I mentioned this idea in my Affordable and Smaller Gifts video and thought I’d show you the finished result. Himalayan pink bath salts (the “in” thing of the moment and often extortionately priced) rustically packaged up in a Kilner jar (or something prettier, if you have it) and finished off with a rather kitsch artificial rose. I’ll tell you why I like this as a gift: 1) it’s an enormous amount of bath salt for your buck – and these are effective, lovely bath salts not weird peach-smelling ones that will possibly give you thrush or some other kind of gynaecological situation; 2) the Kilner jar is reusable and inherently useful, so there’s no wastage; 3) you can pick up everything at your supermarket as you whizz about snapping up the last of the mince pies and sprouts and goose fat and so on.

The cost of some of these luxury Himalayan salts online can cost up to £10 per 100g – mine, which are distributed by “Dr Salts” (no idea, have never heard of him!) cost fifty pence per 100g. Now – as I have said previously – I do not know whether there’s a significant difference between the two versions; perhaps they are sourced differently or one batch is more ethical or one type has been blessed by naked virgins at midnight. I have no idea, and I will endeavour to do some finding out on this in the New Year. But I’ve checked the ingredients list on both luxury and budget versions and they say the same thing: salt.

So, grab a Kilner and a hefty bag of these lovely, detoxifying beauties and get pouring. I used a large jar so that there was space for my faux-rose, feel free to use a jar half the size and fill to the brim. I suppose it looks more generous, in a way. But if you do want to go down the decorative route then you can find fake flowers at those big hobby and craft stores and at quite a few florists (ironically!) and also in the supermarket if you’re lucky. A nice alternative could be to write a little note on brown paper, curl it into a scroll and tie with some twine before popping into the jar on top of the salts. Message-in-a-bottle style. You could say something along the lines of “Himalayan Detoxifying Bath Salts: The Ultimate SOS”. Or similar. Knock yourselves out!

Here are the salts online, for those who want to take a look: Sainsburys.co.uk. They also do salts at Waitrose – if you’ve seen them anywhere else then do put it in the comments, for the benefit of your fellow good readers!

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Body washes are never the most thrilling beauty products to write about, but this little number from Weleda very much deserves a proper mention. It’s difficult to find shower gels and body cleansers that are gentle and non-drying but that actually work; lots of the effective ones leave my skin too squeaky and stripped, many of the “kinder” versions seem to be a little wishy-washy and useless.

Weleda’s Citrus Body Wash was one of the more surprising beauty heroes to emerge from my holiday washbag; I had pushed it down to the bottom of the testing pile because I didn’t like the idea of a citrusy scent, but used it as an emergency measure when the Korres showergel that was in my hotel room failed to step up to the mark. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the citrus scent wasn’t your run-of-the-mill “lemon and lime” but more of a mediterranean cologne kind of smell. I didn’t mind it at all, though I think I’d still probably prefer the Wild Rose or Pomegranate versions. Scent aside, I just thought that the body wash was a perfect holiday product; moisturising, non-squeaky, but effective enough to cleanse off sunscreen and salt water and chorine smells and all of the other less-than-desirable things that cling to your person when it’s hot and sweaty.

I had a few little tubes of this, and you can buy them in 20ml sizes from Weleda, but it’s much more cost-effective to get a 200ml and decant into travel bottles. You can find all of the different scents on Amazon for around £7.75 per tube with free delivery – the Wild Rose is here. Slightly pricier than your average shower gel, but not outrageously so, and it has a really luxe feel that makes it worth every penny.

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Some summer beauty products for you. I’ve done loads of these posts as I got a bit carried away doing still life photographs! In this one there’s a brilliant body moisturiser, a couple of very lightweight face hydrators and some other bits and bobs that have grabbed my interest. Can you tell that I’ve become preoccupied with organising my products according to packaging colours? It’s a terrible habit – I have dozens of still life compositions waiting in my drafts folder, but some of the product combinations are just too random to publish!

So, from left to right: Kate Somerville’s Quench Oil Free Serum, which is a brilliant one if your skin is oily/combination but on the dehydrated side. It really does the trick and sits well underneath most moisturisers I’ve tried it with. You do need a moisturiser on top, though – I think it kind of works in tandem with whatever you apply over it, because it seems to supercharge your moisturiser but worn alone it feels a bit…weird.  I think you can only order Kate Somerville through Sephora, which is unfortunate, but here’s the link to take a look.

A bright pink gloss from Urban Decay – Scandal – which is from the High-Colour range. High colour indeed – this is punchy and not for the faint hearted! The pigment is intense, the formula is longwear… Perfect for long days in the sun and looks great with sunglasses. Find it for £15 here.

The Bio-Essence Sleeping Beauty Mask; not the most powerfully hydrating overnight mask I’ve tried (I reckon that this Kiehl’s one pips it to the post quite easily) but it’s fresh and cooling and lovely, and if you were post-beach and a little bit sun-beated, it would feel insanely nice. Find it here.

You can just about see La Roche-Posay’s Lipikar Baume peeking out – one of the best body lotions I’ve tried, and no other moisturiser seems to get rid of my itchy flaky shins like this one. I’s actually called “anti-scratch”, so there we go – soothing stuff for annoyed, dried-out skin. It’s £10.60 here.

Next batch: the very summery edition of the Clarisonic Mia, in Faded Rose. I’ve been working the Mia back into my routine during pregnancy – I’ve been avoiding most deep cleansing masks and so on, because they made my skin instantly sensitive, so going in gently with a nice cleansing balm and my brush has been a good alternative. You can find the Clarisonic Mia here.

What’s this little funny-looking gadget, you ask? It’s the new Gillette Venus “Snap”, a portable razor. Same razor heads, little handle. It’s actually very ergonomic –  I think that I almost prefer it to the traditional handle. You can find that online here.

And last, but most definitely not least (how very dare you!) my new Colab Dry Shampoo in Monaco. I can’t stop spraying it. Even when my hair is clean. If you want a) a bit of de-greasing, b) a spot of root-lifting and c) amazingly fragranced hair then look no further! You can find it online here.

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