The Best Birthday Gifts From MECCA
September 24 | 4 minute read
Words by Kerri Gordon
As I approach the incredibly un-milestone-y age of 29, I lie here in my bed void of sleep but armed with the Notes App, ready to write the birthday gift registry no-one asked for.
At this point in time, I’m not getting engaged, married, having a baby or celebrating my bat mitzvah, but does that make me any less worthy of a gift? If anything, it makes me alone, paying double for hotel rooms, ticking like a clock, and not 13 years old; all four of which are a giftable offence.
So, when you ask me what I want for my birthday and I say, “I don’t need anything,” I would like to clarify that anything doesn’t mean nothing. It means not just anything. It means, specifically, these things…
At the very top of my list is the Bowl by Tsu Lange Yor. My possession of beautiful heirlooms can’t be dependent on the lifespan of my family, so before I sneak the hundred-year-old menorah out of my parent’s collection, I’d like to start my own.
Designed and hand-cast by artist and industrial designer Joel Adler, this bottomless bowl is an artful conversation starter, and brings the comforting, lived-in aesthetic of Troye Sivan’s Flack Studio-designed Melbourne home to yours. I won’t object to the small Bowl, though I do have a gaggle of lemons rolling around my kitchen that’d benefit greatly from the loving embrace of a large TLY Bowl.
A few months ago I became the lucky recipient of a La Bonne Brosse hairbrush, and was quickly humbled after telling my colleagues, “It’s just a hairbrush, how good could it be?”
I now feel lost without it, particularly when I travel – it gives a windswept bird’s nest the appearance of regular ‘salonry’ (our sub-editor is telling me this isn’t a word – it is now). Alas, I don’t just want, but need a travel companion in the form of a La Bonne Brosse Petite Brush.
On hair; I’m adding the Kerastase Elixir Ultime Original Hair Oil to the list. I recently tried a sample and I don’t think I’ve ever had so many compliments on my hair in my LIFE! Just two drops of the oil made it look straight out of a TV commercial. It smells so good too. I need it in my life.
My default beauty gift is a bougie lip-a-ma-jig; a treatment, colour or vessel someone wouldn’t usually buy for themselves. I couldn’t count how many Tatcha Kissu Lip Masks, Westman Atelier Squeaky Clean Liquid Lip Balms and Hourglass Phantom Volumizing Glossy Balms I’ve gifted over the years, and I’d like what’s gone around to please come back around. Any of the above are a great start, but I’ve really got my eye on the Dries Van Noten Lipstick Bullets and Cases. God they’re chic.
Staying on lips, and also falling into my ‘not just anything’ list, Augustinus Bader’s The Tinted Lip Balm (created in partnership with film director extraordinaire Sofia Coppola) would sit quite pretty on the vanity in my ‘Coppolacore’ bedroom. Right next to the Sofia Coppola Archives book I’m still too precious to unveil from the cellophane it came in.
On Coppola, and by association, Marie Antoinette, I recently learnt that the Queen of France technically never said, “Let them eat cake.” It was actually, “Let them eat brioche,” if she even said it at all. I’m not quite sold on a birthday brioche, but have you ever lit a birthday cake with scented matches? It elevates the experience tenfold. If regular matches are the equivalent of American buttercream, Buly’s Scented Matches are Swiss meringue. It’s as indulgently utilitarian as it gets; more matches = more candles = more wishes. It makes sense.
… As does the gift of a facial. My rapidly declining collagen production stares me in the face every night as I attempt to get one step ahead of gravity with my NuFace. I haven’t (yet) dabbled in the dark arts of cosmetic injectables, but I do think regular non-invasive facial treatments – with all the bells and whistles – help. It’s why I’m asking for a facial at MECCA Aesthetica; in particular, a bespoke Biologique Recherche 90-minute treatment. This includes a Skin Instant Lab© consultation, which uses tech to take the guesswork out of what your skin needs (and how it might age), and also incorporates the Remodelling Face Device, which uses a form of electro-muscle stimulation to enhance the absorption of active ingredients while toning and lifting the face. Last time, it gave me a sculpt akin to a migraine-inducing high-pony – and I would like that again, please.
Gifting, or rather, gifting well, is a fine art, but not an impossible one. Take these recommendations and give them to yourself, to your loved ones, or more specifically, to me.
