Carol’s Column

Beauty takes to the bush

THE huge, black-maned lion rolled over on to his back, swished his tail and shut his eyes. His mate cuffed him on the ear and eliciting no response, lay down, her head on his stomach and purred angrily.

Beside me, Joe Cool van Schalkwyk, rubbed some fresh air moisturiser with seaweed extract on to her face and purred with delight.

“It's a lovely cream,” she muttered in my ear.

The clear voice of Chantal rose above the purring.

“Ethique is a natural way of cleansing your skin — its gentle care plan for lasting beauty will leave your skin fresh and glowing.”

I glanced sideways — true, Joe Cool van Schalkwyk's skin was beginning to glow.

Just then a twitch caught my eye.

I glanced out of the window. The lioness, aggravated at the lack of response from her mate, had bared her teeth and growled. She was up on her haunches in a position of attack.

“Good heavens, look at my hands!” cried Jane on the other side of Joe Cool van Schalkwyk, “look how white the creamed one is — it's amazing.”

Forty four eyes attached to 22 women turned to admire Jane's hand.

Meanwhile, down in the river bed, three more lionesses had appeared and were playfully attacking the male who'd lost patience and was looking distinctly on edge.

“Calming and soothing, this extra-gentle morning cleanser contains saponaria extract. Apply to your face and throat and work up a lather by massaging with a circular motion.”

“Extraordinary,” I gasped as the male lion, with one blow from his paw, sent the four lionesses sprawling.

“True,” said Chantal, “it is indeed an extraordinary cleansing cream.”

I could only agree.

In fact, thinking about it, the whole two days were extraordinary.

I'd received the invitation a few weeks ago. 'We look forward to your company at the launch of Christian Dior's new Ethique range ...' it said and proceeded to explain how a party of journalists would be spirited away to the bush to learn the latest way to care for and pamper their skins.

I was ecstatic.

“I'm off to the bush to be beautiful,” I announced to my family at breakfast.

They'd laughed.

“No really,” I insisted. “There's this very exotic launch and they're having it in a private game park.”

Like a bunch of skittles, my family collapsed.

“You're joking, Ma,” said Jamie. “What are they making up? Elephants? Warthogs?”

This evoked more mirth from his siblings.

“Pagans,” I muttered as I swept off to the kitchen to make their sandwiches. “What do you understand about the world of beauty?”

As I said, that was a few weeks back — and now, here we were, among the lion, warthogs and impala, learning how to pamper ourselves.

Such a two days of elegance caused problems. Wardrobe being one of them.

Eventually I decided to go 'au naturel' in my local Woolworths.

“You can't wear a tatty T-shirt and takkies,” said my 10-year-old fashion adviser as I'd packed.

Of course she was right, so I put in some shorts too.

We met at the airport, led by long, lean, lithe Josh-of-Dior who looked not a little pale at the sight of a herd of women journalists. One couldn't blame him.

The French connection joined us — Tessa, Jean-Benoit and Chantal from Paris. “They're so obviously French,” said someone, “it's the way their lips move — sideways instead of up and down.”

At the game park I found myself in a luxury hut with Joe Cool van Schalkwyk and Elsa and Ingrid next door to protect us against black mambas, marauding elephants and hungry hyenas and worse. We should have been so lucky.

We assembled an hour later all set for a game drive in open vehicles.

Scented, coiffured and exquisitely attired, we were a wondrous sight and smell to behold. And, as we drove through the winding, dusty bushveld, exotic fragrances wafted in our wake.

After sighting bushbuck, kudu, warthog and giraffe through our multi-layered eyeshadow and mascara we stopped for cocktails in a clearing.

In the early dusk, we sipped Moet et Chandon and nibbled venison paté as hyenas laughed, jackal yelped, bullfrogs croaked all around us and I stumbled over a thornbush into an elephant dropping.

Later, much later, we drove back to camp — Elsa's cloud of freshly-washed, curled and conditioned blonde hair attracting several bats and not a few game rangers.

The following morning, cleansed with extract of Alpine lichen and wheat germ oil, freshened with mint tonic and creamed with seaweed extract we sat among a pride of 17 lion and sprayed ourselves with perfume.

While watching herds of impala, buffalo, wildebees and zebra, we creamed our hands and protected our faces with fresh-air moisturiser.

Relentlessly the sun beat down on our rainbow straw hats and protection-barrier creamed noses and cheeks.

Later, while dung beetles rolled their balls, we clarified our faces with clay masks of camomile, cucumber and allantoin extracts until we resembled a gaggle of vervet monkeys.

Mind you, the monkeys were more suitably attired — at least their fur wasn't wilting in the heat.

Beauty in the bush — it was a different concept.

Afterwards, we agreed we wouldn't have missed one precious moment.

And admittedly Joe Cool van Schalkwyk and myself made a good team.

Between us we lost a bird book, one pair of binoculars, one contact lens, one tube of hand cream, one pair of sunglasses and a king-sized bottle of Diorissimo.

Which makes you think.

Somewhere in the bush is a one-eyed birdbook-reading warthog, sporting binoculars and sunglasses, with creamed hoofs and smelling like a dream.

Lucky hog.

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