30 Chic Days – Day Thirteen

Day 13: Have a spa day (or a spa one-hour)

I’m not a big bath taker, but if you are, start with a bath. I start with a nice long shower in which I exfoliate with scratchy gloves or a body brush, shave my legs and under my arms, wash and condition my hair. Before the shower even I exfoliate my face and put a mask on. This then gets washed off in the shower.

Afterwards I moisturise my body thoroughly. Sometimes rather than use my everyday body lotion I will use a thick body butter or cream, or an extra fancy fragranced body product. On a spa day I let my hair dry by itself and apply very light makeup.

Post-spa activities might include:

Drinking tea
Light pottering
Reading
Taking a leisurely walk
Reading through inspirational material printed from websites and torn from magazines
Watching a favourite movie
Tidying and organising
An after lunch nap
Baking muffins
Playing Edith Piaf
Prepping for a cosy dinner

Shannon from The Simply Luxurious Life published this lovely post recently, about making your home a sanctuary. There are lots of ideas in this post which I have noted down, and would do well to be included in just such a day.

30 Chic Days – Day Twelve

Day 12: Paint your toenails

French women are renowned for knowing better than most that to make the most of one’s femininity will enrich their relationships with the opposite sex. It is said that men love women to do the things that are the opposite of what they do, in appearance, manner, dress etc. Painting your toenails is just one way to enjoy the results of a feminine beauty ritual every day.

Naturally, coloured toenails are a must for a chic summer look, but don't stop when it comes to winter. I prefer brights or darks (nudes and pales can make my feet look a little... cadaver-like) and I always feel more chic and polished when my toes are.

For some reason toes keep their colour much longer than fingernails. A new pedicure can last me quite a few weeks, whereas working in the shoe shop I don't even get one day out of fingernail polish. For that reason I keep my fingernails mid-length and bare. I'd like to say I buff them all the time (more like once in a blue moon) but the reality is it's enough that I push back my cuticles when I put on handcream.

So I get my colour fix on my feet. Because yoga classes are taken barefoot I'm glad I make the effort. Just a touch of polish makes the female foot look so much prettier and more feminine.

And it doesn't matter that you don't wear open toed shoes in the winter. You will enjoy seeing the fruits of your labour when taking off socks or moisturising your legs after a shower.

Your significant other will probably like it too. When I was a single girl in my early thirties, I lived with my sister and two other housemates. A male friend who sometimes called around to see everyone, said to me once 'I saw that you had a face mask on the other night when you walked from the bathroom to your bedroom. I really liked seeing that you take care of yourself'.

And this guy was one of the most intimidating and slightly rough (on the outside anyway) men in our group of friends! It showed me you can never pick what a male will notice and appreciate.

30 Chic Days - Day Eleven

Day 11: Enjoy low-cost luxuries

I may not be rich enough to spend a month staying at the Ritz Paris, or eat in silver service restaurants each evening. But I can have one or two nights at a beautiful hotel in my home town a few times a year, dine on petite pieces of eye fillet steak once or twice a month and sip Moet or Veuve Clicquot once in a while.

I have found that you don't need to have tons of money to live well. My husband and I often have this conversation. He concludes that the things we enjoy doing, we can do on a small budget. Yes, we want to buy a house one day, and we are saving hard.

But in the meantime, why live like a poor person? Why not put aside a small amount of money each payday to feed the soul?

Aside from the ones mentioned above, here are my favourite low-cost luxuries, to be enjoyed every so often. Having them all the time would ruin the fun.

A barista-made coffee.
A thick, glossy magazine. I bought October's The World of Interiors recently with Anna Wintour's rural retreat. Divine!
High-cocoa content chocolate.
Having my hair highlighted, trimmed and styled. The head massage while shampooing makes my toes fall off.
A macaron or other French pastry from a fancy boulangerie.
Browsing in an upmarket store, and sampling fragrance and hand-cream on the way out.
A blissfully early night.
A long shower where I do everything (hairwash, facial exfoliant, body scrub, legs shaved) and then smooth on thick body cream.

I feel like there are a million more things that could be on my list. Will you help me? What are your favourite low-cost luxuries?

In the photo above I am reclining in our luxury suite at a fancy hotel last month. It was my 40th, so why not? In my dreams, my ideal French girl's apartment is very different to this (more rustic and sparse, even though it is in Paris), but I wouldn't mind it if my Parisienne maison was decorated like our suite.

30 Chic Days – Day Ten

Day 10: Go for a walk

Honestly. Just head down your driveway and go for a walk. You don’t have to put on exercise shoes, but I don’t think you should wear high heels either. Perhaps something in between? Wear your normal clothes and take a walk, either from work, or from home. Even if it’s just ten minutes around the block.

You will get some vitamin D from the sun, a bit of fresh air (don’t worry too much about vehicle pollution unless you are walking along a motorway) and move the blood around your body.

You will connect with your neighbourhood and have time to think. If you can combine an errand with a walk, so much the better. I never feel more French than when I walk to the post office or bank, or to pick up a library book.

Now that I have rescued poodle Atlas, I look for excuses to take short walks. Everyone needs to see how handsome he is! We’ve had more takeaway coffee this week than any other week in history I think.

So grab your sunglasses, put on a bit of lipstick and take a stroll, just like your ideal French girl would. Mine, Sabine, has been around a lot lately!

And even though you are unlikely to be strolling the streets of Paris, just imagine you are. It's almost as good.

30 Chic Days – Day Nine

Day 9: Go to bed early

It’s an often quoted fact that the later you go to bed, the fatter you are likely to be. It seems to be a couple of factors at play – staying up late makes you more tired the next day so you look for a high-energy fix to keep you going, and the body has biological functions that happen at night when you are resting. If you aren’t asleep at the time they happen, you miss out.

Does that sound right? I’m not a scientist (far from it), but I choose to believe them. It’s so easy to say up and noodle around doing nothing, and then go to bed late. And then read. And then turn the light off when it’s really late. And then wake up late. I think you see where I’m heading here.

So I’m reminding myself (and you, if you want) that to go to bed early is divine (and something else, you know the saying). It will keep you youthful and fresh-faced for longer. You will also not believe how good a mood you are in all the time.

I always wash my face just before I go to bed. It’s much more pleasurable to remove my makeup meticulously and apply all the nourishing goodness in a careful manner when it’s 9.15pm, rather than when I’m tired out at 10.30pm.

Goodnight.

30 Chic Days – Day Eight

Day 8: Give up soft drink

No good can come of soft drink or soda. It’s addictive and revolting, and makes you fat and unchic. And whether it's sugar or diet, they're both bad news (diet's even worse in my opinion).

I’m doing pretty well with my transition away from unstylish drinks. And I don’t really consider fruit juice to have much merit – why not just have a piece of fruit? My goal is to get down to a core of drinks, inspired by the French girl:

Tea/herbal tea (hot and unsweetened)
Coffee (ditto)
Hot chocolate
Water
Wine
Maybe a cold cider or beer on a hot day

Fizzy drink, fruit juice, spirits and flavoured waters are all unnecessary. Maybe I’ll have my favourite brandy and dry or a g&t on a special occasion, but it won’t be my everyday drink. Sweet soft drinks make it too easy to have more as they are so delicious.

To not want an alcoholic drink when I get home from work, I have stocked our fridge with sparkling mineral water. It really is quite different to still water and it’s entirely calorie-free. Anything sparkling is still corrosive though so I only have one glass of an evening.

I try and do negative-association with food items I want to avoid. So I imagine someone trashy, not classy and unhealthy guzzling down litres of fizzy. Most of the time it works!

I have even managed to order a sparkling water in a cafe when I am out. Normally I would think to myself 'well, it's only water, I may as well pay the same price for something that has stuff in it, like fruit juice or an organic lemonade'. Wrong answer! I feel way more chic and French when I sip on my sparkling mineral water when out for lunch.

One of my all-time favourite feel-good books is Jemima J by Jane Green. In it the main character Jemima is transformed from a severely overweight girl into a slender, fit one. The thing that changes for her is that she changes her mind. She decides one day she's sick of being fat, starts exercising, changes her diet and off she goes.

The day she decides to do better, she goes out after work to a bookstore to browse the shelves. On the way she stops at a cafe, and instead of her usual order of a high-fat sugary coffee which would have more calories than a rich dessert, she chooses a mineral water and sips it outside, watching the people go by. Choosing the mineral water symbolises the new her.

30 Chic Days – Day Seven

Day 7: Have a day of rest

Give yourself a break. Like those of you with high standards (both of ourselves and others) I find that I get so wound up with not having done everything perfectly (and sometimes just having just ‘done’ everything. I am so behind with my work at the moment) and stressed out. This is not good for tranquillity or a wrinkle-free face.

I have to tell myself relax - nothing is life or death. Write a list out and see what’s important. Do those first. And relax again. Slow down.

I heard this quote on the radio last week. It imagine it would probably be true.

‘A shift in consciousness results in a shift in biology’. – Deepak Chopra

By worrying, I am not doing my body or mind any favours. It could actually be making me unwell and older. Most of the time you don’t have to do ‘everything’, just the important things will suffice.

If you look at yourself from the outside in, viewing yourself as you would another person, would you respect the frazzled, martyr-ish stress freak, or the relaxed and calm person who glides about their day, ticking things off their list.

Not all days are like that, but with a change in mindset, I'm sure most of them can be. I'm starting today.