The joy of Christmas...

Welcome to my first ever blog!  I love my job as Head of Creative here at Liz Earle… in fact I’d go as far as saying it’s one of the best roles in the company (but then I am a bit biased!).  You see it’s my job to ensure that everything you touch, view or read reflects our passion, values and vision; whether it’s our shop windows, a new product, our website or even a simple business card….so I’m certainly never bored. For me really good design should be instinctive, if it feels right it generally is…simple is definitely best.  Sometimes design can work so well we just take it for granted and don’t even notice it! – but in this instance I hope you do notice and more importantly enjoy this year’s simply gorgeous Christmas theme…

One of the things I like most about my job is that it enables me to look into the future, as my hardworking creative team and I work many months and even years in advance, carefully planning the words you read and the designs you see, down to the minutest of details... it’s the small things that can make the biggest difference after all… and simple takes time to develop.

We started looking at this year’s Christmas before last Christmas!...in November 2008, when we held a brainstorming session at our Isle of Wight office with key people from around the company as I wanted to try and capture what Christmas meant to everyone individually. What came out of that session was that it’s a very personal thing, meaning different things to different people...family time, time with friends, a time for reflection, fun, indulgence…and some specific family traditions that have to happen every year or it’s just not Christmas… such as the family walk after lunch to burn off the turkey or a closely fought board game tournament between the generations (we’ve had some mammoth Monopoly sessions at home sometimes lasting days!). But whatever it means to us as individuals, it is a time for giving and a time to celebrate. In essence, a time for joy – a simple word that evokes the feelings and emotions that make our personal, perfect Christmas so special.

So ‘joy’ became our Christmas theme and joy is the emotion we want you to feel when you receive a Liz Earle Christmas gift (UK, IE & US) ...from the moment you slip off the tactile ribbon, open the lid and the fabulous smell of the products within makes you tingle, to when you peel back the tissue and see the layers of gorgeous individually wrapped treats inside. If you are lucky enough to receive one of our gifts (or even treat yourself to one) I challenge you not to smile as you open it...

When it came to visualising the joy theme, we wanted to create a clean, simple, timeless design which embodied the ‘modern tradition’ of the Liz Earle brand. Starting with our own signature blue colour for the body of the box we then added a beautifully tied signature blue ribbon, and a touch of ‘modern’ sparkle with a subtly reflective Joy gift tag. But it’s not just about how the packaging looks, as any good designer will tell you ‘form follows function’. So our boxes have been designed to be re-useable, just the right size to fit all the heavenly treats inside and best of all, manufactured in the UK; the ribbon has been custom-made and designed in such a way that you can have a sneaky peek at what’s inside without untying the bow! The Joy gift tag reflects our philosophy of reduce, re-use, recycle through a simple past, present and future message, and the tissue paper protects the products, while adding to the overall excitement of unwrapping the gift.

With the Christmas gift guide too we wanted to give you a small taste of the same joy and excitement you get when opening one of our Christmas gifts, from the foiled Joy gift tag and the ribbon-like texture on the cover (mimicking the box lid) to the warm, heartfelt messages inside.  And we didn’t want to forget our cult classic Cleanse & Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser either (UK, IE & US), so we’ve given it a little festive makeover with a sparkling new Limited Edition design especially for Christmas 2009 – giving it a real ‘wow’ factor on your bathroom shelf and making it an even more wonderful gift as well as a great way to introduce your friends and family to Cleanse & Polish...so you can see we’ve been busy.

One more piece of our Christmas jigsaw is sliding into place as I write...Today is an extremely exciting day, as we are transforming our London store in Duke of York Square into a giant signature blue Christmas box, which you’ll have to come and see for yourself! We’ve got lots of other festive touches planned in the run-up to Christmas so if you get a chance, pop in-store and let me know what you think... I’d better go now, as it’s high time I started thinking about next Christmas...!

My fragrance journey

I cannot believe it’s been 3 years since Liz and Kim asked me to help develop the first Liz Earle fragrance. Our friendship goes back many years to when I was the Beauty Buyer at Harrods and we would chat ‘beauty’ for hours. After leaving Harrods I set up the Liberty Beauty department before joining QVC as their first Beauty Buyer, 15 years ago. It was at this point that Liz and Kim approached me to ask my opinion of their new brand ‘Liz Earle Naturally Active Skincare’ and I’ve followed the development of the brand ever since.

Liz and Kim know I am passionate about perfume and have always been on a mission to share my passion, particularly as the perfume world can be incredibly confusing with so many new fragrances launched each year. So you can imagine my excitement when we first spoke about a Liz Earle fragrance. My first question was 'are we looking at a fine fragrance?' This was very important to me as I think there are far too many average smells on the market. Knowing Liz and Kim so well, I knew we could produce something that customers would love and that the industry could respect.

My first task was to find great people to create a wonderful smell that both Liz and Kim would like – this created a huge potential problem for me as their taste in fragrance was quite different, just like their skin types. How could I find a “Cleanse and Polish fragrance” which would appeal to Liz, Kim and all their customers? We knew the fragrance had to have the very best quality ingredients and from customer feedback, the same uplifting feeling that you get from the skincare range.

We worked with a brilliant perfumer Jean Charles Niel in Grasse - the perfume capital of the world. Jean Charles really enjoyed meeting Liz and Kim during the development of the perfume, describing Liz as 'the perfect English rose'. As I live near Grasse in the South of France, I was lucky to be able to work very closely with him and liaise frequently with Liz and Kim so we could create this fabulous fragrance. The task was big, the demands were great but I have to say it was extremely exhilarating to be involved in this fabulous project.

We had such fun and I am sure we have smelled thousands of variations to arrive at this truly unique smell. My colleagues in the industry are so pleased as their customers often complain that they like fresh florals but these usually do not last. Hopefully with Liz Earle Botanical Essence No. 1 (UK & IE) we have solved the search for many people.

Over the past few weeks I have been travelling around the UK to ensure that the whole Liz Earle team at the Green House, Union, the London flagship store and in John Lewis know about the fragrance. I have had so many messages on my phone asking what the team thought, so I was very pleased to tell Liz and Kim the response was overwhelming and the excitement tangible. I had a great time meeting the customer advisors and travelling with Nikki, Cristie and Leighton from Liz Earle. We were all so excited to share information about fragrance, the story of our perfume and of course, to spray it around liberally!

Thank you Liz and Kim for allowing me to indulge myself in the creative side of the perfumery world - I'm not sure if my husband and daughter agree as the whole house is now filled with even more bottles and books but I can honestly say I've enjoyed every minute!

Liz Earle Botanical Essence No.1 is here!

Today is a real milestone for us as for the very first time in our history we’re launching something new that isn’t skincare! Yes, today sees the unveiling of our first, very special fine fragrance, Liz Earle Botanical Essence No. 1. Today is actually the culmination of many years preparation, passion and planning. As you probably know, we always ask – and listen to – your requests and ideas, and having our very own ‘Liz Earle’ fragrance has been one of our most highly requested new product pleas. So Kim and I decided to talk to our long-standing friend and fragrance-guru extraordinaire, Lorna McKay for some ideas and inspiration. When I first met Lorna (some twenty five years ago) she was the fragrance buyer for Harrods, the number one perfumery hall in the world. She later went on to consult for QVC, which is also a good reason why we launched on the Shopping Channel. So as you can see, we do go back a very long way! Lorna is completely passionate about perfume and knows more about the subject than anyone we’ve ever met. She also now lives in the South of France, near Grasse – perfume capital of the world – another raison d'être for her to be involved.

So it was that over three years ago Kim and I first began our trips to Grasse to see both Lorna and talk to some of the world’s leading perfumiers or ‘noses’ as they are known in the trade. Lorna asked us what perfume we both currently wore and although we both had favourite fragrances, none overlapped, so we knew from the beginning that it would be quite a challenge to create a fine fragrance we would both wear and love. We wanted to create a fragrance inspired by the uplifting aroma of our Instant Boost Skin Tonic, something that could be worn by everyone regardless of age or skintype (just like our skincare). Key words for us were a feel-good fragrance, light, refreshing, reviving, heavenly-scented, energising and mood-enhancing. Finding the right perfumier was crucial and we met many, but immediately clicked with Jean Charles Niel, not only a renowned ‘nose’ born and bred in Grasse, but also linked to Laboratoire Monique Remy, suppliers of the finest quality organic and world-harvested botanical oils and aromatics. His brief was to create a wonderfully wearable, up-lifting, feminine, joyful fragrance, constructed in the traditional layered way of warm, sensual, woody base notes, a floral rosy ‘heart’ or centre of the perfume and light, sparkling, vibrant top notes that give the fragrance its initial ‘zing’ fresh from the bottle. Not only is the fragrance traditionally hand-crafted in this way, we also allowed time for the all-important maturation process which allows the perfume to fully develop before bottling – a time-consuming process more often skipped in today’s bottle-it-quick approach.

So to the crucial question – what does it actually smell like? Liz Earle Botanical Essence No. 1 is a fresh citrus with a warm floral centre that really lasts on the skin. Unusually rich in the finest quality natural ingredients (over 98% naturally-derived, compared with a mere 10% as a fine-fragrance norm), Botanical Essence No. 1 is a wonderfully addictive aromatic blend that both Kim and I totally adore! We’ve both lost count of the number of times we’ve been stopped and asked what it is we’re wearing – and until now we’ve had to say it was a top secret. Thankfully now the secret is out and ready for everyone to share and enjoy. Do let us know what you think.

Guest editing this month's Top Sante…

I've had an interesting month working as guest editor of Top Santé magazine. I was invited by editor Sharon Parsons to work with her on editing the November issue, which will be hitting the shelves any time now. Editing a magazine took me right back to my early career days, when I worked as a freelance health and beauty editor for several of the 'glossies' before moving into television broadcasting and book writing. It's been a long time since I scrutinised a magazine line by line and I have been really impressed by both the quality of writing by the journalists at Top Santé and their depth of research (something you know I’m quite keen on!). I also found the magazine's focus on proper health, beauty and overall wellness positively refreshing. Every page contains real nuggets of wellbeing wisdom and I really enjoyed the chance to put a personal stamp on such a well-regarded and authoritative publication.

Not surprisingly 'my' issue of Top Santé is a real Skin Special, with a huge central feature all about ways to encourage a radiant complexion and solutions for many common skin issues. Those who have read my Skin Secrets book will recognise some familiar themes here… There's also a separate feature on eczema, with valuable in-put from one of the UK's leading dermatologists, Professor Michael Cork, and a story all about the remarkable power of plant oils. Ever-topical, one of my favourite features is the myth-busting 'What's in your products?' consumer beauty guide, packed with all the information you need to know to make informed decisions about some of the beauty-biggies, such as the use of preservatives and organic ingredients. But there's lots more besides: Don't miss the inspiring real-life feature on how womanly wisdom is passed down (and sometimes up) the generations. 'What I didn’t expect from the menopause' is also a fascinating read, as six women share their own – very different – personal experiences. And I found the article on how to get a better night's sleep an interesting as well as helpful read. Food is also a large part of the regular magazine, so I felt it only right and proper to test out many of the mouth-watering recipes (top chef Mark Hix is one of Top Santé's regular contributors) and gleaned several good-to-know diet tips, from 5 of the best edible skin savers to warming soup recipes that fill you up while slimming you down.

As a Liz Earle one-off special, our team here has worked hard on a number of exclusive offers to celebrate the issue, including a really good subscription offer (which any Naturally Active Skincare fan should be sure to snap up early) and tickets to an exclusive pre-Christmas reader event being held at our flagship London store at the beginning of December. Altogether, I've found Top Santé to be a thoroughly good read from cover to cover. Having experienced first-hand the depth of knowledge and the broad range of issues tackled each month, I'm now a regular reader... and I do hope you especially enjoy the November issue!