Mid-week quickie #2
Beckham, Glossier has finally started to ship to Australia!!!, the best book I've read all year and an article from The Cut I've been thinking about for weeks.
Happy Thursday friends! What a whirlwind week it’s been. This was meant to be in your inbox yesterday but alas, time got away from me.
Deadlines, a day trip to Brisbane for an exciting project, many events, preparing for our carpet to be installed - only to have it moved to next week without any warning (so we live in chaos for another week)…It’s been busy but it’s been great.
Here’s a bunch of stuff (specifically a TV show, perhaps the best book I’ve read in a while, a fake tan that brought me out of fake tan retirement and an article from The Cut that’s consumed me for weeks + more) I’ve loved this week that I wanted to share. As always, your likes, comments, messages and subscriptions mean everything to me.
Maggie Marilyn x FELLA
Last night I went to my beautiful friend, Maggie Hewitt’s (aka Maggie Marilyn) sunset party at Camp Cove in Sydney to celebrate MM’s new collaboration with swimwear brand, FELLA. Shop the divine collection here.
Also - Maggie makes the BEST baby tee’s. I have a black one I wear so much I think I need a back-up. I also need it in white. This skirt is also one I wear weekly.
BECKHAM
Have you watched? I smashed this on Saturday evening in one sitting. I loved it so much I watched it again with Angus (he was fishing over the weekend and I couldn’t wait). Angus loved it too!
My only criticism is that I wish they’d stretched it out over a few more episodes, giving them time to focus on Victoria and her career post Spice Girls (actually more Spice Girls info and coverage would have been very much welcomed also), his mental health / OCD and I wish there’d been more insight into the kids/them as a family now. I know the show is called Beckham but Victoria and the kids are Beckham’s too so I thought that’s what I was going to get!
If you loved Beckham (streaming on Netflix) and haven’t watched The Last Dance (also on Netflix), watch it! A 10 episode deep dive into the legend of Michael Jordan, his career and his final season in the NBA. I will also use this time to remind you to watch Drive to Survive (again, on Netflix).
I love this burgundy jacket
It’s currently sold out but when/if they restock I think I’ll grab it. Annoyingly, it’s one size fits all, I don’t love that - more sizing options would be brilliant.
I read this essay from The Cut a few weeks ago and haven’t stopped thinking about it. It discusses how different generations were affected by the pandemic - and how many of us are only just coming to grips with what it took from us, what we missed out on, or how there’s a disconnect physically and mentally with the phase of life we’re in now, years later. Writer Katy Schneider, shared an example (which mirrors my experience) of a now 33-year-old and her ticking biological clock:
‘We’ll never know if any of this was the pandemic, or if we’re just narcissistic New York City Peter Pans or anxious maladaptives. Maybe those 34-year-olds would have been worried about whether to have children at 34, pandemic or no pandemic. I asked my friend, the one who had recently turned 60, what she thought. She said that in her experience, moving from one decade to another, from one phase of life to the next, was consistently hard. But, she suspects, it takes a lot of living alongside other people — watching their breakups and thinking about your own relationship, watching their faces change and wondering if yours has too, watching them get married, and have kids, and move cities, and all the millions of other choices they made in the service of forward movement — to look properly at yourself and realize you’re not just the same age as you were before. So watching no one for three years, while still spinning around that bend — hindering.’
I entered the pandemic 29, newly married, no kids and freshly self-employed. But now it feels like I blinked and I’m 33 (and everyone is pregnant!) but mentally I’m still 29, 28, 27 - I don’t even know. It’s a really great article and I found such comfort in hearing other people experiencing this out-of-sync feeling!
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
I haven’t finished this yet but unless it goes off the rails in the last 100 pages, this is the best book I’ve read all year, maybe in a few years!
If you’re yet to read it, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is about two childhood best friends, Sam and Sadie, who reconnect in college and decide to work together on a computer game. I’m too scared to google the book for any articles or reviews or neat and tidy ways of describing it to share with you as I am terrified of spoilers BUT this book (so far at least) is about friendship, rivalry, creativity, fame, betrayal and connection. I don’t think I’ve ever been recommended a book more before purchasing and now I know why.
Let me know your favourite book in recent memory in the comments!
Glossier ships to Australia now!?
It was only last week that I lightly shamed Glossier for not shipping to Australia and so perhaps I manifested this new development. After 9 long years, Glossier will now ship to our HOMES!
I almost couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw various outlets announce the news on Wednesday. I think I’ll pick up a top up of Lash Slick and I’d really love to try the new Stretch Fluid Foundation. Maybe also some of the Body Hero products. I’ve always been a sucker for that gorgeous orange blossom neroli scent. Will you grab yourself anything?
Rhode and Merit - we’re waiting for you.
Plumes D.S and Durga
What an intriguing and delicious new scent! This is actually exclusive to Mecca - how lucky are we.
Fragrance notes: Tropical water, laurel leaf, coconut, frangipani, tuberose, jasmine vines, javanese vetyver, musk and amyris.
To me, it’s like a balmy night and a delicious bouquet of flowers.
Special shoutout to Pistachio - which I didn’t think I’d love as I hate Pistachio flavoured desserts but am actually obsessed with! This is what David Seth Moltz, co-founder of the brand, said about this fun scent and I think it gives great insight about why this brand is so cool and unique in the fragrance space.
"I think pistachio is an elegant nut. It's also a fun nut. It's around good climes and everyone seems to dig it. We made this on a whim - a fragrance with no story that just evokes the fun of pistachio (especially as a dessert flavor). It was a STUDIO JUICE (limited edition of 100 bottles). People went nuts for the concept (pun somewhat intended) and we knew we had to add it to the line. It's dank and unabashedly sweet which is something I don't normally do." - David Seth Moltz, co-founder D.S & Durga.
Ok! seltzer
How do we feel about seltzers? I’m big fan. I don’t love sugary/super sweet drinks so the emergence of the seltzer (they’re generally low in sugar/sugar free/more tart in flavour) is a welcome alternative if I’m at the pub etc. This specific Seltzer marries my love of a marg and seltzer and they’re great! I also really like Mode Seltzer (the Davidson Plum + Forest Berry flavour). Fellr is also good.
I thought my fake tan days were behind me but then I discovered Australian brand, Sontse.
The colour is great, the application is easy and forgiving enough and it has good longevity. The best part - after applying you only have to leave it on for a few hours (I usually let it marinate for 3 hrs but 1.5hrs is also sufficient enough) and then you can shower and go about your business! They also just dropped a new face and body scrub that’s excellent. I worked with the brand earlier this year and they gave me a code at the time - it’s ALI15 - if you’re in need of some new fake tan and you’d like a little discount. Shop here.
And while we’re on the topic - here’s a bunch of fantastic SPFs for your daily suncare routine: Ultraceuticals, Ultra Violette, Skinceuticals, Mecca Cosmetica and La Roche-Posay.
Hope you enjoyed this week’s quickie. I hope you too are reading a fantastic book, bingeing a TV show, basking in some sunshine or just had a really restorative sleep more than once this week!
More Smooth Brain Thoughts soon,
Ali xx
Loved loved loved Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow!
First, I want to start off by saying that I have been loving your newsletters on here 😊 Second, the book that I can’t stop thinking about is Red, White and Royal Blue. And in turn, I haven’t stopped thinking about the movie either, lol. As a hopeless romantic and a lover of love (all kinds), Casey Mcquiston really captured my attention. Have yet to watch the Beckham doc, but it’s on my list. I know I’m super behind the hype (I tend to run the other way when something is super hyped up and wait for the hype to die down), but I just started watching Drive to Survive.