You know those ridiculous articles in women’s magazines that promise you a beach body in 2/3/4 weeks, depending on the general ridiculousness level of the magazine? Aren’t these the worst? They are. When I’ve got a surplus of sarcasm, I like to direct it towards those articles. And this is of course why, in a totally coherent and non-hypocritical manner, I’m going to write one of those articles myself.

The thing is that I have not done any exercise in months. Usually, I at least walk a fair bit, but work being what it is lately, I haven’t even done that. I am also extremely lazy when it comes to taking care of my body – I almost never skip my face care routine, but I use body lotion about once a month, despite the fact that my skin is very dry. So while I have no illusions about achieving any drastic change, I’ll take all the help I can get. If you, too, have just realized that shit, it’s the end of June and the current state of your body doesn’t facilitate wearing anything but a full body suit, here is my 5-piece body kit.

1. A brush. I have already addressed the many virtues of a body brush here. I have, in fact, kept the brushing going on a semi-regular basis and I am convinced that this is the only reason I’m not scaring innocent family members at this stage.
2. A scrub. I mentioned yesterday that I cannot get on board with cheap macaroons, but cheap scrubs are a fair game. You can easily make your own with salt/sugar/coffee, if you don’t feel like spending at all. I am currently using Cane + Austin’s Retexturizing Treatment Scrub, which is in fact pretty pricey, but it’s because I prefer my scrub to include chemical exfoliators and that type of scrubs are still rare. For some serious, scrubby exfoliation, I like L’Oreal Exfotonic Exfoliating and Revitalising Gel.
3. A lotion. If I’m going to use a body lotion, it will not be for the pretty smell, I’ve got loads of perfume for that. It’s also not enough if it moisturizes: if I’m actually going to spend minutes (!) rubbing myself with lotion, I want it to actively make my skin smoother and less pimply. My favourites are Sunday Riley Disrobe Body Lotion and Clarins Renew Plus Body Serum. Both do make a difference, but they are also expensive, so I’d really like to try the CeraVe Moisturizing Lotion that one of the readers here recommended.
4. Self-Tan. This is a difficult category. Nothing improves the appearance of your body faster than some colour, but we all know by now that sunbathing is evil. So you sort of have to do the self-tan thing, but the products are never as good as they should be. The best brand I’ve found so far is St Tropez and I want to try their new in-shower tanner. Often, I find that a tinted wash-off moisturizer provides a better effort/result ratio (especially when it comes to legs), so I’ve got the new Caudalie Divine Legs Tinted Body Lotion on the go.
5. An Oil. I usually don’t use oil in the third step (although the Sunday Riley body oil is great), I use it as a finishing product. I don’t much like the shimmering ones. I know everybody loves Nuxe Huile Prodigeuse, but I don’t like the texture and prefer Caudalie’s Divine oil. However, as contradicting myself seems to be the order of the day, I have fallen for this Tom Ford Shimmering Body Oil and if it’s still available when I go to London next month, a bottle will be mine.

You know, after writing all this down, I feel much better already. Look at all those things I’m doing for my body! With all this going on, who needs exercise anyway?