Now there’s an interesting question and as usual the answer is YES and NO!

Self-care is something we talk about all the time and can’t stress strongly enough how important it is for everybody – male, female even kids!  However there have been a lot of companies ‘jumping on the bandwagon’. 

It’s trendy isn’t it? 

Whenever there is talk of something being good for you there is always big business ready to bring out products that are going to help with this. There is no end to the products we can buy to help with our self-care journey.

• Start with a candle – these are lovely aren’t they? But do you really need to pay £45 for one in order to help you relax? 

• Bath salts using a variety of ingredients including dead sea salts, essential oils, coconut milk etc, again buy a little bottle of oil if you like a particular one and put a couple of drops in an oil burner and chuck a few Epsom salts in the bath if you want a bath.

• Mud, clay or aloe vera masks – again they are great if that’s your thing but is this really self-care?

• Comfy clothes, again there is a whole industry aimed at clothes that might make you feel better, we think buying yourself something you want to wear would do the job just as well.

We could go on forever, there are lights, smells, massage machines, spa breaks, wellness kits ………..

So now we’ve told you what we don’t think self-care is then what do we think it is?  Well its anything that makes you feel better, chilled or clears your head.  It can be as simple as sitting down for 5 minutes and listening to some music, getting out of mucky work gear and having a shower, having a 5 minute phone call with somebody positive, watching your kids play in the garden, reading a book or magazine, writing a to do list to get stuff out of your head:  Basically whatever works for you when you are focussing on yourself is self-care. 

Don’t buy into the hype buy into what works for you!