Michelle Leigh - The Japan Times

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Michelle Leigh

For Michelle Leigh's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST

Dec 23, 1999

Santa's bag full of health and beauty

Are you still faced with filling a lengthy Christmas wish-list and find yourself running out of time? Consider investigating the range of one-stop health-and-beauty gift options before you give up and buy those last-resort presents that lack imagination and personal suitability -- the candles, calendars and scarves that people give one another when they can't think of anything else.

LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST

Oct 7, 1999

Need a new millennium look? Try going over-the-top glam

The world of fashion is one of the best places to search for signs of millennial spirit. If you look at what designers are creating for 2000, you'll find an overall atmosphere where everything is over the top, pushed to the outer edges and carried to astonishing extremes, from which there are several prevailing themes: futuristic, fantastic high-tech; the return to nature/bohemian/ethnic roots; eclecticism, bricolage and the patchwork crazy-quilt layering of diverse styles and influences; plain weirdness.

LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST

Aug 5, 1999

Want to be a love goddess? Indulge in a fragrant bath

It should come as no surprise that in almost every culture, the goddesses of beauty have also been the goddesses of love. They are also often goddesses of the arts, and of such essentials to life as mirth, happiness and laughter. These goddesses are not actively worshipped in many parts of the world anymore. When they were, one way their followers and priestesses would honor them was by devoting themselves to the arts of adornment and beauty. They wore tantalizing perfumes, perfected their complexions with makeup, arranged their hair and, most importantly, they took lots of baths.

LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST

Jul 1, 1999

Be prepared to relax on summer break

It's summer, that getaway time of year when we are allowed a bit of an escape from it all. It is the time we want a break, relaxation of the deepest sort, freedom from everything by which we are ordinarily burdened. Not that I foresee any holiday for myself in the near future, but it is precisely the routine burdens of ordinary work life that give rise to the urge for escape and the dreams of an oasis of peace in a hectic life.

LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST

Jun 17, 1999

Do you have that not-so-fresh feeling?

After writing the column on flowers and flowery teas and all things bloomingly lovely and springlike, I came across an article about the current trend for all things "fresh." The feeling of now, it seems, is freshness. The millennium approaches, and with it the newness of the year 2000, and the 21st century. The theme is rebirth. We begin again. To get ready, we want purity, emptiness, a clean slate, freshness.

LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST

Apr 29, 1999

Wake up and smell the roses with refreshing floral remedies

It's spring, and springtime means flowers, blossoms and blooms. Today we'll devote this column to a beauty-and-health celebration of spring flora, with a sweet-scented selection of recipes with which to make yourself happier, healthier and more lovely.

LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST

Apr 15, 1999

I will drink green juices, Sam I am

Green foods and juices have been around for a long time as health supplements, but these days some restaurants are serving up glasses of lawn-redolent wheat grass juice, or spirulina, with your lunch.

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.

Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Live like a lord or lady for a night at Ozu Castle

Live like a lord or lady for a night at Ozu Castle

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