Before I could even try the Spider Lily Body Cream from Crabtree & Evelyn’s India Hicks Island Living collection, I had to figure out why the name “India Hicks” sounded so familiar to me. Ah, yes: if you’re old enough to recall the Royal Wedding of 1981, as I am, you may also remember her as one of Princess Diana’s bridesmaids at that “fairytale” event.
At the time, I was mesmerized by the entire spectacle of the Charles-and-Diana wedding, including the sight of a girl only a few years older than myself who held such a romantic and important duty. How had she been granted that honor? Apparently, it’s an advantage to be a goddaughter of Prince Charles and the granddaughter of Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy to India (hence her name), as well as a descendant of Queen Victoria. Now, thanks to some research, I also know that India Hicks has been busy with other stylish occupations over the past two decades: she has been a model (for Ralph Lauren and others), an interior designer (following in the celebrated footsteps of her father, David Hicks), a hotelier, and the author of two books that share her lifestyle in the Caribbean, Island Life and Island Beauty…
Black currant is one of my favorite notes: I adore the way it shyly peers behind a sheer veil of powder in Guerlain’s Chamade, how its sweetness tempers the sultry boldness of 
I used to pay almost no attention to my nails. I’d occasionally trim and file them, but going beyond that to apply nail polish seemed like way too much hassle. It’s not that I didn’t love adding a little color to my tips, I just hated the application process: the chemical smell of the polish, the even worse smell of polish remover (and its incredibly irritating habit of drying out my skin) and the enormous amount of patience it seemed to take for everything to fully dry. 
Continuing with the spring cleaning theme of my last review (