If you’re planning a wedding, anniversary or any event where a tremendous cake would add to the gaiety of the nation, then the cake artist Rachel Mount is for you. Check out her website at www.rachelmount.com and you’ll see a collection of amazingly fashionable shoes — see above — except that they are, in fact, confections of cake and spun sugar.
She does ethereally beautiful cakes — some surrounded by delicate flowers and doves, others topped by elephants, one in the shape of a 7ft triptych tribute to Catherine Deneuve. She did a Sound of Music one for the 50th birthday of a music tycoon. Her prices start at about £290 — eminently reasonable for the work involved. You can see her cakes from July 18 to 20, when Sotheby’s is giving her an exhibition at its Kiddell Gallery (34-35 New Bond Street, W1). Or telephone 020-8672 9333 for an appointment at her Tooting Broadway studio.
More summer party ideas: a wonderful new website called www.wildfoods.com is aimed at foodies who can’t find the sort of ingredients that can be crucial for certain recipes (where would The Ivy fishcake be without the sorrel sauce?) It is selling wild mushrooms (150 varieties including ceps, porcini, waxcaps, pieds de mouton, hedgehog and angel wings) as well as truffle arômes, herbs such as sorrel, vegetables including samphire and wild leeks, and special foodie treats such as truffle oil. The basic idea is to sell the sorts of foods for which you would otherwise have to forage, if only you knew how or where.
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Since most of us don’t have personal tan therapists on tap — how, Posh and Coleen must wonder, do we get by without them? — it’s worth taking a look at some of the best options for getting brown. Easiest of all is to visit one of the many tanning salons and treat yourself to a quick spray tan in a special booth. It takes very little time and doesn’t cost much (£24.99 at Tanning Shops; £28 at Heidi Klein at 174 Westbourne Grove, W11, or telephone 020-7243 5665 to book a session) and turns you out feeling good enough to saunter on to the beach without having to cover your limbs in an array of sarongs and kaftans.
If you’d rather do it under your own roof, home tan lotions and sprays go on getting better and better. Some swear by St Tropez fake tan, but personally I think it’s hard to beat Lancôme’s Flash Bronzer. This year’s shimmer gel is especially great for legs — they have added a tint so that you can tell where you’ve put it and check on any bits left out. It gives an even colour with no horrid orange tinge and costs £18.50.
For those who believe in no tan at all or a very light, natural tan, Dr Haushka’s Sun Care Range was developed with the same commitment to using no chemical filters, synthetic fragrances or colours as its skincare line. It uses titanium dioxide, which protects from UVA and UVB rays, is a non-toxic natural sun reflector and neither irritates nor penetrates the skin. For those who want a light, natural tan on the face (very good for allowing Vitamin B to penetrate the body, say the experts) but still want to protect it from harmful rays, Dr Hauschka has this year launched Protective Face Cream SPF 8, which includes raspberry-seed oil, buckwheat and mullein, which protect the skin from pollutants and have anti-oxidant properties. This cream (£18 from Space NK branches or available at www.drhauschka.co.uk) is mostly suitable for climates like our own: for seriously sunny places you need to increase the SPF content to 20 or 25.