This week, Health & Swellness is spotlighting some of the get-gorgeous hot spots in Leslieville. This east-end Toronto ‘hood is best known for its brunch, bakeries and coffee shops, but a girl cannot get by solely on caffeine and cupcakes, and, thankfully, a few beauty shops have started to crop up, too.
Who: Steeped and Infused
What: Jennifer Best opened up her tea shop in Fall 2009. Besides stocking 80 varieties of loose leaf tea, Steeped and Infused also hosts Intro to Tea and health workshops along with tea leaf readings — fun!
Why: Get your green tea fix here to beautify from within. Green tea, in case you haven’t heard, is truly a beauty potion. It’s been linked to everything from weight loss, and healthy skin to having a younger biological age. Health & Swellness’s fave: Steeped and Infused’s Japanese Cherry variety.
When: Mondays 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.; Tuesdays to Fridays 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturdays, 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sundays, 11:30 to 5 p.m.
Where: 1258 Queen St. East; 647-348-1669
March 23, 2010
A sample of the brand new La Mer Regenerating Serum landed in my hands last week. I opened it gingerly, and delicately dispensed the tiniest amount onto my hand, gasping when I clumsily ended up with about three times as much as I wanted to try.
Why do I fear it so? Because I’m scared I’m going to love it. And I can’t afford to love it at $340 for a 1-oz. bottle. And so I haven’t touched the bottle again — right now it’s on the bathroom counter, with light from the heavens spotlighting it, in my mind anyhow.
I believe my fears are valid, because that day I tried it on my hand? I forgot about my test drive and wondered why this particular square inch of my skin seemed so much softer and well hydrated than the rest of my parched hands.
And then I remembered.
What makes this new antiaging serum from the people behind legendary Crème de la Mer particularly interesting to me is an ingredient it contains called the Regenerating Ferment. This new ingredient is derived from taking the stem cells of a marine plant called Eryngium Maritimum, harvesting them in a laboratory and then fermenting it. The result of this process is key in helping boost the skin’s renewal process, triggering collagen and elastin production, eventually resulting in reducing the appearance of lines, wrinkles and pores, oh, yes.
La Mer Regenerating Serum is available exclusively at select Holt Renfrew locations across Canada. I simply can’t risk getting addicted to it, so you’ve got the bucks to splurge on properly testing it out, please do report back to me.
March 2, 2010
The market for ingestible beauty products continues to grow, with Nescafe offering a collagen-infused cup of joe in Japan. But can you really sip yourself wrinkle-free? One cosmetic chemist the New York Times talked to says it ain’t so.
January 10, 2010
Who: Steeped and Infused