Love your body, from top to tush
Don’t waste energy wishing your body was a different shape, the key to positivity is pampering
I’m about to celebrate my birthday and as I edge a little closer towards my fifth decade, I think about the relationship I’ve had with my body and the energy I’ve spent hating it over the years.
My body is an “average” size 12, I have long legs, a bit of a tummy and hips — resembling, as someone kindly put it, “a lemon on cocktail sticks”. There’s still part of me that longs to be a waspy little wisp, but I’ve come to accept that it’s just not me. Or a shape that the Levy women were ever destined to attain — especially when I look at old photos of my great-grandmother, with her broad shoulders, round face and defiant glare, proud to take up space in the world.
Over the years, I’ve found the more I care for my body, the better relationship I have with it. I try to avoid eating junk and regularly go running - but with the goal of feeling fit and healthy, not to lose weight. Keeping my body scrubbed and moisturised on the outside can also make a world of difference to how I feel on the inside. Hence the joys of treating ourselves to some new beauty loot in the form of bodycare cannot be underestimated.
A haircare brand that recently branched out into this arena is Dizziak. Renowned for their famous Deep Conditioner for hair, their new Body Conditioner (£20) is just as ultra-rich, not to mention glow-bestowing. With a moisturising cocktail of shea butter, vitamin E and aloe vera — together with the wonderfully named Inca inchi oil — it delivers a good glug of hydration with zero greasiness. Elsewhere, Elizabeth Arden have recently brought out a nifty oil version of their iconic Eight Hour Cream, in the form of an All Over Miracle Oil (£29), which comes in a handy spray bottle and works for the body, face and even (as I’ve discovered) frizzy hair. But if it’s straight-up hydration you’re after, you can’t go wrong with Lotil Moisturising Cream (£5.25) which is great for things like eczema, dry elbows, cracked heels and any other rough, bumpy bits.
When it comes to exfoliation, you should really be scrubbing up twice a week to remove dead skin cells and to prevent body acne and dry scaly limbs. I can’t live without Frank Body Scrub (£12.95) which is made from coffee granules and orange oil and smells like a Terry’s Chocolate Orange.
Next up, a smoothing cream for the derrière. (“Whatever will the beauty industry dream up next?” I hear you cry.) Peach-Lite (£55) from the Legology range created by beauty editor Kate Shapland, was designed to promote a pert posterior, with an Ecocert-certified complex of vegetable caffeine to boost circulation. To be honest, you can use this tush-tastic stuff over your whole body, with fruit extracts such as peach oil, citrus and pomegranate to keep skin toned and rejuvenated, with a zesty lemony scent to boot.
Whether budget or bougee, bodycare products are the perfect way to feel good in our skins and always make great gifts. Especially if you know someone with a birthday coming up… (ahem).
Viola Levy has been a freelance beauty journalist for more than ten years, being inspired to make it her chosen career after being told: “No-one’s going to pay you to write about makeup.” In 2019 she won the Fragrance Foundation Jasmine Award for Best Short Piece, reporting on how urban life is damaging our sense of smell