Hello, it’s Bank Holiday weekend and I have news. Every now and again a brand comes along which stands out in the crowd, it doesn’t happen often, but when it does my heart skips about ten beats. I have always believed that niche innovative brands and products carry their own innate energy and its almost always about the story, the soul and the intent. So, please allow me to introduce you to Ipsum, but most specifically the Ipsum SPA Hammam products.

Rooted in ancient Roman and Byzantine bathing traditions, the Hammam evolved under the Ottoman Empire and has been an integral part of Turkish and Moroccan cultures for centuries, serving not only as places for physical cleansing, but as a space for relaxation, community bonding and spiritual purification. Capturing the essence and tradition of the deep cleansing, exfoliating and skin conditioning Hammam treatments, the Ipsum SPA Hammam products are uniquely formulated in Byron Bay, Australia, and offer an authentic representation of the ritualistic practice of Hammam therapy.

So, let’s walk our way through the Hammam ritual, starting with deep cleansing. I am more than a little bit in love with the first product in the range, the Hammam Soap, which is the first step of the ritual that prepares your skin for transformation. This amber-coloured, gel-like formulation has its roots in traditional Moroccan black soap, which is used for cleansing everything from the neck down. It is unlike anything I have used before, it’s gooey, it’s stretchy, it’s bouncy, yet somehow it isn’t sticky.

The Hammam Soap should be used on warm, damp skin, so ideally you should stand under the shower or plunge into the bath and then step out of the water and apply a thin layer evenly all over your body, massaging it well into the skin to stimulate the natural exfoliation action. This ensures that the ingredients, which include vitamin E and Squalane, are absorbed into the skin, at which point you step back into the shower or bath to rinse away, ideally using the SPA Hammam Mitt to remove the soap. And that’s the second product.

The SPA Hammam Mitt is made from natural jute and offers additional exfoliation benefits when used in the first step of the cleansing ritual, with the SPA Hammam Soap. To use, massage the body in small circular movements, starting at the feet and moving upwards in the direction of the heart, as you rinse the Hammam Soap away with warm water. The Hammam Mitt can also be used dry, pre-bathing or showering, as a gentle alternative to dry body brushing, lifting away dead skin cells and boosting circulation, but of course it comes into its own when used with the Hammam Soap, aligning with the traditional ritualistic experience of Hammam therapy.
SPA Hammam Soap by Ipsum £40 for 175 grams; SPA Hammam Mitt by Ipsum £9

Following through, the SPA Hammam Mask is the next step of the Hammam ritual, and a rather wonderful step it is too because this luxurious treatment mask has been created with pure and organic botanical extracts and earth clays, such as mineral-rich Moroccan Lava Clay and Australian Kaolin. The neck and décolletage rarely get this level of care and attention, despite desperately needing it, and after leaving the mask on for about fifteen minutes, my neck and chest skin definitely looked smoother. A touch of transformational magic, the Hammam mask is truly amazing and it can also be used as a conditioning and brightening face mask.
SPA Hammam Mask Neck & Décolleté by Ipsum £65 for 2 x 45 grams

The Hammam ritual is completed by massaging the SPA Body Oil into the skin with long, smooth strokes, breathing in the calming and heart-warming aroma. Blended with nineteen pure and organic botanical oils, it is supercharged with Australian native plums and Sandalwood to condition, enrich, brighten and restore healthy radiance in skin. The potent trio of Australian Kakadu, Illawarra and Burdekin plums are included because they are tremendously rich in vitamin C, helping to boost collagen production and cell regeneration, while improving skin elasticity and enlivening skin texture and tone.

I have long believed that exceptional products deserve respect, respect for the formulation and respect for the unwavering integrity of any given product. There really is such a vast difference between a product that simply occupies space on a shelf and one that earns its place in each of our lives and SPA Body Oil is that product. But that’s not all, SPA Body Oil isn’t just a moisturiser, it’s a sensory ritual and it bridges the gap between functional integrity and emotional joy. Fragranced with Jasmine, Bergamot and Sandalwood, SPA Body Oil is a joyous, soul-soothing, lingering experience of intent.
SPA Body Oil by Ipsum £68 for 100 ml

In celebration of launching the Ipsum SPA Hammam ritual, when you buy the SPA Hammam Soap, the SPA Hammam Mask or the SPA Body Oil, we will automatically gift you the Ipsum Lip Oil Balm, which is worth £19. In full transparency, Ipsum sent me the Lip Oil Balm as a gift and I fell in love with it and have used it ever since. It is a blend of pure and organic plant oils and waxes, including Tomato Fruit extract and it really does leave lips feeling soft, comforted and flake-free.

I’m leaving a link to the Lip Oil Balm below, so you can read all about it, but also some of you may wish to buy it as a stand-alone product, which I understand. I also understand that some of you may wish to buy the Hammam Mitt as a stand-alone, basically because I think every bathroom should have one, but on from that, and in order to be equitable, there is only one gift per customer. Finally, if you purchase the full SPA Hammam collection, the SPA Hamman Soap, Mask and Body Oil, we will send you two gifts, the Lip Oil Balm together with an Ipsum puffa beauty bag, whilst stock lasts.
Lip Oil Balm Tube by Ipsum £19 for 10 grams

Well, that took up the first half of the Weekend Read, so now the rest and because it’s Bank Holiday weekend I am choosing not to write about specific health concerns, but what I am going to do is to throw the focus on DoSe, both the skincare and the supplements. First the skincare, but most specifically Daily Moisturiser because it recently won a skincare award in the YOU magazine Beauty Awards, which made me smile rather a lot, so we now have two award-winning products in the range, the second being Daily Cleanser which won the best skincare innovation (cleansers) in The Telegraph Beauty Awards.
DoSe Daily Moisturiser; DoSe Daily Cleanser

The smile will stay on my face for two reasons, the first is because we didn’t pay for either award, a subject I am tremendously vocal about because pay-to-play bothers me considerably, but the second reason is because sharing really does put a smile on my face. The reward is, and always has been in the sharing, so as we continue to share, I am throwing a 15% discount across DoSe skincare across this long weekend with the offer ending at midnight BST, Monday 25 May.
DoSe Skincare

As the focus shifts from skincare to supplementation, the integration of skin products and supplementation has always been so incredibly important for the health of our skin. Recent clinical data has shown that this integration can provide far better results than by just taking a supplement or by just using a topical product. We have known this for the longest time and in many ways the DoSe branding reflects a uniformity of concept, serving a dedicated purpose.

I am going to use Hyaluronic Acid as an example here, notably because it remains our bestselling supplement and notably because it remains one of the most crucial anti-ageing compounds. Topically, the DoSe Hyaluronic Acid Serum is amazing, and perhaps I am biased, but I have tried many HA serums, most of which are sticky and horrible to use, so it was important to formulate a serum which lived up to promise, and it does. And because it does, and in the demonstration of uniformity of concept, when you buy Hyaluronic Acid Capsules High Strength, we will automatically include Hyaluronic Serum, which is worth £15.
VH Editorial: Benefits Of Hyaluronic Acid Supplements; DoSe Hyaluronic Acid Capsules High Strength £35 for 30 Capsules + DoSe Hyaluronic Serum (30 ml) Free (offer ends at midnight BST, Monday 25 May or whilst stock lasts)

Most obviously, I am now going to throw that 15% discount across each of the DoSe supplements, with the exception of Hyaluronic Acid. I really don’t need to write many words here, other than to say that our curation remains exceptionally tight, deliberately so because we consider each product in the DoSe range to be pioneering in concept, delivering cutting-edge formulations which really do make a difference. An evolutionary difference of specific, evidence-based, purpose-driven formulations, far away from the deafening noise of mass market mediocrity. And I’m sorry, but that bothers me too.
DoSe Supplements (offer ends at midnight BST, Monday 25 May)

Into the Saturday only treat and with every order placed for £35 and above, excluding p&p, we will automatically send you TEMPLESPA's Be Gone Cleanser (7 ml)* which has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties designed to fight the effects of skin stress. Full product details below.
Be Gone Cleanser

To the end with Poppy, Poppy Delbridge whose second book, ‘Unlock Your Power’ has just been released. Many of you know Poppy, I often write about her and many of you joined Poppy when she led us through dedicated Rapid Tapping sessions. I know the difference those sessions made to so many of you and I also know how many experienced life-changing shifts, magical life-changing shifts.

There can be no doubt that we are living in an extraordinarily difficult and fractious world, we can’t control external events, but we can control our emotional response and we can uncover the patterns shaping our choices. I believe in magic, I have always believed in magic and we can create magic in our lives if we start to notice the magic. Poppy also believes in magic, we feed each other with magic, it is the language that binds us, it is the concept that empowers us and with this being the second invitation on today's Weekend Read, an invitation to purchase ‘Unlock Your Power’ to help create your own magic.
Unlock Your Power by Poppy Delbridge

One song. One life.
One by U2; The VH Playlist

With love

Gill x