Charles & Marie

Intrepid scribes are swooning for Moleskine’s hardbound City Notebooks—a dozen currently exist featuring European cities. Inside you’ll find foldout key maps, zone maps, blank pages for notes and a personal archive of tabbed dividers you can use for whatever you like (i.e “where to find the best martini”). The clever little creation keeps track of hotels, shops, addresses and other places of interest. Use it to organize your trip and then preserve it for memory’s sake or pass it along to your friends. The North American versions will drop this spring. Our European friends could use another excuse to head to San Francisco.

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Move over, chemical peel! We know just the thing to make you toss all your other age-defying makeup products into the garbage. It’s called Fresh Elixir Ancien, and it works! Hand-blended in a monastery in the Czech Republic, this super-hydrating oil purifies and nurtures your face with all-natural substances like seabuckthorn oil, jojoba oil, wheat germ, and rosemary. Available from Sephora.

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So you say medical spas bore you? Aura Skin Spa, tucked away on the outskirts of San Francisco’s North Beach district, gives the typical stuffy med spa a much-needed overhaul, opting for über-cool loft-like surroundings, washes of monochromatic color, polished hardwood floors, cozy brick walls, and spare elegance. The convenient downtown location offers harried working folks plenty of pampering options, as well as the customary, not-so-relaxing med spa offerings, such as laser hair removal, photorejuvenation for sun damage and age spots, cosmetic dermal injectables like Botox and Restalyne, and medical needling for acne scarring. Try the spa’s Environ Medical Facial. Environ is a product line based out of South Africa that makes liberal use of vitamins A and C, in order to normalize the skin and promote the production of healthy collagen. The facial’s a leisurely two-hour long treatment that offers the typical aesthetic goodies (a restful hand and back massage, a fluffy comforter, and a yummy alginate mask, to name a few), in addition to Iontophoresis (a pulsed galvanic current) and Sonophoresis (low-intensity sound waves) to temporarily slacken the skin barrier and allow the products to penetrate beyond the superficial dermal layer. It’s sinfully relaxing, and it’ll have your skin looking and feeling squeaky-clean, to boot.

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Smokers take note. Aesthetic dentist Jonathan Levine says you don’t need to suffer from embarrassing yellow stains anymore! His GoSmile™ teeth-whitening system has been making our pearly-whites happy for quite some time now, and it sure as hell beats the bi-annual trek to the dentist. This tantalizing set contains 40 whitening and brightening ampoules that’ll have your teeth looking all sparkly within days.

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Located just a couple miles from downtown Berkeley, the Claremont is a ritzy, hillside haunt that offers beautiful seclusion to entrepreneur types, but with breathtaking views of the San Francisco skyline, for good measure. Set atop 22 acres of sculpted gardens, the Claremont is also home to a world-class spa that boasts one of the most innovative and extensive treatment menus around. From pumpkin soufflé facial masks to hydrating essential oil wraps to spa packages galore, this sanctuary’s offerings are clearly suited to only the most discriminating connoisseur. If you’re ever in the area, try one of the spa’s seven Signature Journeys. The Signature Journeys take their inspiration from exotic locales around the world and are among the most intense pampering experiences you’re likely to get. Each journey is two and a half hours long and typically includes a lush botanical bath, vigorous body scrub, and soothing aromatherapy massage. Best of all, the treats are as creative and evocative as their names: the Brazilian Rainforest Journey includes a healing aloe vera body wrap and a full body coconut milk massage, while the Phillipine Journey’s brand of paradise involves a fresh ginger and raw sugar scrub and a bath suffused with plant extracts.

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