Christmas is coming! And so are all your relatives (maybe). Who doesn’t love a gorgeous health or beauty goodie for silly season? So we’ve created a little list of some of our fave health and beauty Christmas gift ideas, just for you.

So, this is the guide for all the beauty lovers in your life. Makeup, skincare, tools, the lot.

Limited edition wellness set, Avant, £129

Includes: Radiance Renewal Sleeping Mask, Glycolic Acid Vivifying and Firming Body Treatment, Hydra-Bright Collagen Eye Restoring Eye Pads, and Hyalu Replenish Lip Balm. 

Invigorating Treat set, Rituals, £29

Delivered in an origami inspired box, this set has everything for your loved one to be left feeling fresh and pampered.

Includes: Foaming Shower Gel, Body Lotion, Sport Cooling Shower Gel, and Shampoo.

Versace Men’s mini fragrance set, £27.50

The beauty of a set of fragrance mini’s, is when you know their favourite out of the set, you can buy them the full sized version next year.

Includes: Eros, Dylan Blue, Man Eau Fraiche, and Versace Eros Flame. All in 5ml sizes. 

Hangover wellbeing collection, Tisserand Aromatherapy, £49

Got any children that have recently gone to university? They’ll be sure to appreciate this hangover set curated to ease the sluggishness and anxiety that comes, post night out.

Includes: Little Box of Motivation, Mind Clear Pulse Point Roller Ball, Energy Boost MoodFix Mist, and Energy Boost Massage Oil. 

Terryfic glow baume de rose lip care essentials, By Terry, £40 

Products worth £60, this set will provide everything for the smoothest lips.

Includes: Baume de Rose Lip Balm, and Baume de Rose Lip Scrub. 

Feel good four, Mio Skincare, £35

Worth £41, this set has everything to tighten and smooth skin.

Includes: Future Proof Body Butter, Get Waisted Sculpting Serum, Boob Tube Bust Cream, and a dry body brush. 

Vegan Collagen superfood, Raw Beauty Lab, £34.95

The supplement that tightens and improves skin after a few weeks. 

Oranges and stockings spiced orange gift, The Body Shop, £23

This cute stocking filler comes with a festive inspired wash bag. All products come in The Body Shop’s limited edition Christmas scent. 

 Includes: Spiced Orange Shower Gel, Spiced Orange Body Yoghurt, and Spiced Orange Hand Balm.

24 piece professional makeup brush set, Rio, £34

This set has everything for creating the smoothest base to the smokiest of eyeshadows. 

Top-to-toe intensive therapy duo, Ameliorate, £26

For anyone you know in your life who’s been on their feet all year.

Includes: Intensive Hand Treatment, and Intensive Foot Treatment. 

StylPro original makeup brush cleaner and dryer, £20.99

This takes all the stress out of cleaning brushes. With attachments for plenty of sized brushes, and two sachets of cleanser.

Aventurine jade crystal roller, ESPA, £40

Used to reduce puffiness, and stimulate the skin during your skincare routine. This roller also comes with its own cotton bag to keep safely stored away. 

OR Noel gift set, Odile Paris, £100

Gift Odile Paris’ top bestseller products in this luxury set.

Includes: OR, je suis – The Anti-Wrinkle Serum Par Excellence, OR, j’aime – The Ultimate Day Cream, OR, je rêve – The Premium Night Cream, and OR, toucher de soie, reusable mask. 

Harmonising Hydration collection, ESPA, £80

For hydrated, glowing skin.

Includes: Hydrating Cleansing Milk, Hydrating Floral Spa Fresh Spritzer, 24-Hour Replenishing Moisturiser, Overnight Hydration Therapy, and Cotton Cleansing Cloth.

Women’s Hydrating Skincare Bundle, Dermaworks, £58.50

This set has everything needed for a daily skincare routine.

Includes: Glow Glycolic Acid Foaming Face Wash, Hyaluronic Acid Serum, and Advance Daily Moisturiser. 

Aroma Wrapping Hand Cream Set, atheltia beauty, £48

Includes: Gentle Rose, Feel at Ease, Early Afternoon, Ginger Latte. All in 15g tubes. 

Cut Throat Shaving Set, The Bluebirds Revenge, £59.99

The cut throat shaving starter set. Everything he needs and a quality cut throat razor.

Includes: Pre Shaving Oil, Shaving Cream, Post-Shave Balm, Doubloon Synthetic Shaving Brush, Cut-Throat Razor, Shaving & Hand Towel. 

Party Holiday Ready Collection, Elizabeth Arden, £70

Includes: Hyaluronic Acid Ceramide Caps 30pc full size, Advanced Ceramide Capsules 30pc full size, Eight Hour® Hand Cream, Eight Hour® Lip Protectant Stick, Grand Entrance Mascara Full Size, PREVAGE® Anti Aging Daily serum 2.0, and White Tea Original EDT.

How the old traditions influence our winter behaviours now…

Lana Hall

Lana can usually be found spinning her collection of records, or writing odd poems in her phone notes. Her mixer of choice is a ginger beer, and you’ll never find her away from the sea for more than a few weeks.

The post Health and beauty Christmas gift ideas appeared first on Silver Magazine.

…and how ageing in the music industry is no bad thing. Gary Kemp talks to SILVER about his life today.

Responsible for some of the 1980s’ most memorable songs, including True, Gold, and Through the Barricades, there’s no denying that Gary Kemp is a talented songwriter. Now, with INSOLO, his first solo album since 1995’s Little Bruises, Kemp’s lyrics have taken on a more reflective stance.

He explores the passage of time and the concept of facing up to “other incarnations of myself”. These ‘other incarnations’ span decades. Spandau Ballet was formed in 1979, when Kemp was 20. The band had 23 hit singles, all written by Kemp, spending a combined total of more than 500 weeks in the UK charts, and achieving over 25 million album sales worldwide.

Today, at 61, Kemp explains that he experienced something of an epiphany when writing the new album. “I realised that I never had to lie again in a song,” he says. “When you’re a kid writing lyrics, you’re making most of it up. You’re listening to other songs and you think, ‘Oh, I need to write a song about that subject’. But when you get to a certain age, you’ve lived through most of those subjects.”

I think a lot of the words [on the album] were inspired by me feeling my own mortality, about having more behind me than in front of me…

While this could, arguably, make the songwriting process somewhat easier, it could also evoke a certain wistfulness – something that Kemp isn’t afraid to embrace. “I think a lot of the words [on the album] were inspired by me feeling my own mortality, about having more behind me than in front of me and trying to come to terms with that.”

Is this something he worries about a lot? “My kids make me feel young,” he admits. “And the whole music business makes you feel young. But the problem is, is in the music business, you’re also constantly being shown younger versions of yourself.” He continues: “I’m still being critiqued on my 22-year-old self. You know, people are still making judgements on the music that I made as a 20-year-old.”

Kemp explores this theme in one particularly poignant track on the album, I Remember You. “It’s about me looking back on a younger, stronger, sharper version of myself. At times with regret, but at other times with longing.”

Can music improve your cognitive function as you age?

Lockdown project

He wrote the album during lockdown in 2020, the situation allowing him to explore the feelings of isolation, and reflect on the past. “It was definitely a great escape for me. Because on the other side of my life, I had the pressures of the family being together every day; I was doing home schooling. And we were being inundated with bad news and more bad news; I was just at my wits’ end. And I remember going into the piano room and writing the track Too Much. At the end of the day, I just wanted to protect my family.”

Kemp lives in London with his second wife, costume designer Lauren Barber, and their three sons. “I’ve been with my wife for the past 20 years. But there are versions of myself that she doesn’t know, that maybe have no connection to me now,” he muses.

Has this deep dive into the past make him think about touring with Spandau Ballet again? And perhaps putting their well-publicised differences behind them? He is diplomatic in his response.

“There is this constant demand to get Spandau Ballet back together,” he says. “But we don’t completely enjoy being in the same room as each other. I think unless you can be creative in a studio and do new music together, then just going out doing the stuff that you wrote years ago isn’t enough to be a band.”

There is this constant demand to get Spandau Ballet back together, but we don’t completely enjoy being in the same room as each other

Kemp describes being on the road again when they reformed (once in 2009 and again, briefly, in 2018) as being ‘stressful’, and something that he doesn’t need right now. “It would be great fun to play on stage with the band because we make a sound that was really good, and unique, and special,” he admits, “and I’m really proud of that. But I think what Spandau fans don’t understand is that life isn’t as easy as just us appearing on stage.”

It’s not as if Kemp has much time for a Spandau Ballet reunion, anyway. As well as his solo material, he’s busy touring as guitarist and co-lead vocalist in Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets, formed by Pink Floyd drummer Mason to perform early Pink Floyd material. He also has a successful podcast, Rockonteurs, with Saucerful of Secrets bassist Guy Pratt. Each week they invite music industry royalty from the 1980s to the present day, to discuss “the real stories behind real music.” Previous guests have included John Taylor, Gary Numan, Jon Bon Jovi, and Noel Gallagher. As well as younger brother Martin, with whom he’s always been close.

Photo: Malcolm Venville

Calling on industry names

It’s no surprise that Kemp is still very well connected in the music world. In fact, he was able to call on some of his industry mates to contribute to INSOLO. Among them Queen’s Roger Taylor playing drums on the aforementioned Too Much, and The Feeling’s Richard Jones and brother Martin Kemp playing bass on some tracks too. Nick Mason also worked on the album, and has clearly been a recent influence in Kemp’s career.

“He opened me up to a different audience, I suppose, which has given the ability to be able to put more complex musical arrangements on this record. I really felt that now, more than ever, I had to make some new music that represented me now, and that wasn’t like songs that I write for other people, or the songs I wrote for Tony [Hadley] to sing. These are songs that could only be sung by me.”

When you get to a certain age, I think you need to write a song about getting older, and about losing a lot of your physical power

So does this album represent a departure into different musical territory? “In 1983, it just so happened that at that particular time, I wrote True and that changed our lives. I found a sound with that band that I really liked. But it’s not who I am completely.”

What does he think about today’s artists? “I’m a hugely eclectic lover of music, and there are current artists like St. Vincent, for example, who I think are extraordinary. But I hear stories about people writing songs that go straight to the chorus because they just want to get it on TikTok. And there are the record company executives who are utterly depressed at having to just sign TikTok songs. I’m not in that world. I never grew up in that world.”

With all this looking back at the past, is he happy with life? “Yeah, everything’s fine. When you get to a certain age, I think you need to write a song about getting older, and about losing a lot of your physical power. And I’m hoping that people will find something in that.

“At the moment, I’m really happy in the world that I’m in. Which isn’t being in Spandau Ballet, but it’s still respecting everything we did. And wanting to be creative in a more autonomous way, really.”

INSOLO is out now

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The post Gary Kemp interview: ageing in the music industry is no bad thing appeared first on Silver Magazine.

I’m a bit of a spa lover – one of my favourite things in the world is having a massage. But that’s because my back is always in shreds. Too many hours at the laptop.

I’m not particularly high maintenance. I love lash extensions, because I’m a lazy moo when it comes to makeup, and it means I don’t have to bother with mascara. And I like getting my nails done, and hair of course. But I’m not bigly into tanning or facials. So I thought I’d pick out the things that I’m really missing, and see how I got on at home.

Colouring my hair

I keep my hair blonde – my natural colour is a dark blondey mouse, the colour of wet sand. In the old days I’d have styled out the roots in lockdown and gone all balayage baby. But these days the roots are some dark blonde, some grey, and some white. And really patchy. I’m not quite ready for that yet, the white wings like bloody Dickie Davies.

I know salons are open soon, but I couldn’t wait and decided to bust out the box colour. Hair stylists everywhere are groaning now and putting their heads in their hands. But actually, this was ok.

I chose Clairol Nice n Easy Ultra Light Ash Blonde – because I’ve used the brand before and guessed I wouldn’t react to it. Also the ash part I was hoping would stop my hair going brassy yellowy blonde. Whacked it on, and was instantly impressed with how much better it was than box stuff used to be.

No rank smell, nice creamy stuff that was easy to apply. No purple splodges where I inevitably spilled it on the bathrooms tiles. All in all pretty straightforward.

VERDICT

So you can see in the picture that the colour isn’t uniform, which is actually a good thing. Where it’s gone really light is basically where my white wings are, so it’s gone much lighter there. I’m not unhappy with this at all, but it’s not like going to the salon and having that whole nice experience where someone does your hair. I missed the interaction, and stuff like someone else washing your hair, which I love! I’d do this again though, definitely. Worth the risk.

Getting a massage

So this is a biggie for me. I love, love, love massage. I try and get massages every month, absolute minimum. I’ve got a bad back, and I’m a massage connoisseur. And I’m really missing someone kneading the knots out of my shoulders and thoracic area.

I tried the HoMedics Gel Shiatsu Back & Shoulder Massager chair thing (£299.99). And oh my word. This has been an absolute lifesaver during lockdown. It’s got several different functions – shiatsu massage setting, rolling setting, heat – and I can quite literally sit on it and slide into a coma. It’s lovely.

If you position yourself right, you can get a really deep knuckling right in the knotted areas, and this has two sections. So you can get your back done, and there’s a top unit too for neck and shoulders.

I’m going to keep using it, even when I can get a salon massage again, because the de-stressing aspect of this is enormous. It is permanently on the sofa now, and I often have a bash after a day in front of the laptop. I’m a drooling fool within about ten minutes. Better than five gin and tonics.

VERDICT

This is an expensive gadget but if you’re going to use it a lot, probably well worth the cost. I found that I needed to play around with the controls and my position in the seat to ensure it hit all the right spots, but it didn’t take long to work that out, maybe two sessions. Obviously you’re missing human contact here, and you’re sitting up, rather than lying down. But the massaging action of the nobbly bits is really good. Very impressed.

Something else for my back

Someone ages ago recommended the Shakti Mat so I got one to try. This is essentially an Indian bed of nails to lie on, and works by stimulating blood flow around your back and body, easing blood back into tight muscles. The reason muscles ache and get tight is because of lack of blood flow. It’s why you go red when you get massaged.

Anyway, we were a bit sceptical, especially as when you touch the spiky bits it’s really, well, spiky. But somehow once you spread weight across the whole mat it’s not only bearable, it’s really nice. You get kind of rushes of heat, feel your skin and muscles warming up. Then you relax. I thought I’d hate this and actually loved it.

I also really like the ethics behind the production… “Shakti Mats are handmade by 72 women in an all-female purpose-built workshop. The word ‘Shakti’ in Sanskrit is a feminine principle, and symbolises empowerment, abundance and change. It is with these principles that we run the workshop.” There’s a whole welfare and funding program thing going on here that’s really commendable.

VERDICT

Apparently you can work up to standing on this for the reflexology vibe. Yeah, nah. Tried that and felt I was okay not working up to a daily stand on a bed of nails, although the others tried it. But lying on it, naked skin, yes. I’d really recommend this. It’s really good to use just before yoga, although I don’t know if that’s appropriate, but I liked it. Actually just writing about it now has made me want to go and lie on it again.

Gel nail manicure

I touch type and have to keep my nails really super short but I love having manicures and a have a gel set when I can. I’m guilty of picking off the gel varnish most times rather than going back and getting it soaked off, so I don’t do it regularly. But I like having pretty nails, and having gels is great because they last for yonks and they’re nice and shiny.

So I bought some kit off Amazon, figuring how hard can it be? I got a Bellanails Professional LED Nail Lamp, and a handy tool kit with all the stuff to do manicuring and removing the polish after. I also got some Bluesky products – the Bluesky base and top coat bundle was good, and then I bought a few gel colours, same brand. And some decent acetone. All in all, it was about £60 I think.

And so one Saturday morning I laid it all out on the table and had a bash at doing my own manicure and gel varnishing job. It was quietly satisfying, and I actually ended up with a pretty good set of nails.

It’s fiddly, I’m not going to lie. And it’s also really easy to get nail varnish on your cuticles etc, which you’ve then got to clean before zapping under the light. Because then it’s set super hard. It’s not like normal varnish where you can go in with an earbud and tidy it up. Once it’s zapped, it’s there for good. I nicked myself a couple of times with the cuticle clipper things too, but I got used to handling that as time passed.

VERDICT

This is great if you’re really super into having good nails without too much aggro. I mean, I wouldn’t want to have a bash at doing my own acrylics or anything, but this was totally doable. Pictured is my first attempt, and my second attempt was better a couple of weeks later. I forgot to take a photo though. But one of the nice things about having a manicure is all the other stuff that goes with it. The chit chat, the hand massage, the not having to do it. This is nice, but I’d definitely rather be in a nail place having someone else do the do.

Finally, lashes

Right. So I bought the ICONSIGN Lash Lift Kit off Amazon having watched this pop up about a billion times in my Facebook feed. The idea is that you increase the curl in your lashes (like you would get from using eyelash curlers) but it’s permanent. It’s a perm. Literally.

I’m going to tell you straight away that I haven’t managed to give it a bash. I couldn’t even get the funny little plastic things to stay on my eyelid, let alone glue my lashes to them to perm them.

I ended up throwing the plastic thing across the room like a five year old. So as at the time of writing, I can’t tell you much about this. I might give it another go and see if I can get this to work because I have heard good things. If I have any success (or otherwise) I’ll update this article.

If anyone has had a go at the lash thing and wants to let us know how it went, do comment below. I’d love to know!

THE TAKEOUT

So all in all, I guess you could say that with time and patience it’s possible to create most of those spa type experiences at home. The big thing missing of course, is the pleasure of other people. Chewing of the fat whilst your hair is coloured and cut, drinking coffee whilst your nails are made beautiful. Giving yourself up and lying in bliss whilst someone quietly works the knots out of your back and brings you a glass of water.

I am reasonably happy with all the things I’ve tried, but with the exception of the back massage things, I’ll definitely be going back to my favourite stylists as soon as I can for the rest of it.

Sam Harrington-Lowe

Sam is Silver’s founder and editor-in-chief. She’s largely responsible for organising all the things, but still finds time to do the odd bit of writing. Not enough though. Send help.

The post Reviews of home spa options – massage, nails, hair, lashes. Here’s how it went appeared first on Silver Magazine.