Perfect Day

Great Cat Empire concert on Tuesday night by the way, the culmination of an oral exam day that went exceptionnally well (so they say) so now i am a certified translator of French also waiting for my certificate to come through but actually planning to go to England in ten days' time.

There were a couple of things on my to-do list that had been neglected while i was preparing for the exam, so there is some catching-up to do. Blogging was on the list, too if i remember correctly.

It's not even eight o'clock in the morning and already it's unbearably hot here.. I could do with a gentle ocean breeze ...

What Do These People Have In Common?

• Bill Gates
• Anke Engelke
• Steven Spielberg
• Günther Jauch
• Peter Handke
• Vincent van Gogh
• Bertold Brecht
• Christoph Schlingensief
• Gweneth Paltrow
• Siegfried Lenz
• Wim Wenders
• Barbara Schöneberger
• Mick Jagger
• (this list goes on and on)

Click here for the answer.

By the way, this reminds me of an inspiring Stanford Commencement speech by Apple CEO Steve Jobs about Love, Death and Connecting The Dots:

Pheno what?

I've always had problems with some substance contained in many skin and haircare products but was never sure about what exactly it was. Some nasty rashes in the crook of my arm. Sure, i had been to a dermatologist, but when he asked me in order to detect the trigger substance not to take a shower for a fortnight in the heat of July so that the samples would not wash off, i kindly refused. It was not that bad after all, and when it started to get worse, i could always change my shower gel or then do the test should it get unbearable.

But now i have self-diagnosed (by means of elimination and the remark of a friend who has exactly the same thing) my allergy to phenoxyethanol, a preservative commonly contained in many of these products. Phenoxyethanol, a word that does not even have an entry in wikipedia, that makes me feel so special ..

Ironically, i noticed that i have allergic reactions to most of the Bodyshop products, a company that prides itself in desisting from animal-testing and generally has a reputation for a skin-friendly product line.

So now i can happily browse the shelves scrutinizing the fineprint on all those shower gels, shampoos and so on. Which is kind of annoying but then again, it's better to know and do something about it than to always use new stuff with slight apprehension.

I glanced at the websites of some of the major brands and was disappointed not to find anything on ingredients or possible allergic reactions, not even in the fineprint. Surely there is a need for this kind of information. I assume you can get it somewhere, but wouldn't it befit a company that sells care products to actively show that they care?

One online shop i noticed had a very neat allergy filter feature on its site that lets you mark and filter out pruducts with certain ingredients .. if only that were possible in the supermarket ...

So you could say that i have overcome my little alcohol problem. Here's to that!