The Sunday Soother: Trying & Buying
My friends. Welcome. This is a constantly updated blog post about many of the things I have ever recommended in the nearly two years I have been doing the Trying & Buying section of The Sunday Soother, from books to beauty products. They are just chronological, not by category, because, I’m lazy. Enjoy!
Masking: Thank you to reader Damianne, who sent me a candle and sheet masks off my Sunday Soother wish list —my favorite sheet masks, no less! They're this My Beauty Diary sampler box and I love them. Affordable and effective and this little sampler is great for those just getting started on their sheet masking adventures.
Watching: Has anybody else become obsessed with animal cams during Coronavirus? So soothing. I throw on explore.org cams just in the background sometimes even when no animals are on screen because the nature sounds are so nice.
Eating: Have quite randomly become obsessed with making a big batch of poached chicken breasts at the start of the week and then throwing in salads, sandwiches, whatever throughout the week. I use this Bon Appetit poaching guidance.
Sleeping with: I never really used eye masks before but since it gets so light in the mornings so early now I'm trying them out. I really like this one because it's very soft and non... clenchy? It's probably not as great at blocking out light completely as others but the softness is more important to me.
Reading: I was looking for a gripping non-fiction book, since I've blown my way through 700 romance and historical fiction novels during quarantine and wanted something a bit more grounded, and Inheritance is delivering. Dani Shapiro, who already made a name for herself as a memoirist of her family, discovers her father is not her father.
Eating: These Trader Joe's truffle brownies. In one of my frequent kitchen cleanouts in these ~times~ I found this brownie mix in the back of the cabinet, promptly made it, and felt great joy.
Jumping: In addition to the mini trampoline I mentioned a few weeks ago, I also have this jump rope that's giving me a good and kind of fun way to move my body. (Yes, my downstairs neighbors probably hate me.)
Cleansing: I am really lately loving using Tatcha's oil cleanser with this gua sha tool all over my face. Gets things squeaky clean but also I feel like I'm getting a bit of a massage.
Reading: I really liked this romance novel, The Unhoneymooners, by Christina Lauren, which I only recently found out is actually two women, Christina and Lauren, who are bffs and write romance novels together?!?! Amazing. Who wants to be my BFF writing partner??
Asking: Every Friday, my boyfriend and I put out a cheese board and make gin and tonics and catch up. However, when you are spending literally 24/7 with a person, you do tend to run out of things to talk about. This set of couples conversations cards is great and we pull it out every once in a while. Warning, sometimes it asks you Qs you ain't ready for. For example, like 5 months ago we pulled a card that said "When did you know you loved each other?" and we had NOT said the L word at that point. I will say though, it prompted the convo that eventually led us to saying it awwww <3
Lots of you had good ideas about hair breakage and thinning and I am starting to implement them and seeing a difference! So here are several hair products that are helping my fine, prone-to-breakage hair:
First is this leave-in conditioner spray, which I have to use just a little of, because it can weigh my hair down.
Then, this Redken anti-snap treatment has been amazing.
I use this big comb to detangle after a shower, and this wet brush if I need more detangling.
In shower, I am a lifelong stan of the Aussie 3-minute miracle, but the pricier Olaplex treatment helps a lot too.
I have these satin/polyester pillowcases, too.
The biggest thing that has already helped that I'm so regretful about is stopping use of my hot air brush (I use the John Freida one but I know the internet has recently gone crazy for the Revlon one). After a week of not using it, it's undeniable that it was causing a lot of my breakage. Le sigh. It did get my hair so nice and straight and shiny. But for now, I am blowdrying my hair like 90% dry with warm/cool air, and then using these velcro rollers to get some of the shape and volume.
In some random fit of pique like 9 months ago when I was bored with whatever workout routine I was doing at the time, I ordered a mini trampoline, promptly put it together, used it once, and stuffed it my closet. But I've been using it ALL the time lately and I love it! I try to dance/bounce to 10-15 minutes of songs a day on it just to get myself moving.
Really enjoyed these affordable Hada Labo sheet masks.
There's been lots of extra time lately to shuffle through my expansive set of sheet masks and I forgot how much I loved these Benton ones. Nicely firming and moisturizing.
I've completely let myself lapse back into a horrific nail-biting habit the last two months and it is time to remedy this. I've mentioned these before but these Kiss press-on nails do a great job of looking not-fake and covering up my nails so I'm not tempted to chew.
I love me a good mini spatula to get everything out of every jar ever! Peanut butter... I'm coming for you.
This cute day and night gratitude and planning journal has really been helping me through lately.
Okay so this book -- Smart Women Finish Rich -- has a grating title, and yes this is the guy who talks about how you need to stop buying lattes, and yet... I'm working this year on my relationship with money and becoming powerful in the way I earn and manage money, and this book breaks it down really simply and clearly. If you feel shame around your relationship with money and want to be more in control of it, give this a read.
Puttin' on my face: If the constant indoorness of this all is wearing on your skin, this Ren glycolic face mask is my quickest path towards glowier and refreshed skin.
Protecting: I'm usually pretty loyal to my Elta MD sunscreen but this lighter (and more affordable!) Japanese sunscreen is my current fave.
Rolling: If your new WFH setup has left your hips and back in agony, I really like this little set of tiny rubber mobility balls to roll all the knots out.
Cooking: This creamy Tuscan chicken recipe was found one day by my sister and spread like wildfire through the rest of the family. Our entire family group chat is basically now just shots of this meal back and forth.
Celebrating: Two perennial newsletter faves of mine, Cruel Summer Book Club and My Sweet Dumb Brain, were awarded Substack grants! Bonus, this entire list of grant recipient newsletters looks like a treasure trove of new content to sign up for.
Putting on my face: I finally got one of those ice roller depuffing face things. Heaven. I can only imagine how good it will feel during the upcoming DC summer.
Putting on my hair: I have hair thinning and breakage issues and have for years (does anybody have a secret remedy??) but this serum makes my hair feel so much stronger and softer when I use it regularly.
Eating: If you're anything like me, your intake of canned foods has gone up substantially lately. No reason not to make them fancy! This white bean & tuna salad was super easy and bright.
Writing: I don't own it yet but I want it: this delightful notepad that encourages you to write down three simple things you want to or get to do that day.
Learning: Luke Leighfield has a great list of WFH productivity apps and tools.
I'm in love with this affordable facial scrub from Acure. Skin so soft!
Being in Miami the past couple of weeks means lots of sunscreen application. This is my favorite facial sunscreen.
How is it possible it took me this long to read Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic? God, I loved this book. If you're into whimsical ideas about the nature of creativity, joy, and showing up for your talents in this world, please, do read it.
Since I work from home now, I'm tempted to wear sweatpants all day every day, but, you know, I have calls with clients and occasionally like to try to look semi-professional. But I will not sacrifice comfort. That's why I like these joggers and this tunic. Semi-professional, totally comfortable.
This activated charcoal powder will make your bathroom sink look like an oil spill but it has helped whiten my teeth.
My Beauty Diary Birds Nest Face Masks. All the glowy moisture for cheap!
Actually decorating your apartment for Christmas. I'd never done it, but it was so cute and cozy. I bought this fake lighted tree and loved it.
Am obsessed with this sage campfire incense. Yes, my apartment smells like a yoga studio, but worth it.
A jade face scraper. Depuffs and massages and stuff. Also just feels good.
These running socks. Expensive but comfy and the only socks that don't slide right off my feet while running.
I wear these sandals, all summer long. They're comfortable, seem rather durable for something you got off Amazon that has the words "Granola" and "Fisherman" in its name, and look good with jeans, shorts, or the beautiful flowy dresses I plan to wear all summer, except inevitably I end up in jorts 99% of the time. Oh well.
A lot of running and a lot of sweating means I need to do a lot of hydrating. For that I use these Nuun electrolyte tablets. If I didn't care about all of my teeth falling out I would drink 12 gatorades a day (yellow, please) but these tablets offer up good electrolyte replenishment without being cloyingly sweet.
Mrs. Meyers lavender handwash is the best-smelling handwash of all time, no contest, don't come at me.
When I inevitably do get a zit, these little overnight patches dry them right up.
Packing cubes! The hype is real. These made my two-week trip to South Africa a dream.
These clogs, which I spent a good six months of the year wearing.
When I'm not wearing those clogs, I'm wearing these booties.
I put my spices on this rack, thanks to a tip from my friend Emily. Is your spice rack absolutely out of control? Do you own five jars of coriander seeds because you keep forgetting if you own coriander seeds because your four jars of coriander seeds are buried dark in a cave of your own making? Not that anybody has ever done that, ha ha. This rack helps.
I write with this pen. It's just a good pen. I like it. That's all. It's what I use for my morning pages and any hand-written drafts. As well as thank you notes!
My cookbook club last did Alison Roman's latest, Nothing Fancy, and the recipes were truly tasty. In particular, I'd recommend the herb & greens salad, her cheesecake, and the stuffed shells. Yum!
Snail mucin undereye patches. For $12 for 60, you can't get more dupuffery per cent on your sluggish Monday morning than these. I don't often reorder products I try out on a lark, but I'm on my third box of these.
Is it weird to recommend a toothbrush? I'm recommending a toothbrush. Oral hygiene is important! I like this one a lot; all my friends recommended it and it kept popping up on The Strategist, so I finally ordered it and am enjoying extra-clean teeth.
For the past year or so I have just been dumping collagen powder into anything I can -- coffee, oatmeal, tea -- in an effort to, uh... well... live forever? Look better? Who knows. Man am I suspect to wellness trends. That said I do notice a big difference in my skin and joints when I take this collagen regularly.
This jelly sheet mask kind of feels like you're adhering a sheet of pure gloppy alien slime to your face, but I found it very nourishing, moisturizing, and calming. Plus it's called "I'm Sorry for My Skin," which, lol.
From reader and former coaching client Sue: "I am going to recommend that you try Harney & Sons Cinnamon Tea. This is the best tea of all time. I buy it by the 50 count box at Amazon and drink it every afternoon. Seems to be right up your alley." UPDATE: I have since tried the tea and it is INCREDIBLE.
I recently read Michael Pollan's book How to Change Your Mind about psychedelics and as any of my friends, acquaintances, strangers on the bus, will tell you -- I can't stop talking about it. The book says, "A unique and elegant blend of science, memoir, travel writing, history, and medicine, How to Change Your Mind is a triumph of participatory journalism" and I would 100% agree with that. Now, as a pretty woo person, it wasn't so wild to me the ego-dissolving trips that Pollan and his subjects take that bring them to the edge of a sense of universal spirituality and certainty of life after physical death. Yeah yeah I already believe in all that. But get this: the founder of AA STARTED AA AFTER GOING ON A PSYCHEDELIC TRIP THAT GOT HIM SOBER and also psychedelics were used with great success earlier in the 20th century to treat alcoholism. But a moral panic got all the drugs basically shut down and banned and we're only now rediscovering their abilities to treat alcoholism, addiction, PTSD, depression, more. It's all fascinating.
If language, conflict, communication, expression are all difficult for you, you'll benefit from the book Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships.
Winter's a-coming, and my face is ready to start a-flakin'. But not with this beautiful sea buckthorn oil!
I've recommended this set of incense before, but with fall coming in, I'm burning them almost every night and they just make me feel so pleasantly woodsy and cozy and warm, so I wanted to tell you about them again.
This is more of a summer dress than something you could pull off in the fall, but I love it for a going-out frock.
Lately, I've been getting more questions on what it means to be spiritual, or to explore spirituality, or what happens during a spiritual awakening. Trust that there's not enough space in this newsletter, or the world, to truly address that, but I think one good book to start at is Essential Spirituality: The 7 Central Practices to Awaken Heart and Mind.
I'm not a sheet expert, or even really that discerning, so take or leave this opinion, but these cute cotton sateen starburst sheets sure have spruced up my bed and make me happy.
I've often recommended the book The Body Keeps the Score to better understand the physical manifestation and ramifications of trauma on people (we are SO behind as a society on the body and trauma, it's infuriating).
I'm both extremely self-aware and also extremely prone to hyperbole, so it is with levels of both that I say I THINK I HAVE FOUND THE BEST SUMMER DRESS OF ALL TIME AND IT'S LIKE $20!!! It's this jersey dress from Amazon's in-house fashion line.
I finished and enjoyed Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, Lori Gottlieb's book about a therapist who goes to therapy and all the life lessons learned on the couch. If you read and liked that book as well, you may also enjoy The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves by Stephen Grosz which is the same vein -- a therapist recounting experiences and lessons learned from patients - and also is really beautiful and elegant and human.
I got plans, big ones, for 2020... but was lacking a way to make them happen bit-by-bit, day-by-day, so just sat, for weeks, staring at all of my ideas without any idea of how to execute them in a way that made sense to my chaotic brain. Then I came across the 90x goal planner. It broke down things exactly like I need them - quarterly; monthly; weekly; then, finally, daily. I didn't buy the actual journal, which is about $30, but I did print out the free PDF, slip it into a binder, and voila, I have all the concrete steps I need to take in the next quarter to make EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY GODDAMN DREAMS COME TRUE.
Trader Joe’s cedar candle: I'm a sucker for all things seasonal at Trader Joe's, particularly their candles. This cedar & balsam one is lovely.
I've become more interested in Aruyvedic concepts and for the past year or two have been using a tongue scraper every morning. It is fascinating, liberating, wholly horrifying -- experience the entire range of human emotions each morning before brushing your teeth!
This is a great hairbrush! I've always wanted to buy that famous Mason Pearson brush that's like $200 or whatever but even I am not that ridiculous. I heard this one was a good dupe and I really like it.
I've been incorporating bursts of jump roping into my workout routine in an effort to not have my cardiovascular capabilities turn into dust. This jump rope has treated me great.
This halter one-piece bathing suit from Cupshe is the first one-piece I've bought in forever, and I really like it. My only problem with Cupshe is they don't seem to understand that women have butts and would like more coverage. I ordered this in a large and I'm still tugging a bit. Shrug.
Like perhaps many of you out there, I keep several pairs of shoes under my desk, because I walk to work in sneakers or Birks and then need to change to look "professional" because patriarchy. This little foldable container is what I have put under there to store the shoes so I don't look like a total crazy person with shoes spilling out all around me.
Michelle Tea's book Modern Tarot: Connecting with Your Higher Self through the Wisdom of the Cards is essential reading for anybody on their own tarot ~journey.~ It's just so conversational, funny, insightful, wise, and full of her own personal touches of magic.
I've never been a bath person -- maybe I would be if I had a billion-gallon clawfoot tub in a castle tower instead of my condo bathtub that barely fits a child lined with my drugstore shampoos? -- but I have been taking a lot of baths lately with epsom salts for better sleep and anxiety, and they are working.
I finally read The Kiss Quotient and it's as adorable, sexy and charming as everybody said.
If you live by yourself but are prone to wanting to rearrange your space and its heavy furniture constantly, like me, these furniture sliders are a game changer.
Everybody is into the cropped flare kicky canvas pant look, and who am I not to succumb to a trend? These pants from Amazon's fashion line hit the spot, and are only $29 to boot.
An acupressure mat: Like acupuncture or massages but can't get them regularly? Try this bed of nails mat. Yes, it hurts a lot when you lie down on it at first, but then it is weirdly relaxing. I got this for back pain and found it somewhat helpful and so weirdly relaxing that I would sometimes fall asleep on top of it. Even though it's basically like tacks are sticking into you.
Desktop SAD Lamp: If you get SAD in the winter, this is a good little lamp to ward that off. I have it at my office and enjoy it.
In my quest to write more, I ordered a used copy of Stephen King's classic On Writing and am halfway through. I think it's fascinating reading for anybody -- the first third is more a memoir than anything, as richly detailed and ringed with darkness as anything he's written. The rest of the book is just plain, entertaining, useful, smart advice for anybody looking to polish their words and ideas
*These links may generate an affiliate commission for the author.