With another tremendous season of Rachel Hunter’s Tour of Beauty coming to an end, Tara Ward rounds up some key tips for better living.
Kiwi legend and my latest imaginary BFF Rachel Hunter spent the last few weeks travelling through the Americas on an epic search for beauty. I didn’t think she’d find anywhere more beautiful than the New York office where she got her butt electrocuted in episode one of Rachel Hunter’s Tour of Beauty. Knock me down with a piece of sustainably farmed seaweed, for I was wrong.
Rachel Hunter finished Tour of Beauty in the magical city of Vancouver, possibly the world’s most beautiful town. People there ooze health and wellbeing from every one of their perfect pores, thanks to their eco-friendly cycleways and sustainable forests and pigeons eating out of a skip. All that clean air and happiness, yet no mention of a butt massage? I have my doubts, Vancouver.
Vancouver was Rachel’s ethically-farmed beauty oyster and she was ready to cultivate its pearly nuggets of wisdom. She foraged in its forests and rifled through her make-up bag, and while Rachel’s thyroid shut down from the nasty chemicals in her body oil, I soaked up each piece of advice in the hope that I could be as naturally beautiful as a tidal pool smelling of rotten eggs.
What goes on tour stays on tour, so let’s discover Rachel’s top tips on how to achieve peak beauty. Never forget this is the country that gave us Jason Priestley so, basically, we can’t go wrong.
1) Embrace the mushroom
Rachel loves a good mushroom metaphor and I bloody love her for it. Humans are like wild Canadian mushrooms: we age, we grow layers, sometimes we cling to trees. We’re also at our best soaked in butter and wine, which is completely true because the more wine I drink, the more layers I find in myself, and the world becomes a more beautiful place.
Stand down, Rachel; your work here is done.
2) Make like a vegetable and leaf
Rachel stayed in a zero-waste hotel, where 90% of rubbish stays out of landfill. I’m no mathematician, but there’s something fishy about 90% going into zero, which is possibly why Rachel distracted us with a crazy salad-based revelation.
There’s beauty in this here lettuce leaf, me hearties, and it’s gone straight to Rachel’s head. Rachel declared that if she was a vegetable she’d be this piece of lettuce, which was a beautiful moment and zero-waste opportunity if you ask me.
3) Bow down at the honey altar
Rachel is a “big believer in the bee” and I am a big believer in multi-purpose overalls so together we’ll save the world, one mesh helmet at a time.
4) Waste not, want not
The textile industry is the second biggest producer of toxic waste, which I’m guessing is a bad thing. Vancouver shoppers ask themselves “do I need this?” and then decide, yes, they do need a coat made from recycled soda bottles or a cardigan woven from the wings of a million tiny, zero waste, lettuce hating bees.
Sure, they might sleep easy knowing they’re responsible shoppers, but do they recognise the sheer joy of finding a three pack of ankle socks for $2 in K-Mart? Six socks! For $2! Now that was beautiful moment.
5) See weed and eat it
Rachel met a wild food expert who boasted about wearing many hats, but sadly we only saw one and it wasn’t made of seaweed. He showed Rachel seaweed to be pickled, seaweed to rub on her face, even seaweed with tiny bladders on the ends. Hold me closer, tiny bladder, but first let’s chow down this delicious piece of briny leather spewed up from the earth’s core.
“It’s very salty,” Rachel said, probably regretting her decision to metamorphose into a lettuce leaf before she had witnessed the true power and glory of the humble seaweed. Tour o’ Beauty lesson #472: find your layers, douse them in butter and wine, and the truth will be revealed.
6) Lick a slug
Seems fine.
7) Unleash the monster within
Digital addiction is killing us all, and the only way Rachel can save the world is to lock her phone in a box. She met a doctor who rattled off a shitload of science about non-verbal communication, but I was distracted by an incredible video of dogs being reunited with their owners.
By the time I finished crying into my phone, Rachel was shooting daggers at that box and it was fair to say there was nothing beautiful about this moment.
“This is going to pull all the boogie monsters out of my phone!” a terrified Rachel cried, and I am 100% here for this exciting boogie monster/lettuce leaf journey of self-discovery.
8) Bathe in a hot pool of beautiful emotion
Rachel took a dip into the Canadian tidal pool of beauty and emerged more alive than ever before. She scored some sustainable swimming togs, embraced more seaweed than in her wildest dreams and forgot about her phone for at least 45 seconds. Bless you, Tour of Beauty, for chucking Our Rach up to her neck in health and wellbeing. It was a beautiful thing, indeed.
Click here to watch Rachel Hunter’s Tour of Beauty on TVNZ Ondemand