Oprah for the iPad!

Forget the TV show;  we've long been devoted readers of O, the Oprah Winfrey magazine.  However, it's hard to find on British newsstands, so you may have missed out on its mix of features and beautiful photography, which also invariably features plenty of sound wellbeing advice, inspirational thoughts (the sort which fuelled Oprah to the top of her industry), and interviews with women of achievement from all backgrounds.
     So:  the good news for iPad-owners:  O is now available as an App for the iPad, which is how we'll be reading it in future.  (Cheaper than the real magazine, too - at £2.39 per copy, and you can pick up the December as well as the January edition.)
     We also love this hilarious clip - click here - of Oprah worshipping her celestial iPad, with her list of reasons she can't live without it.
     A sentiment we rather share.

Spa-watch: Sousse, Tunisia

Beauty Bible wishes you a Happy New Year - with news of a new spa.  So:  Jo escaped the snow, ice and the need for Uniqlo HeatTech underwear by heading for Tunisia for Christmas - and stumbled upon a real 'find'.  Opened just a couple of months ago, we think the spa at the Mövenpick Hotel in Sousse will soon start to feature in all the 'Best of...' guides.  With a thriving hamman culture in Tunisia, therapists take their work seriously.  And with the Mövenpick (don't be put off just because it's also the name of an ice cream/coffee brand) being probably the glitziest hotel on the map in Tunisia, it probably shouldn't have come as a surprise to experience truly world-class treatments.  The Thalgo spa features - of course - a hot hammam room, plus a really bath-temperature-esque salt-water pool (both indoors and out, see above), several other swimming pools, a fully-equipped gym with sea views and a stupendous menu of treatments.
     Jo went for the basics, generally - facial massage, Swedish massage, and some impeccable O.P.I. pampering for her extremities.  (One particular therapist - Omsa - deserves a mention in dispatches.)  The hotel itself has fantastic beds (= fantasic sleep), is right on a white sand beach - and a 5-minute taxi ride from Sousse's colourful medina, with perfume and soap shops for the beauty-hound to explore.  Oh, and there's a Japanese restaurant and massive salad bar, so you could make it a low-cal spa escape if you felt so inclined (and managed to blinker yourself from the dessert buffet).  Jo loved every indulgent moment.  And to paraphrase The Terminator, she'll be back.

Preferably next week.

www.movenpick-hotels.com

A happy Christmas to all our lovely blog-readers

Beauty Bible is, like most people, taking a wee break till after Christmas (New Year's Eve, to be precise), when we'll be back with all that's new, noteworthy and buzzy in the world of hair, make-up, skincare and general gorgeousness.  Hope your travel plans go smoothly - and that you have a glorious time.

PS  We will be thinking on Christmas Day of the 250 young women at Centrepoint, waking up to the beauty bags that we packed last week.  A wonderful, warming thought.

Have a dekko at Occo in the City

Occo's one of our favourite new brands of 2010:  inspired by Dalmatia, on the Adriatic coast, and scented to conjure up the region - salt breezes, lush grapes and figs, aromatic wild flowers, etc.  The range is vast, but we've yet to find a product we didn't warm to.  (Special favourite:  Motovun No. 3 Deep Forest, all cypress, cedarwood and a hefty grind of black pepper.  Not a little Christmas-tree-esque, as it happens.)  Most products are around 98% natural - and for now, you can find the entire Occo line showcased in the City, at the store above - it's at 18 Royal Exchange, EC3V 3LL.  A little corner of London that is forever Dalmatia.  (Or rather, a little corner of London that is Dalmatia until the end of December, when this pop-up closes its doors.)

www.occo-online.com

Such a generous industry...

Our hands are wrecked.  Our manicures are history.  We're knackered as anything.  But having rolled up our sleeves and spent eight solid hours unpacking boxes and repacking (to the brim) some specially printed bags, Beauty Bible is delighted to say that on Christmas morning - thanks to the generosity of the beauty industry - 250 young homeless women at Centrepoint will wake up to a fabulous present that looks something like this.  For the past seven years, Jo - along with beauty industry trainer and lifecoach Sharron Lowe, and a fantastic committee that includes Kirsty Lewis (Brand PR), Michelle Boon (Beautyseen PR), Sarah Duguid (Sisley), a representative of Modus Dowal Walker (thank you guys, for the loan of the van driver!) - plus our own Sarah - has been pulling together these Christmas goodie bags, which for many Centrepoint residents will be the only Christmas gift they get.
      So we just wanted to use this blog to say thank you to a roll-call of brands and donors, including Richard Ward, John Frieda, ESPA, Jean-Paul Gaultier (courtesy of Kenneth Green Associates), Revlon, Estée Lauder, Rituals, L'Oréal Elvive, Mavala, Neal's Yard Remedies, Maybelline, Crabtree & Evelyn, Clinique, YSL, Giorgio Armani, Yes to Carrots, Dr. Organic, Biolage, Weleda - and oh, the list goes on so please forgive us if we've forgotten anyone.  Thanks too, to our own Beauty Bible Executive Assistant Amy Eason and all-round good egg Dave Edmunds, plus Centrepoint's John Raynham.  Couldn't have done it without you (and the Christmas carol CD.  Oh, and the biscuits...)
      Between you, you've made 250 women's Christmas Days.  Thanks from them.  And thanks from us:  it makes us proud to work in this industry.  Meanwhile, if you'd like to contribute to this fantastically worthwhile cause, simply click the link below.

www.centrepoint.org.uk

A free Green Beauty Bible...!

... when you spend £15 on Une make-up at www.boots.com!  We've sent out a bulletin about this fantastic offer to our subscribers, but basically it goes like this:  all you have to do to secure a copy of our bestselling book The Green Beauty Bible  is to spend £15 on-line, as above - stocking up on this new and noteworthy brand of natural-as-possible make-up (from the same 'stable' as Bourjois).  Fab shades, smooth-as-silk textures, high-performance - and really reasonable, too:  £15 goes quite a long way at Une.  But no, the becoming flush that you would be able to see on our cheeks right now (if you had a webcam) isn't a sweep of Une Breezy Cheeks blusher.  It's a little tinge of pride that they chose us for this promo, actually.

Something fishy at Margaret Dabbs

Margaret Dabbs is the go-to medi-pedicurist for us (and all our beauty editor friends).  Cleverly, she's also 'cloned' herself so that her white-coated podiatrist assistants are equally good at blitzing every last molecule of hard skin, to leave feet baby-soft and beyond pampered (so that we can comfortably march from A to B...)  Now Margaret has a whole tankful of new hard-skin-destroyers:  at the swanky new Margaret Dabbs Sole Spa at Liberty (which we have to admit is slightly more convenient for us than the other salon at 7 Cavendish Street), you can now enjoy a Garra Rufa fish pedicure in which the little fishies nibble your tootsies to smoothness.  (Tickly but worth it.)  The 'Aqua Therapy' pedicure features on a lengthy menu of treats that ranges from the famous Medical Pedicure £75) through to a Shape & Polish (just £25).  Click here to read it - and trust us:  whichever you go for, your feet definitely won't fail you now...

PS  Remember to book separately for varnishing - it's not necessarily included, depending on which pedi you book.

Margaret Dabbs Sole Spa at Liberty, Great Marlborough Street, London W1B 5AH
020-7494 4492