On kindness, L'Ombre Dans L'Eau, care parcels and the sublime LibertyLondonGirl

Kindness.  I like kindness.  Simple kindnesses smack me in the heart, bowl me over, make me cry.
I came back home from a funeral at the weekend.  I'd crashed face first into my past and it had brought me up short.  I also crashed, quite literally, into the closing doors of a tube train and consequently now have two bruises running the lengths of both arms and a freshly re-torn rotator cuff.  I hurt.

'There's a parcel on your desk,' Adrian said.  And so there was.  A long white box with tissue paper hiding lots of little boxes and bags.  I fell on it like a small child at Christmas and uncovered the most deliciously divine care package of gorgeous things.  Perricone foundation (I’ll report back); the perfect nude lipstick (Clinique Matte Suede, if you’re wondering) and the perfect nail varnish to give a subtle shimmer to stress-bitten nails (Estee Lauder Blushing Lilac).  It didn’t end there.  As I snuffled down the parcel, all other kinds of lovelies tumbled out, including some of my very favourite natural brands (Dr Hauschka, Annee de Mamiel).  And ooooooh… But wait…let me backtrack and explain how I became the recipient of such a cornucopia of cosmetic riches.

Back in Austria, at VIVAMAYR I met Sasha Wilkins, aka Liberty London Girl.  She introduced herself as a blogger but that's somewhat like Mo Farah saying, 'I run a bit'.  Sasha is a Queen of Dragons who commands legions of Unsullied (oops, sorry, bit over-excited about Game of Thrones starting again).  I mean she’s a digital journalist, ex- Wall Street Journal, ex-Vogue (and many others) and a full-on TV bod but, since 2009, she has been running her own digital seven kingdoms of LLG Media.

Way cuter than Daenerys, dontcha think?  

This woman doesn’t just do digital, she IS digital – she rocks social media with her blog, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest (click on the links - you can lose yourself in recipes, nice things and legions of dogs for hours).  She has a digital media consultancy business LLG Consults, Wilkins & Ross, a digital film production company, and…and…and…and…so on it goes.  But what you really need to know is that she loves sausage dogs and she is a damn nice person.  Kind.

I’d asked her about foundation (as you do when trying to take your mind off chewing an endless spelt roll) and she’d recommended Perricone No Foundation Foundation.  I’d said how rubbish I was at make-up and that I really needed to up my game.  We talked a bit about various brands and then someone wandered past and sniffed the air and asked who was wearing that absolutely gorgeous scent.  I naturally assumed it would be Sasha but no, it was me – squeezing the last gasp out of a sample bottle of Diptyque’s L’Ombre Dans l’Eau. Seriously, how could anyone resist a scent called the Shadow in the Water?  It’s gorgeous, utterly gorgeous – warm and yet crisp at the same time. Like the grown-up sophisticated sister of another old favourite, Jo Malone’s Lime Basil Mandarin.

Anyhow, back to my parcel.  Yes, she’d sent it.  Not just enough face and body stuff to make me look almost presentable, but also…a whole coffret of Diptyque samples.

I was quite overcome and, yes, I found myself snuffling a bit (rather like a sausage dog actually). Because it wasn’t so much that this was a box of serious loveliness but that everything had been picked out with such care and thought.  It was kind, damn kind.  And, like I say, that makes me cry.

How gorgeous is Lettice? Pic (c) Sasha Wilkins

Anyhow.  If you haven’t already made the acquaintance of LLG - you really should. I have huge admiration for her because she made the decision to wave goodbye to the corporate nonsense of mainstream media in which advertising and editorial are so incestuous they need therapy and a social worker.  She now writes about the things she loves, the things that interest her, on her own terms – so that includes a lot of fashion and beauty but also flowers and food.  Not to mention sausage dogs.  Just check out the pics of Lovely Lettice, a dog with a great line in photogenic stares and her own ramp onto the bed.  She’s also extremely ethical and very honest. That’s Sasha, btw, not Lettice (although, who knows, maybe she’s an honest and ethical dachshund – why not?).  My second dog was a dachshund, btw, but that's another story.

Oh, and she (Sasha, not Lettice - I really shouldn't have started confusing things with Lettice) has recently published her first cookbook, Friends, Food, Family – so if you like uncomplicated recipes, bursting with flavour and served with flare, check it out.  Click on the pic below for more details.