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Latest and Greatest Spa Products
Wallaroo Hats From the beaches to baseball games, a hat is a summertime essential—the perfect partner to a good SPF in the fight against the sun’s harmful rays. But what kind of hat we wear doesn’t matter, right—as long as the brim covers our face, we’re set? Um, no. Turns out, not all materials are equally successful at keeping the sun at bay.Friends Stephanie Carter and Lenya Shore learned this fact while on a trip to Australia, where they discovered a local sunscreen secret: A unique UPF 50+ fabric that protects skin from 97.5 percent of the sun’s UV rays. (UPF 50+ is the highest level of sun protection available in clothing and accessories, according to ARPANSA, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Science Agency.) Returning home to Colorado, they women founded Wallaroo Hats, turning the ray-repelling material into crushable, washable and fashionable chapeaux, now available in over 30 styles and 100 colors and patterns. Favorites include “Avalon”, a sexy number with a four-inch brim and six-panel rounded crown; “Eden”, a dramatic linen option with a 4½-inch brim; and the “Explorer”, a lightweight microfiber version that floats, is water repellent, and boasts double grommets on each side to keep you cool. Wallaroo fans include Cameron Diaz, Brooke Shields and Kim Basinger; see www.wallaroohats.com for more info and an online catalogue. Bonus: We usually only pick just one product to highlight a month, but a new book appealed to our spa-junkie selves so perfectly, we had to pass on the details. Released in June, Damage Control: Women on the Therapists, Beauticians, and Trainers Who Navigate Their Bodies offers an insightful look at our love-hate relationship with body maintenance. Edited by Emma Forrest, the anthology includes chapters by authors both known (actress Minnie Driver muses on the aftermath of a bad haircut) and in-the-know (a Hollywood manicurist remembers doing Tori Spelling’s nails—when the client was five), as well as noted journalists, poets and authors. Whether funny, touching or political, the chapters are also infinitely relatable, and provide interesting perspectives on the beauty industry, our roles in it and, in some cases, it’s relationship to some of the bigger issues (divorce, illness, sexual abuse) in our lives. But no worries—there’s also plenty of laughs (two words: cat haircuts.) Damage Control is available at bookstores nationwide. All first run proceeds will be donated to Women for Women, www.womenforwomen.org
--Sandra Ramani
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