re-energised. 2009 was the year of the Master Cleanse. Terrifyingly difficult and torturous, I managed to pull through and I was rocket of energy for days on end. In 2011 however, I'm not so much in the mood to starve and torture myself. In 2011, it's all about feeling strong in body and having peace in mind without taking extreme measures and becoming an anti-social hermit because of it. 

Yeotown Main House

 Yeotown Suite

Being a bit of a yoga nut, I decided, last weekend, to drag my mother to a yoga retreat - one of the most respected yoga retreats in the country. Well, to be fair, I dragged her, but she treated me. Voted by Tatler as one of the top 10 spas of the world and Harper's Bazaar as one of the top detoxifying destinations in the country, Yeotown Devon truly is the ultimate place for a mind and body cleanse. 

 Yeotown Yoga Studio

Tree Pose  

Choose a yoga or a detox programme and get carried away by the amazing classes, food and natural beauty of the surroundings. It truly is one of the most peaceful places I've ever been to. And let me assure you, two hours of power yoga in the morning plus 2 hours of restorative yoga in the afternoon, a massage and walk in the woods, for 3 days straight, beat the hell out of a grape or master cleanse cure. No pain (not really), no starvation, no anti-social lock ins, you'll find yourself refreshed, empowered and addicted to a healthy lifestyle. 

"Artistic" shot of newly pedicured foot on basin of rose petals

Buddha sculpture in front of main house

So fine, if you're short on cash, need a quick and efficient cleanse and you're not afraid of low bouts of energy during work hours and missing out on the pub run with friends, the four day master cleanse is the right choice for you. And again short term gratification is the goal for this type of programme. If you're one to need a solid make-over, a long-term cleansing and empowering solution, then Yeotown is where you should be headed to next weekend.

They Make You Bake

It's like Colour Me Mine but for foodies or Paint By Numbers with edible ingredients. It's the latest form of microwave-oven dinners. And it's so good and so sinfully easy, you'll never go Dominos again. 

Here's the idea: you pick up your "nearly baked" pizza at The Pizza Makers. You glance over the wonderful menu of pizzas available and then, you select your favourite Margherita, Artichoke, Pepperoni or Prosciutto pizza recipe. You put in your order - and in the blink of an eye, your pizza is ready. Well, not quite. You let the pizzaiolos work their magic on the dough and the balanced distribution of ingredients on the beautiful blank canvas. It's the job of your home-oven to finish the masterpiece. And voila! It's DIY Pizza!

They make it, you bake it. Nowadays, who even makes their own pizza anyways? But then again, who enjoys biting into a take-pizza whose dough is half soggy and sticking to the back of your teeth from traveling for God knows how long in the back of a Dominos delivery vespa? That's right, zesties. Nobody. That's why, it's time for a revolution. 

Bite into that crispy, thin-crust, fresh and tasty - the one you nearly made from scratch - delicious pizza and enjoy! Okay, so there's a minus. It's in Chiswick. But hang on, I was there last month and compared to Shebu, it's not half bad! Jokes aside, it's an up and coming area full of yummy mummies and upscale boutiques, with a grungy flair. So now you've got yet another reason to visit the neighborhood. 

The Pizza Makers

85 Chiswick High Road(corner of Chiswick Lane)
W4 2EF
020 8994 8080

Water: Drink Responsibly

Are you one of those avid water drinkers? You never leave the house without clutching a water bottle. You always drink between meals and never during. It's two liters of waters per day, not one. Yeah, you know all the rules. You think you're the water expert. There's just one rule you're missing though. By buying and using new water bottles each day, you are going against the basic philosophy of recycling, a philosophy we humans preach but hardly ever exercise; polluting the earth and creating unnecessary waste around us. Yes, okay, I'm guilty, I like my occasional Evian bottle and enjoy the sporadic sip or two when I'm on the go. Sometimes, I even go out of my way to buy my fashionable and yes, delicious, Voss Water. My dear friend works for them in Asia and really believes in the water's nutritional values. I completely buy into it. At restaurants though, I've gotten into the habit of ordering tap water. It's not cool, but it makes me feel a little bit better about myself each time. 

Recently I've been introduced to the unbelievably sleek and clever Bobble Water Bottles. Bobble is a £10 portable reusable water bottle invented by world-renowned industrial designer Karim Rashid. Its clever design incorporates a filter, which equates to at least 300 water bottles, substantially reducing the waste otherwise generated by disposable water bottles. Change the filter approximately every two months and wash the bottle every so often. How easy is that?

Available in different colours online and in various Planet Organic Stores throughout London per location below:

Muswell Hill:

111/117 Muswell Hill Road
London
N10 3HS

Notting Hill:

42 Westbourne Grove
London
W2 5SH

Central London:

22 Torrington Place
London
WC1E 7HJ

Islington:

64 Essex Road
London
N1 8LR

Eliza Does A Lot

If you haven't yet heard Eliza Doolittle's gleeful, lovable, Spring-in-her-step album, no sweat, she is performing it live this Saturday, 9th of April at O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire (London) as part of her global  2011 tour. And if you can't make it to that, she's got a Gold album, 22 years of age and a whole lot of career ahead of her. 

 

Known for her juicy tunes "Skinny Genes" and "Pack Up", and her delicious golden summery voice, she is Britain's, better yet, Pop music's, next it thing and she has definitely won me over. Nevermind that she is Moschino's new mascot and muse, that she has killer legs and a great sense of fashion - London-style. She also has tunes that will blow a breezy wind through your hair on those hot summer days. So hurry up, Zesties, and book these tickets now for she will not be be kept a secret for long.

Eliza Doolittle

@ O2 Shepherds Bush Empire

19:00 - ticket price £16.45