What is Vintage Savoir Faire?

savoir faire (n) French – Know how.  The instinctive ability to know how to deal with any situation that arises.

Vintage Savoir Faire - a website about good food, handmade beauty products, kitchen remedies and creativity – based on vintage wisdom, adapted for our modern lives!

Vintage Savoir Faire is all about rediscovering vintage tips, techniques and skills for making stuff ourselves – then adapting them for our modern lifestyles.

Why?  Because I truly believe that making stuff ourselves can improve our lives.

According to Harvard Business Review, we like stuff more when we make it ourselves.   I couldn’t agree more.

Learning to make stuff ourselves can make us happier, healthier, lighten our impact on the environment and put more money in our pockets!  Plus, making stuff is fun.

How did you get the idea for Vintage Savoir Faire?

Growing up in America, I never ever thought about health.  When I was sick, I took a pill.  End of story.

But after moving to Paris in 2007 and later to London, I started to see that other cultures had a different philosophy.  Especially in French pharmacies, where herbal and homeopathic remedies shared equal shelf space with pharmaceuticals.   So I enrolled in an herbal medicine class in London.  And my concept of health and wellness was fundamentally changed.

First, I learned that it’s normal to be healthy.  We don’t always need to medicate everything.  When your body is in balance, it’s healthy.

And second, I learned that humans have been using plants for health for thousands of years – very effectively and inexpensively.

Why hadn’t I heard about this before?! And what other long-forgotten but still-really-useful stuff was I missing?

I have always been interested in old books, baking, cooking and beauty products.  So I dug out a few of my grandma’s vintage cookery books and started reading…and experimenting.

About Amanda 

Amanda Cook is the creator of Vintage Savoir Faire.

She loves creativity, cooking, technology, speaking French, beauty products, and travel.

As a child, she was constantly writing & directing movies with friends, sewing potato-sack-like dresses which she proudly wore to school, experimenting in the kitchen and playing in the woods.

Today, she channels that creative energy into Vintage Savoir Faire.

Amanda has a degree from Dartmouth College and currently lives in London.

Amanda is currently enrolled in the Institute of Integrative Nutrition (IIN) Health Coach Training Program.  If you would like to learn more about IIN, contact Amanda or download the IIN Book here!

Work with Amanda

If you have a request for a workshop, article, interview or speaking engagement please contact Amanda directly at

Amanda @ VintageSavoirFaire DOT com