Liz Earle Naturally Active Skincare blog

During the winter months, we often find ourselves feeling a little short on energy. Very often this is our lymphatic system slowing down due to lack of exercise, over-eating and stress, caused by the busy lead up to Christmas, shopping for presents or preparing for the annual influx of visitors to our homes. This can leave you feeling lethargic, bloated and suffering with dry skin or breakouts.

As beauty therapists, we often like to focus on the lymphatic system, as it plays such as important role in the human body, and in keeping skin healthy and radiant. Our lymphatic system is part of the immune system and interacts with every organ in the body. Similar to the blood system, it circulates fluid (called lymph) around the body. Its main functions are to filter and clean the blood and lymph, fight infection and to drain nutrient rich fluid that leaks into the tissues back into the bloodstream.

Because the lymphatic system relies on the body for movement, it can become sluggish and ‘toxins’ can accumulate during the winter when we tend to slow down. This can result in puffiness, water retention, cellulite and skin conditions such as acne and skin ageing. By keeping your lymphatic system healthy, your skin will look and feel better, and you will also feel great too! So any New Year resolutions to be more active will definitely help on this front – exercise is vital to keeping our lymph system in good shape as the flow of lymph is reliant on our muscles contracting. Any form of movement is great, such as swimming, running, yoga, Pilates or even a good brisk walk in the crisp winter air.

If you aren’t as active as you would like, why not try gentle stretching in the comfort of your own home? Either stand (preferable) or sit and lift your arms above your head until you feel a stretch in your stomach and sides, then gently bring your head and arms to the right (keep your back straight) so you can feel your left side stretch, and repeat on the other side. Doing this daily keeps the lymphatic channels flowing and open. Also, deep breathing into your diaphragm for five minutes a day helps maintain balance in the body, and can even reduce post-festive stress!

Any detox resolutions you may have planned can also assist the lymphatic system, particularly when used with our fabulous Energising range. Try any or all of these tips to help keep your energy levels high and make you look and feel your fabulous best in the months ahead.

Scrub
Exfoliating your body with our Energising Body Scrub will lift off dead skin cells and excess sweat (toxins). I love the heady hit of rose-scented geranium as you massage the beautiful amber-coloured gel over your skin. The ground olive stones give a perfect exfoliation, intensive but gentle. Massage with the scrub once or twice a week can help boost your circulation and your skin will be left looking radiant.

Massage
Light rhythmic flowing strokes upwards can boost the body’s systems and encourage elimination of toxins. Energising Body Lotion is the perfect partner for your massage, as the naturally active ingredients of ivy, butcher’s broom, gingko, caffeine and horse chestnut help tone and wake the body up. Within this fabulous blend is a gorgeous array of essential oils, traditionally known for their stimulating and detoxing properties such as uplifting grapefruit, eucalyptus, pine and rosemary. I love this lotion as it absorbs within seconds and not only tones, but keeps skin super soft.

Bathe
The heat from the warm water will allow the body to get rid of waste via the sweat pores. Enjoy a warm bath scented with a 10p-sized squeeze of Energising Body Wash added. With naturally derived foaming agents from corn and coconut, it’s very gentle on the skin either as a bath or shower gel, but also has a wonderful blend of essential oils including sweet orange, grapefruit, rosemary, eucalyptus, pine and peppermint to lift your spirits and scent your skin. You’ll feel refreshed and revitalised in minutes.

Tea detox
Start your morning with a cup of hot water infused with a slice of lemon and grated fresh ginger. It’s a great drink to pep up your circulation.

Wishing you a happy and healthy 2012!

Jennifer Hirsch, our In-house Botanist, and Claire Mant, our Formulations Expert, share their stories about the creation of our new Botanical Shine Treatment.

Why and how did you start creating Botanical Shine Treatment?
Claire: After receiving numerous customer requests, our Marketing team provided me with a brief and work commenced! We wanted to create a treatment that would help people with frizzy, very dry, coarse and/or unmanageable hair get smooth, satin locks. The brief asked us to make sure it was colour safe, just like the other products in our Naturally Active Haircare range, and that it would leave hair smooth, frizz-free, tamed and manageable. As soon as I saw the brief, I knew just where I would start.

When we were developing our Botanical Shine Conditioners, I initially formulated a contender for people with dry hair, which our tests suggested would be better suited to those with very dry hair. Jennifer, however, with her very thick, coarse and frizzy hair loved it! With the addition of some extra lovely botanical actives, I knew I could create a treatment that would make Jennifer’s locks (and those of people with similar hair), soft, smooth and manageable.

Jennifer: As a team, we’re always looking for companies that take the same responsible approach to sourcing botanical ingredients as we do. So when it comes to finding a new botanical active, we have a carefully edited stable of suppliers to choose from. Caring passionately about ingredients can lead to healthy debates – as we each champion favourite contenders for inclusion.  By the time we’ve fought the corner for an ingredient, we know where its strengths lie, and whether it will live up to the expectations of a botanical ingredient in a Liz Earle product.

Claire: Working together for three years, I know when a story is going to meet Jennifer’s high standards for traceability and sustainability, and she knows when the science that supports the activity of an ingredient is going to be of a high enough calibre to hold up under my scrutiny!

Jennifer: Frequently, we find ourselves proposing the same ingredients to each other – a pretty good sign of quality. Then once we’ve settled on our actives, I get down to researching them and leave Claire to work her magic…

Jennifer, this is a project particularly close to your heart, isn’t it?
Jennifer: I have, or should say HAD, manic, curly hair that defies conditioning. Of course, the grass is always greener on the other side and I’ve coveted sleek locks since I was old enough to recognise the difference. I have been on the quest for a satin smooth barnet, and not the Crystal Tipps look I used to sport, for as long as I can remember.

Claire: So you can see, with a head of hair like that sat at the desk opposite me, I was quick to experiment with our next haircare product, Botanical Shine Treatment.  Jennifer was my guinea pig and went home and tried and tested each formulation that I thought was a contender with varying results. One day, she came back in with the words ‘I love it! If we don’t launch this, you’ll have to make it specifically for me!’

What’s special about the ingredients in Botanical Shine Treatment?
Jennifer: Decades of seaweed research sit behind our red algae extract, and there is science that confirms its ability to help build an effective barrier against dryness, flattening the cuticles so that each hair is sleeker and softer. We also take advantage of nature’s caring skills, using a cotton extract from the rarest of the cultivated cottons to help enhance the hair’s natural barrier. Just as cotton sugars work on the fibres of each cotton seed, our extract works to improve smoothness for frizz-free hair. With sumac wax, geisha have taken advantage of its hair-taming properties for centuries. It helps increase combability, manageability and improves the condition of frizzy, coarse or very dry hair.

Claire: Just to make sure that all the actives we had included were pulling their weight – specifically the cotton extract and the red algae extract – I made three different versions of the treatment to test; one containing both, one with cotton extract and one with red algae extract.

Jennifer: So I went home and methodically divided my hair into three and used each treatment in an identical way on each. I arrived on the island the next day sporting my unusual hairstyle under a hat, and Claire had the proof she needed that both cotton extract and red algae extract were critical to achieving the performance.

Claire: And Jennifer had a fantastic hairstyle. We should have taken a photo… I may have to work harder to convince her to try future developments!

Because it’s called a treatment, does that make it any more fussy?
Claire:  Not at all, you just use it in place of your standard conditioner. All this can be done in the shower.

Jennifer: I only wash my hair about once a week, and use this instead of conditioner when I do. I apply it for 10 minutes but, if I want that extra pampering or boost, I apply it for up to 30 minutes.

Claire, as one of the lucky few to be blessed with ‘normal’ hair, you can still use this treatment too, can’t you? Did you intend to create it for more than one hair type? And what does it offer you?
Claire: I can still use this treatment and do so every couple of weeks just to give my hair a little more TLC.  I avoid my roots and just apply from mid-lengths to ends, leaving it on for around 2 minutes, and my hair is left feeling soft and smooth.  The brief was to develop a treatment for people who had very dry, unmanageable and coarse hair, but most people love to give their hair a little boost and pamper, so we wanted it to be suitable for those with dry and normal hair or those whose hair had been subject to more aggressive conditions such as colouring, chlorine, etc. With a lot of experimenting and testing, we realised that using the treatment for different periods of time on different hair types gave the same benefits.

Ian Denson, our Stylist and Hair Expert, has been hairdressing for 28 years, principally for John Frieda where he became one of the owners of the company, opening and running salons in London, New York, Los Angeles and Barbados, and has been a freelance hairdresser and consultant since 2003. He has worked extensively on fashion shows and shoots around the world and with celebrities from the TV, film and fashion industries including Helena Christensen and Julia Roberts.

Here, Ian introduces our brand new Botanical Shine Treatment, providing his own personal advice on how to best use it to reap the benefits and sharing with us the results his clients are already seeing.

So Ian, can you tell us a little about the need for Botanical Shine Treatment?

Our hair is often subjected to daily stress, including heat styling, chemical processes and the unpredictable British weather – especially so at this time of year. So I’m frequently asked how to restore shine and vitality to frizzy, coarse or very dry hair. Our new, ultra high-performance Botanical Shine Treatment deeply hydrates, leaving hair smooth, frizz-free and more manageable, with ultimate shine.

What makes Botanical Shine Treatment unique?
Botanical Shine Treatment is unlike other intensive conditioning treatments that I have used. Never before have I found a treatment that delivers such incredible shine and manageability to hair in such a short space of time. The product is incredibly light and silky in texture, which makes it very easy to distribute over the hair’s surface, and doesn’t weigh hair down or leave any dull residue.

Can everyone use Botanical Shine Treatment?
Botanical Shine Treatment is particularly great for those with two particular hair types. It’s a high-performance treatment designed primarily for very dry, coarse or frizzy hair (hair that’s often quite thick), but it’s also ideal for normal to dry hair. As most people will, at some point, experience dry hair, this is especially helpful as a weekly conditioning treat.

If your hair is very fine or oily, the performance of this product may be too intense, although it could be used sparingly on the ends of particularly over-processed fine hair.

How will it make a noticeable difference to my hair (a) immediately and (b) over time?
You will notice the difference in your hair after the first treatment. My clients have said their hair felt softer and smoother almost immediately, and that these effects are increased with repeated use. Overall, volume and frizz will be reduced significantly and hair will feel much smoother to the touch and far more manageable.

Is Botanical Shine Treatment suitable for colour-treated hair?
Botanical Shine Treatment is perfect for hair that has been coloured or chemically treated. The breakdown in the hair’s cuticle, caused by chemical processes, leaves hair looking dull. By smoothing the hair’s cuticles, Botanical Shine Treatment helps hair reflect light and so adds shine.  Shiny hair that reflects light automatically looks richer and more vibrant in colour, whether blonde, brunette or red.

I’ve got really dry hair… How will the results differ if I use this as my regular conditioner or if I use it as a treatment?
Even when Botanical Shine Treatment is used as a replacement for your regular conditioner and left on the hair for 10 minutes, it will produce noticeable benefits. For maximum effect on very dry or frizzy hair, apply the treatment weekly in a warm and damp environment (for example, when you’re in the bath) and leave on for up to 30 minutes.  This sort of environment opens up the hair cuticles and so allows the treatment to penetrate further into your hair, rather than just sit on the surface.

Tip: After application but before rinsing, wrap the hair in a warm towel to open up the hair’s cuticles and aid absorption.

How do I use Botanical Shine Treatment if my hair is normal, very dry or frizzy, or if I have short hair?
To use Botanical Shine Treatment effectively, think about your hair in three different parts; roots, mid-lengths and ends. You may not need to apply Botanical Shine Treatment to all three areas.

• If you have coarse, frizzy hair, apply from the roots right through to the ends and leave on for 10-30 minutes.
• If you consider your hair normal but with dryness resulting from colour or chemical processing, you will only need to apply to the mid-lengths and ends and leave on for 2-10 minutes.
• If your hair is short, but you wish to achieve volume, do not apply to the roots.
• If your hair is short and thick, apply all over.

You only need to use enough Botanical Shine Treatment to coat each strand – an amount the size of a 50p piece will probably be enough. Start with this and add more if needed to achieve required coverage – any excess will only go to waste.

I am finding this year’s festive season a particularly exciting one, perhaps due to the ‘celebratory bubble’ that is Christmas family time – the perfect respite from a year that has been consumed by economic doom and gloom.  I adore Christmas and the exciting build-up to the New Year, as it’s a great time to catch up with friends and family and think about my resolutions for the impending year.   It’s also the perfect time to find an excuse to wear my glitzy LBD that’s hidden away at the back of my wardrobe.  However, I find that seeing my ‘winter mask’ (my grey reflection in the mirror) staring back at me prompts a search in my Liz Earle beauty toolbox for the perfect party skin saviours.  These gorgeous pampering treats are my best friends during the busy party season (and its numerous photo opportunities), so I hope they will be yours too.

My botanical party companions
For shiny hair: Lustrous locks are one of the many ways to ensure you look and feel your best.  Cleanse hair gently with Liz Earle Botanical Shine Shampoo for beautiful shine.  Squeeze a 10 pence piece size into your hands and massage over wet hair, paying attention to your scalp.  Rather than adding more product, apply more water for more lather. As it’s formulated with botanicals such as aloe vera, West African shea, apple, orange and naturally derived cleansers (no sodium lauryl or laureth sulphates in here!), colour is protected and the cuticles of the hair are smoothed resulting in shiny hair.  It’s also great for the scalp. My husband has seen a dramatic difference with his dry scalp since using the range, and now he’s hooked!  After thoroughly rinsing, don’t forget to finish with Liz Earle Botanical Shine Conditioner. There are three types to choose from: normal, dry/damaged and fine/oily.  For fabulous tips on how to select your conditioner and style your hair, check out our Stylist and Hair Expert Ian Denson’s blog.

For rehydrated skin: If your skin is feeling parched and suffering from the effects of central heating and harsh winds, look no further than our Intensive Nourishing Treatment Mask.  This is a real favourite in our treatment rooms, as it is formulated with an amazing blend of botanicals designed to moisturise and hydrate.  Packed with moisturising borage oil, this wonder ingredient helps to lock moisture into the upper layers of the skin, whilst comfrey and St. John’s wort help to soothe and calm. Apply a generous layer after cleansing and exfoliation (avoid exfoliation if suffering from rosacea) and leave on for 5-10 minutes. Alternatively leave overnight. You will see which area is particularly dry depending on where the mask absorbs into your skin. For extra dry or mature skin, why not try adding two drops of Superskin Concentrate to your skin before your mask application? This aromatic blend of 100% plant oils, including argan and rosehip oil, will help to maintain the suppleness of your skin and enhance the benefits of the mask. Don’t forget to finish with Superskin Moisturiser, a great day and night cream. My dry skin can’t live without this in the winter, and it’s great for sensitive skin due to being fragrance-free.

To brighten grey/winter skin: If you see a grey reflection in the mirror, apply Brightening Treatment Mask pre-party.  This wonder mask is like ‘gym for the skin’, as you only need one to two minutes for instant radiance due to the clever blend of botanicals, such as stimulating Chinese camphor, toning witch hazel and purifying white clay.  Avoid on any areas of rosacea.

The finishing touches
To complete your party preparation, apply an even layer of our new Liz Earle Sheer Skin Tint.  I love this formulation, it gives skin a fabulous, dewy finish, whilst enhancing your natural skin tone.  It is the perfect way to create your canvas, ready for your festive make up! To test your colour, apply a small amount onto your jawline and if it blends in seamlessly you have the correct shade.  We have three colours: Bare, which is the one I use, Beige which Liz uses and Beach, which is lovely for suntanned, olive and most Asian skins.  Always apply your Sheer Skin Tint after cleansing, toning and moisturising, as this will give the best finish.  It’s also enriched with SPF15 and borage, avocado and natural source vitamin E, to work in harmony with your Liz Earle skincare. Check out our video to see our Make Up Artist, Jane Bradley, in action with the range for application tips.  Finally, don’t forget our Sheer Gold Shimmer to use as a highlighter on cheeks, in the centre of your bottom lip (for a fuller looking pout) and on your collarbone for instant sparkle.

Wishing you wonderful skin at Christmas time!

Winter has arrived; the days are drawing in and there’s certainly a chill in the air. The central heating has been switched on, and whenever you venture outside, the damp and windy weather conditions are really taking their toll on your hair.

So, just as you reassess your skincare routine at this time of year, it’s also a good time to re-evaluate your haircare, to ensure it stays gorgeously glossy and healthy-looking, and to help protect it from the elements.

Get the best from your shampoo
Choosing a shampoo can be baffling. I’ve been in hairdressing for nearly 30 years and I still think this! I really do feel for my mystified clients when they tell me how they can sometimes spend ages in front of hundreds of different coloured bottles, trying to decipher which one is going to give them the hair of their dreams.

We had this in mind when we created Botanical Shine Shampoo, which is why we decided on just ONE shampoo for all hair types and colours. Our award-winning shampoo smells absolutely devine and is made with a blend of West African shea butter, natural source vitamin E, shine-boosting apple and orange extracts and without sodium lauryl and sodium laureth sulphate which means it’s ideal for all the family.

Occasionally I get customers telling me the shampoo hasn’t immediately worked well on their hair. After asking them a few quick questions, I realise they’re not using the product in the correct way: they’re either using too much product or not applying it with the correct technique. So to make sure you’re getting the best results from our Botanical Shine Shampoo, here is a quick and easy guide to best use.

• To start, make sure your hair is thoroughly wet. It needs to be completely drenched in water.
• Next, squeeze a ten pence piece-sized amount of shampoo into your palm. As our products are concentrated, it’s important to remember that a little goes a long way. But do experiment with the amount of shampoo that works best for your hair.
• Mix the shampoo with water and rub your hands together to create lather.
• Then massage the shampoo into your roots. Use one hand starting at the area above your forehead working downwards and the other above the nape of neck massaging upwards. When shampooing hair, make sure you focus on your roots much more than the rest of your hair, as this is where the shampoo is needed the most.
• If you need to create more lather, simply add more water rather than shampoo.
• Finally, rinse hair thoroughly.

And don’t forget the conditioner
For most hair types, conditioner should mainly be used on the ends of your hair. Take a look at my Choosing the right conditioner guide to make sure you’re selecting the correct formula for your hair type.

Our conditioners are very concentrated, so if your hair is fine or oily I would recommend using the Botanical Shine Conditioner for fine or oily hair. Although you may want to get a treat-size version of our Botanical Shine Conditioner for normal hair to use occasionally – for when your hair is particularly parched from a lot of colouring, or after a lot of swimming in the sea or chlorinated water.

And finally, get ready to transform your hair with a new addition to our award-winning haircare range. Simply enter your details here, and we’ll make sure you’re the first to hear about our latest arrival. All I’m saying for now is: it’s your time to shine. Other than that my lips are sealed.

As a botanist, I swear by the Latin botanical names for plants rather than the easier to remember and spell common names. No matter where you are on the globe and no matter what tongue you are speaking in, if someone presents me with Malus domestica, I know I’m going to be getting an apple. Unfortunately, outside the cosy world of plants, it’s not always so simple to decipher just what you’re getting. So imagine my surprise when I ordered apple cider, expecting non-alcoholic, cloudy apple juice (what Americans call cider), and got proper Somerset scrumpy… all 6% of it!

Cider for breakfast?
Like the juice, cider has cloudy roots. The Romans may have given us straight roads, aquaducts and Hadrian’s wall, but there’s evidence that British, alcoholic cider made its way back to Rome around 55BC. As colonists travelled the world with the expansion of the British Empire, they took their cider pressing skills with them, providing a safe, albeit alcoholic beverage for the whole family where water was not fit to drink. America’s second president, John Adams, proudly boasted of starting each and every day with a pitcher before breakfast. Over the 200 years between President Adams enjoying an alcoholic brekkie cider and my mother serving piping hot mugs of the non-alcoholic version to us after sledging, we’ve become divided by a common tongue.

What we shouldn’t be divided about is the joys of mulled cloudy apple juice to banish winter’s damp chill. As those first frosty weekends roll around, I get my saucepan out and fill my house with the fragrant aroma of mulling spices that evoke childhood for me. Be warned: you can waste away many an autumn afternoon refilling your saucepan with this simple recipe.

Mom’s delicious mulled cider
You will need…

• 1 litre cloudy apple juice
• 2 firmly packed tablespoons of dark brown sugar
• 4 whole dried allspice fruits called ‘berries’
  (or a pinch of ground allspice to taste)
• 4 whole dried cloves
• grated nutmeg
• 2 cinnamon sticks broken into pieces
• 1 Granny Smith apple peeled, cored and thinly sliced
  or peel of 1 orange shaved into curls

Stir together all of the ingredients in a saucepan. Over a medium heat, bring the mixture to just below the boiling point. Reduce the heat and cover the saucepan so the juice can mull for 10 minutes at a simmer. Strain juice to remove the cinnamon, allspice and cloves. Divide the mulled apple juice between the mugs, garnishing them with the apple slices or orange peel curls.

We launched our Sheer Skin Tint in September of this year, and this week we were all delighted to hear that our new beauty essential had just won its first award. Sheer Skin Tint scooped the ‘No-Trace Base’ award in Grazia magazine (the UK’s leading weekly women’s glossy), and was billed as a “glow-giving super tint”.

It’s especially great to win this award, as our aim in creating Sheer Skin Tint was to create a make up product that helped to enhance rather than mask the skin, to leave it with a really beautiful dewy finish and a natural looking radiance. We wanted to receive compliments on our great skin, when wearing Sheer Skin Tint, not our great make up!

As with every product we launch, much care and attention went into it’s development and Sheer Skin Tint was over three and a half years in the making. It also marked some exciting collaborations for us with leading industry experts, including our top make up artist Jane Bradley, who I’m sure you will hear more about in the coming months.

We have been celebrating this news and taking stock of the fantastic feedback we’ve received from our customers so far, which really has been just as exciting for us. As Grazia say ‘no make up bag should be without this supertint’ and, as it’s been specially created to suit all skin types, we hope you’ve also all had the chance to try it as we’d love to hear your thoughts!

Our Cleanse & Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser has won over 70 awards and accolades over the last 16 years, so we’re hoping this award for Sheer Skin Tint marks the first of many.

The magic of Christmas is upon us once again and there’s no better time of year to start thinking about ways to care for yourself, and ways to take care of your poor, tired feet.

After hours of trawling the high street in search of the perfect gift for your loved ones, feet can become sore and swollen. Due to being wrapped up all winter, with constant friction and pressure from shoes, skin can become thick, coarse and often painful.  This is why I am obsessed with my comfy socks, much to my husband’s dismay. I have at least five pairs of ‘ski socks’ that I live in during the winter months, as I have an aversion to my feet being cold and I love kicking off my shoes as soon as I can.

Also, once a week, I take off my comfort blanket during my ‘Skin Sunday’ (my weekly pampering session) and I do a pampering foot treatment to restore my feet to their former glory.

I wanted to share with you a few foot facts, and my tips to give you happy feet…

Foot fact
On average, you take 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day. That’s a lot of work for the feet, especially when nearly a quarter of the bones in the body are located here – with 26 bones in each foot!

My tip: spritz!
To alleviate pressure after a busy day, elevate your legs on a chair or large pillow for 10 minutes, to help to minimise the achy feeling.  Then soothe your calves and feet with a fine mist of Liz Earle Foot Spritzer. This is like air conditioning for your feet, as the menthol tricks the brain into thinking your skin is cool, which is great when feet are hot and puffy. I like to keep mine in my handbag, so I can spritz on the go.

Foot fact
Feet have thousands of sweat glands and can excrete up to half a pint of moisture a day.

My tip: scrub!
To keep feet looking and smelling fresh in the winter, wash them daily and use a scrub such as Liz Earle Foot Scrub. This glorious blend containing West African shea, avocado and wheatgerm will maintain moisture levels in the skin, while the hardworking pumice will eliminate sweat and dead skin cells. To get the best results, use a foot file on dry skin first, to slough away the thick layer of dead skin.  This will reduce discomfort on the heel and balls of your feet.

Foot fact
Going barefoot is the best position for your feet, joints and overall posture.  In 2007, a professor in South Africa compared the skeletons of modern humans from different population groups with skeletons from 2,000 years ago and discovered that people had healthier feet and posture before the invention of shoes.

My tip: lavish!
Kick off your shoes as soon as you get home and, after exfoliation, lavish your feet with Liz Earle Foot Repair Moisturiser. This really is TLC in a bottle for your feet, as it is blended with moisturising shea butter, calming lavandin and uplifting rosemary and peppermint. If your skin is particularly dry, apply a layer of Liz Earle Superbalm to your heels, balls of your feet and toes, before applying your Foot Repair Moisturiser for extra suppleness.  Finally, give your feet a little well-deserved massage. Sandwich your toes between your palms and roll your hands in opposite circles for a few minutes on each foot, so your foot is almost squeezed. This will help to stimulate circulation. Before putting on your slippers or socks, walk around on a carpet for at least five minutes to allow the joints, bones and muscles to realign.

Do share your footcare tips with us and remember, spritz, scrub and lavish for happy feet!

Wishing you a wonderful Christmas!

We’ve been so thrilled with our first year in Leeds. It’s exceeded all our expectations as a team, and as a new brand, coming to this vibrant city. We’ve been thoroughly welcomed and our customers have shown their support and loyalty throughout the year. We really cannot thank you all enough, as this has resulted in a fantastic achievement with us winning ‘Newcomer of the Year’ at the Leeds Retail Awards 2011. This is down to a combination of hard work and dedication from our fabulous team, and having great products to work with of course!

We never could have imagined just how established and popular the Liz Earle range is in Leeds and in the north of the UK in general.  Lots of you have been regular customers for many moons, and you have inspired us and taught us a great deal about our award-winning products – especially how they have improved your skin, and in turn benefited your lifestyle.

I remember saying to Liz Earle at our grand launch party in November last year that I had never seen so many women with such great skin in one room! The opening event was memorable for all who attended, with customers and the team sharing an exciting day filled with activity that left us dizzy with excitement at the things to come.

Our store in the Victoria Quarter really is stunning. It’s such a tranquil place to while away the hours. You can enjoy a cup of herbal tea while relaxing in our library area on the first floor, make your Christmas shopping experience seamless as you browse our festive gift collection, or talk to our knowledgeable staff, who can offer personalised advice and help answer your beauty questions.

Thanks again for all the loyalty you have shown this year, we couldn’t have done it without you.

Merry Christmas and best wishes
Theresa and the Liz Earle Leeds team.

I am so thrilled to be able to write to you again, just a year after opening our Leeds store, to tell you the exciting news that  our fourth Liz Earle store, this time in Guildford, Surrey, is open.

For those of you who know and love Guildford, you will have frequented the cathedral town not only for its fabulous High Street and boutique shops, but for the many restaurants and coffee shops tucked away amongst the cobbled streets, and the monthly Farmers’ Market that tempts and tantalises you with aromas of organic herbs, spices, meats and cheeses. You will also find nestled amongst its stalls our fellow Islanders, the Isle of Wight Garlic Farm, with their many types and flavours of garlic bulbs and crudities.

For those less familiar with Guildford, it is described as a market town despite having a rather austere modern-day cathedral (that may be familiar from its role in the film The Omen). Situated 27 miles south west of London, it is easily accessible by train and promises a good day out, with a lovely riverside walk or a trip to the theatre, as well as being a great destination for shopping.

Our new Liz Earle home is situated in the central part of the cobbled, pedestrianised High Street at number 72-74, which is a Grade II listed building with a medieval undercroft below it. Walk up a couple of steps and through the entrance to find the main ground floor shopping space that, for launch, will be brimming with all our wonderful, vibrant Christmas gifts.

Step behind our Christmas displays, and you will have the chance to play with and trial all your favourite products and maybe a couple of new ones at our ingredients bar, or stop to try our latest product, Sheer Skin Tint – a make up must-have for the party season!

If you fancy relaxing and learning more about the Liz Earle brand, take a few minutes to rest your feet and take a seat in the library area, where you can dip into a selection of Liz’s books and watch our latest “how to” videos and footage of our ingredient-sourcing trips.

We’re delighted to have managed to find space in our new store for a treatment room, which we aim to open early next year. If you would like to experience one of our coveted facials, we will be taking bookings from opening day onwards.

Our Store Manager, Leanne, her Assistant Manager, Gabby, and the rest of the team will be on hand to meet you and guide you around the store. We will also be holding our official launch event on Thursday 1st December which  Liz and some of our experts will be attending, so do take a look at our site over the next week to find out more about the special launch day activities.

Before I sign off, I thought I would let you know that I have always had a soft spot for Guildford, as I was born fairly close by and it has been my place of choice for a leisurely trip out with my friends for many years. I feel sure you’ll develop a soft spot for Guildford too…

We look forward to welcoming you to our new home and wishing you all a very Merry Christmas,

Toni x