The Carousel

Barry Eaglestone used to photograph the world on film. In the early 1990s, camera in hand, he traversed the ancient Silk Road, capturing the vibrant tapestry of life across Syria, Jordan, Ethiopia, and Tibet. But somewhere along those winding paths, a strange realisation set in: he was so consumed by searching for the perfect frame that he had stopped truly experiencing the places he visited. So, he did the unthinkable. He sold his camera and walked away.

Forget fushia frocks on a Wednesday, this pink spritz is giving the iconic Mean Girls rule by The Plastics a very Friday-night-friendly upgrade. Made with pink tequila, strawberry coulis and a generous splash of soda, this pretty-in-pink spritz is light, refreshing and dangerously easy to sip. And with 100% agave tequila containing no carbohydrates or sugar, plus a low GI and polyphenols, you could say this is the healthier way to kick off the weekend. Fetch, indeed.

Putting spicy stereotypes aside for a moment, deep into a conversation with Chef Sanjeev Kapoor – a man who has cooked for royalty, judged on international television, and holds a Guinness World Record for a 918-kilogram khichdi – he lands on a memory of a single spoonful of maize porridge in a Maasai hut in Kenya. “I was welcomed into a small, dimly lit hut where a meal was slowly cooking over a wood fire,” he recalls. “An earthen pot held nothing more than white maize flour and water.

By early morning, before the mist has fully lifted off the valley, the loudest sound at Temple Hangars is birdsong. There is no traffic to compete with it, no neighbouring balcony, no ambient hum of a resort waking up around you – just timber warming under the first sun, and a silence so complete it registers almost as a texture. This, increasingly, is what luxury travel has come to mean: Stillness rather than spectacle.

Every few years, skin care produces an ingredient that transcends the category and becomes shorthand for an entire approach to ageing well. Retinol had its decade. Peptides and probiotics followed. Vitamin C became a non-negotiable morning step. Now, PDRN – Polydeoxyribonucleotide – is positioning itself as the next name serious skin care consumers are expected to know.

For years, beauty had a strict dress code: fresh, clean, minimalist, borderline clinical. Scents were “barely-there,” packaging looked like it belonged in a lab, and indulgence was practically a dirty word. That era is over. Circa 2026, the pendulum has swung. And it has swung directly into a bakery. Welcome to dessert beauty – the deliciously over-the-top trend taking over fragrance, body care and self-care rituals everywhere.

Australians know FIFO. Not the holiday kind – the real kind. The 6 am Qantas shuttle from Sydney to Melbourne with a cabin full of sleepy fellow corporates off to a business meeting at their second HQ. The Perth mining crowd in hi-vis vests who treat a flight to Karratha the way the rest of us treat catching a bus. Fly in, do the job, fly out, repeat until your body forgets what a Tuesday feels like. I’ve decided to apply the same logic to a holiday.

Sunset Hour by Goldfield & Banks became the scent of a generation for the kind of girls who never met a sunset they didn’t photograph. Inspired by Broome’s famously cinematic West Australian skies, it bottled that fleeting moment when the light turns everything gold.

In the Vyas household in Mumbai, India, skin care was never a nightly obligation. It was occasion-bound. Before a wedding, a festival, a family photograph, Heli and Leen’s mother would prepare a fermented rice water paste – not a routine, but a ritual, saved for the moments that actually mattered. There was no shelf of products, no daily commitment. Just something rare, anticipated, and tied to an occasion worth marking.

In Conversation with Aimee Connor, the mother of four inspiring women to say ‘Yes’ to Life. There comes a point in many women’s lives when the question quietly changes. Instead of asking, “What does everyone else need from me?” we begin asking, “Who am I now?” It’s a question that resonates with Australian influencer and mother of four, Aimee Connor, who has built a rapidly growing online community by sharing the realities of motherhood, confidence and embracing life’s unexpected opportunities.