Daily Pampering: The $8 million iPhone

by Melanie Nayer on

With every new iPhone there is another option for bling. Now that the iPhone 4 is stocked on Apple’s shelves, it’s time for the designers to make their mark.

Enter: Stuart Hughes, the London-based luxury designers who turns everyday items into works of (pricey) art. His latest masterpiece: the world’s most expensive phone.

The iPhone 4 32GB Diamond Rose Edition cost a total of £5 million (almost $8 million) to construct. The bezel is handmade from rose with approximately 500 individual flawless diamonds for a total weight of over 100 ct. The rear section was created using rose gold and, as an added touch, kept the Apple logo in rose gold with the slight embellishment of 53 diamonds. The phone’s main navigation is made from platinum and holds a single cut 7.4 ct pink diamond. If pink isn’t your color, you can ask to have a rare 8 ct single cut flawless diamond put in its place.

Not just any iPhone case will do. This work of art sits in a chest made from a single block of Granite in Imperial Pink. The inside is with Nubuck top grain leather and weighs massive 7kg (approximately 15 pounds).

Intrigued? You should be. There are only two of these in the world.

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Daily Pampering: The platinum rare facial at The Beverly Hills Hotel

by Melanie Nayer on

It’s not hard to spot the various levels of platinum in Beverly Hills. Whether you’re looking at someone’s newly colored frocks or admiring the rock placement on a ring finger, platinum knows no boundaries in Beverly Hills. Now, one hotel has taken platinum to a new level.

Relaxation and revitalization will always be the mainstays of the spa industry, but the five-star properties of Dorchester Collection, including The Beverly Hills Hotel, are inviting guests to experience a new kind of pampering.

The new Platinum Rare Facial at The Beverly Hills Hotel is a head-to-toe treatment from The Beverly Hills Hotel Spa by La Prairie. Two therapists using the high performance Platinum Collection, including Cellular Cream Platinum Rare and Cellular Serum Platinum Rare, turn your tired skin into a thing of rare beauty.

The price? $400 for 90 minutes
The result? Red-carpet radiance

Want more? Get your daily dose of pampering right here.

Daily Pampering: The Pierre Hotel’s organic caviar and oyster tasting

by Melanie Nayer on

When the Pierre Hotel wants to celebrate, it celebrates in style. In honor of the hotel’s 80th anniversary, the Pierre in New York is recapturing the glamour of its past with a tasting flight of a trio of organic caviars with wine and vodka pairings.

Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from October 22 – December 31, 2010, Executive Chef Stephane Becht will debut the caviar tasting menu and The Pierre’s Two E restaurant. Enjoy a hand-selected tasting menu of organic caviar as well as North American oysters with wine and sprit pairings. The tastings start with three organic American Caviars served with blinis and crème fraiche for $65. The caviars served include:

AMERICAN PADDLEFISH: From the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, these glistening steel gray eggs rival Sevruga from the Caspian Sea
MOUNTAIN LAKE WHITEFISH: From Montana, these crisp and golden eggs burst with a fresh, mildly salty flavor WILD
HACKLEBACK STURGEON: This dark, silky caviar from the rivers of Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee offers a refined, nut-like flavor with a semi-sweet finish

If oysters are more your liking, choose from Neguac, New Brunswick shells, Kumamoto from California, Oregon, and Washington and Chesapeake Bay oysters.

Add wine or vodka pairing for $14 that includes: Chablis Domaine Roland Lanamtureux 2007 Burgundy; Muscadet ‘Clos de la Senaigrie’ Luc Choblet 2008 Loire; Picpoul Saint Garrigue 2007 Languedoc. Vodka options include Russian Standard Imperial; Belvedere and Chopin.

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Daily Pampering: Thanksgiving in Tuscany

by Melanie Nayer on

You could hang around the family dinner table at Thanksgiving, listening to Mom whine about the fact that you’re still single and she has no grandchildren while Dad pours himself another scotch and Uncle Chester keeps missing his mouth and spilling stuffing all over his lap. Or, you could pack it up and head to Tuscany for a stay at The Castello di Vicarello, a 900-year-old castle that has been transformed into a seven-suite luxury retreat with organic vineyards, restaurant and olive orchards.

Castello di Vicarello is offering a Thanksgiving in Tuscany travel package for the week of November 21-28, 2010. Guests can book the entire property in the Maremma region of southern Tuscany for an exclusive family holiday retreat or a solo getaway (if you so desire).

In addition to exclusive use of the Castello di Vicarello, you and the family can indulge in the authentic Tuscan farm-to-table cuisine produced by owner Aurora Baccheschi Berti and her team of chefs. In preparation for Thanksgiving meal, you can even participate in a hunting excursion to the Castello’s exclusive nearby Valle di Buriano estate, where they can hunt wild boar, quail and partridge. Of course, the estate’s award-winning red wines will be part of the feast. When the decadence at the table is over, stretch and soak at the Castello di Vicarello’s Ayurvedic spa with a massage, yoga lesson or visit to the hot tub, sauna and Turkish bath.

The price for a week in Tuscany for Thanksgiving? Approximately $36,355 (Euro 26,000). That’s about what your sanity goes for these days, right?

Want more? Get your daily dose of pampering right here.

Daily Pampering: Fine and Rare Macallan for $10,500

by Gadling Staff on

Ask a scotch drinker about their dram of choice and often you will hear two words: The Macallan. For today’s Daily Pampering, we head to Speyside in Scotland – the home of malt whisky and Fine and Rare bottles that can be yours for $10,500.

Pull into The Macallan gates to learn about the magic that happens inside.

The tour begins at the distillery. Visitors see the mash tuns, washbacks, stills, and casks and learn about how each part of the process works together to create the golden scotch deliciousness. Several exhibits explain the process of turning new spirit into whisky with stories about the barley, the wood casks, and the tasting notes. Visitors who book the Precious Whisky Tour (lasting 2 hours and 15 minutes for 20 pounds) continue into the nosing room for a tutored tasting of a range of Macallan whiskies. You might even catch a glimpse of Bob Delgarno, Master Whisky Maker working away in his office right next to the nosing room.

Next head to The Macallan shop to stock up on barware, logo-wear, and food products infused with whisky. Flanked in leather and embossed with he Macallan logo, the Hunters Flask included two small metal cups to share whisky on the go. This is the time to check out the Fine and Rare bottles. For the 1937 bottle, enough liquid for 174 bottles were taken from the cask in 1969 – it can be yours for for $10,500.

A visit to The Macallan Estate and Distillery reveals the intense passion of the team that make some of the best whisky in the world. A fine rare experience indeed. Slainte Mhath!

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