Full-Body Saks
Saks Fifth Avenue is hoping to become a little more intimate with you. Like the Gap and Banana Republic before it, the clothing mecca has just launched its own line of bath and home products. Called 5/48 (for five weekdays and 48 weekend hours), the line includes soap, room spray, body lotion, the ubiquitous scented candle, and everyone’s new urban necessity – antibacterial wash. All ideal for those shopaholics whose idea of heaven is living in a department store – 24-7.
Door-to-Door Diet
High protein-low carb diets may help you drop pounds quickly, but who wants to spend the summer calculating the grams of carbs in an orange? Now several food-delivery services will do the math for you and bring three squares a day to your door. “One of a Kind,” from the Madison Square Club (212-683-1836), counts Naomi Campbell, Heidi Klum, and James King as customers. Breakfast choices include a protein shake with yogurt and fresh fruit; lunch, a sesame-crusted salmon on cabbage slaw ($50 per day for three meals, plus $10 delivery). Though based in L.A., nutritionist Carrie Wyatt’s Diet Designs (310-253-9079) has a devoted New York following, to which she overnights fare like Chilean sea bass with papaya sauce and tropical rice ($46 per day). Zone Perfect (888-350-7557), which ships from Long Island, offers more standard diet stuff but superb lo-cal cheesecake and puddings ($34.95 per day). As if it matters: In this weather, slipping out for a taboo ice cream is unavoidable.
Open Wide and Say Spa
“I won’t fill cavities anymore; it’s just not economical,” one Manhattan dentist sheepishly admits. In dentists’ offices across the city, the whir of drills is being replaced with soothing spa sounds. At Dr. Lana Rozenberg’s office, which she now bills as a “dental day spa,” aromatherapy candles burn in the waiting room, and warm neck packs, emitting a comforting scent reminiscent of rice pudding, ease the tension. After a prophy jet-power cleaning (in which teeth are blasted to remove stains), a jaw massage is administered and herbal tea is served. Dr. Jeff Golub-Evans recently turned a portion of his practice into the “SmileOasis spa,” which offers hydro gum massage and a range of whitening procedures, and at the office of Dr. Marc Lowenberg and Dr. Gregg Lituchy, patients receive neck-and-shoulder massages and reflexology. Of course, if you do get a cavity, you might prefer novocaine to shiatsu.
Chocolate Soap
Some long for a bath filled with milk; others prefer a bath filled with milk chocolate. Serendipity 3, the restaurant that introduced the “frozen hot chocolate” confection back in the fifties, now brings us a bath-and-body gel by the same name. Unlike the sticky original, the gel cleans, moisturizes, and leaves you with the intoxicating scent. For those who’d rather taste their chocolate, Serendipity has also introduced frozen-hot-chocolate lip gloss – all the rich flavor and far fewer calories.