What I've Read This Spring | 2019

Another season has come and gone and boy have I been reading a lot the past couple of months! Luckily, I’ve had some time off during the spring, which gave me a lot more time to read than I usually have when I’m in my usual work routine. I’ve read quite a variety of books over the past few months, some great some not so great, but overall I’m happy to keep my 2019 reading goal chugging along as planned!

Betwixt-and-Between: Essays on the Writing Life by Jenny Boully ~ I was at a point earlier this year where I was facing an intense bought of writer’s block and just generally feeling uninspired and not creative. Not only are these bouts of writer’s block annoying from the perspective of being productive, but they also coincide with me feeling like I’m not completely myself. Jenny Boully a writer and professor and while this book is about the writing process, it’s not a how to on being a writer. She explores so many different aspects of being a creative throughout the essays in this book, that I found incredibly inspiring, however, unlike a lot of self-help books, this collection of essays felt down-to-Earth and relatable.

China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan ~ While I was on vacation in Tahoe in March, I brought along the second book in the Crazy Rich Asians series, China Rich Girlfriend, for a fun, easy holiday read. I loved the first book in the series, however the second book left quite a bit to be desired. It included all of the opulence and humor that I loved in the first book, however the plot of this book was far less put together than the first book. I really liked most of the characters in the first book, but the second book, with its convoluted plot, made me really dislike certain characters. Despite the negative review of the second, I will definitely read the third book in the series, because I hear it’s much better than the second!

The Push by Tommy Caldwell ~ After reading China Rich Girlfriend I craved reading something with a bit more substance. Deciding to read The Push also coincided with my getting into rock climbing. Tommy Caldwell is by far one of the best and most accomplished rock climbers of all time. In the book, Tommy Caldwell writes about his childhood and his entire rock climbing career, throughout which he has experienced some major setbacks (including being held hostage while on an expedition and losing an index finger). The story culminates in Tommy’s landmark first free ascent of the Dawn Wall on El Cap in Yosemite, which was one of the most impressive feats in big wall climbing ever. I absolutely loved this book not only because of the inspiring nature of his story but also, because as an amateur climber, there’s a lot to be learned from Tommy Caldwell’s career.

Alone on the Wall by Alex Honnold ~ I obviously liked the climbing books this spring! After finishing The Push, my boyfriend recommended I read Alex Honnold’s book, Alone on the Wall. I was super excited to read this book because I had just watched Free Solo, which if you haven’t watched already, you must! I definitely preferred Tommy Caldwell’s book to Alex Honnold’s mainly because of the writing. Alex had a collaborator, David Roberts, who wrote part of the book. I understand the need to have another voice in this book, mainly because Alex is very cavalier about a lot of the things he’s climbed and you need another person’s perspective to portray the scope of his accomplishments. On the flip side, it wouldn’t have worked to have someone write about Alex’s climbing because free soloing is such an intensely personal experience that you need to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth. I did like how clear they make it when it is Alex or David writing, however because it is two very different voices jumping back and forth, the book doesn’t read as smoothly as it would if it were just coming from a singular author.

Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney ~ After hearing loads about Sally Rooney’s books, I finally found her first book in my local bookshop and promptly scooped it up. I really loved this book for a multitude of reasons. For one, there’s something about Sally Rooney’s writing that is both incredibly beautiful yet easy to understand. The book is about two friends with a somewhat tumultuous and complicated relationship. One of the girls, Frances becomes involved with a married man and conflict amongst the two friends arises. I absolutely loved how Rooney portrays female friendships with complexity and depth that is so often left out of novels with strong female characters.

Sex & Rage by Eve Babitz ~ I read this book while I was on a work trip to LA, and it was the perfect place to read it! This book is about a woman named Jacaranda, who grew up in LA and begins to run in a very artsy, influential group of friends. She gets tired of the vapidness of her friends, who are more interested in using each other for their own personal gain than anything else, and moves to New York to pursue a career in writing. While she tries to escape all of the toxic people in LA, she comes to find that they follow her wherever she goes. Overall I liked this book quite a bit, more for the writing than the plot though. The plot wasn’t bad but the book is written in a very dream-like stream-of-consciousness style, which isn’t always everyone’s cup of tea.

Life Lately + Blog Updates

The past couple months have been interesting to say the least. I know that probably sounds incredibly ominous, but what I mean by “interesting” is that I feel like I’ve changed a lot mentally, for the better, in the past few months, and that will most likely change the content I will be posting on this blog. That’s not to say I won’t be posting at all, in fact I want to start posting even more, but my interests have shifted a bit and the content I want to create is a bit different than the content I have been posting for the last year or so. About two years ago when I re-launched my blog, I made it very clear that this blog would no longer be just a beauty blog, and for the most part I tried to diversify my content to include more lifestyle related posts about interiors and living in San Francisco. I’ve loved making that content for the past two years, but I’ve also grown a lot in the last few years, and especially in the last few months.

My interests, as of late, have become less focused around material things like clothes and makeup, and honestly I’ve just stopped caring about those things as much as I used to. A lot of this I credit to the move to have a more sustainable lifestyle and I’m totally content with where both my wardrobe and makeup stash is at. I think I’ve just discovered other hobbies that make me happy and just learning how to enjoy the simple things in life rather than constantly being worried about work or other stressors. I want to focus my content more on lifestyle as that is the content I’ve enjoyed making most in the past few months. I’m not quite sure what the next few months has in store but we have some really exciting summer plans that I am very much looking forward to documenting both for myself and for you all.

Part of these changes will also mean writing some shorter blog posts here and there that take less time to write because honestly with a full time job, I’ve found it hard to write lengthy blog posts consistently. I want to be more consistent with my content overall and I love the process of creating so I want to incorporate more image-heavy posts along with some wordier ones sprinkled in here and there for variety.

A Fitness Update

I’ll be the first one to admit that in the past year I have not been nearly as active as I could or should have been. It’s kind of a chicken or the egg question as to why I haven’t been active very much in the last year. I will be totally transparent and say that my mental health has gone through peaks and troughs the last year, and while I’ve been better at managing the troughs, it can be incredibly hard to motivate oneself to leave the house and exercise, even if you know moving your body is exactly what could be exactly what your mind is craving so desperately (depression is a funny thing, ain’t it?). I will also add, that outside of all of the mental barriers, I’ve found it really hard to find a form of exercise that I was genuinely excited by. I swam for almost a decade as a kid and went on to compete all four years of high school, there was nothing I loved more than swimming, and in terms of a workout, it’s a damn good one. I continued to swim here and there in college on my own because my college luckily had an incredible pool at the rec center, but I never found it as fun to swim by myself as I did when I was in high school on a team. I am a very goal-oriented person and working out just for the sake of working out is very hard for me to do.

I have done yoga on and off for the past four years or so and do love it, but sometimes doing yoga at your home can be too easy to get out of. I especially am guilty of making up excuses as to why I can’t make time for exercise, but if I’m beholden to a class or membership that I’ve spent my hard-earned money on, I’m far more likely to motivate myself to find the time to exercise. I was very consistent about doing yoga in my last couple years in college, but my love for the practice has definitely waned in the past couple of years.

In the last month or so I have started climbing at our local climbing gym, and it’s honestly been a huge game-changer for my mental health and my perspective on fitness as a whole. A little over a month ago, Brad and I were on a ski trip in Tahoe with our families, and on one of the last nights we all watched Free Solo, the documentary about Alex Honnold making the first free solo attempt of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, I highly recommend that you do, I mean it did win an Oscar after all. Now I will say that I have absolutely no desires to climb a 3,000’ granite wall without a rope, ever, but there’s something about that movie that really lit a fire under me to live a more intentional life and pursue a more outdoors-driven life (something that has been important to me ever since I was a kid, but has slipped away in the last few years living as an adult in a big city). It also, not so surprisingly, motivated me to start rock climbing.

I wasn’t completely new to the sport, as I had dabbled in it in high school and my uncle, who I am very close to, has been an avid rock climber for the better part of his life. Brad has climbed for the last few years, and over the last six months or so has gone consistently several times a week. I decided to join him for a bouldering session a month ago on a random Sunday morning and have been hooked ever since. Rock climbing is no joke when it comes to full body workouts, but there’s something in the process of climbing, figuring out problems, overcoming fears, and taking risks that makes it far more rewarding to someone like me than yoga or swimming ever was. Now that’s not to say I won’t ever do yoga or swim again, in fact it’s quite the opposite, I am more motivated to be more active in general and that means incorporating more yoga and other forms of exercise to supplement climbing. I have been going climbing (doing both top rope and bouldering) at least twice a week, and it’s been so nice to finally feel like I want to go to the gym and exercise and feel present and good with my body for the first time in a long time. Who knew that I would find exercise that would also become a hobby!

Two New Serum Additions

As I get more and more into my twenties, I put more effort into making sure that I am really taking care of my skin as best as possible. Of course, I’m still incredibly young relatively speaking, however I have always believed that prevention is always the best method when it comes to skincare. Since your skin is the biggest organ on your body, it seems prudent to take good care of it sooner rather than later.

I’ve always been interested in serums, but have never fully known where to start with them. For one, there are so many serums on the market, all made with very specific concerns in mind. And two, serums are often some of the most expensive skincare products, because of the concentration of ingredients is so high, which is great if you have specific skin concerns, but that can be harder to justify spending big money on if you’re using them more as a preventative measure. I have dabbled in serums before, mainly with the Glossier Supers, but honestly they left me unimpressed, especially considering how quickly they run out and the relative high price tag for how simple they are. I considered taking The Ordinary route, but after reading several reviews, I decided that it would be better to spend more money on a couple of multi-ingredient serums, rather than 3+ single ingredient serums, with a relatively cheap formula.

I have begun using two serums in the past couple months, for the morning I use the Aesop Lucent Facial Concentrate and for the evening I use the Drunk Elephant B-Hydra Intensive Hydration Serum. The Aesop serum’s main ingredients are Niacinamide, an anti-redness and anti-acne ingredient, and Sodium Ascorbyl Phosphate, which is one of the most popular forms of Vitamin C. As someone who is very senstive to sun exposure, I am obviously very careful about using SPF but I really wanted to have a Vitamin C specific serum to also fight against free radicals and UV damage. This serum is really nice for the daytime because it is so lightweight and easy to layer under a moisturizer and SPF.

At nighttime I’ve been using the Drunk Elephant B-Hydra Intensive Hydration serum. If you have ever tried the Glossier Super Bounce serum, the Drunk Elephant offering is very similar in terms of ingredients and feel but with an even better formula and delivery system. While the Glossier serum is ok if you want a basic hydrating serum, I find the Drunk Elephant version to have a much better formula, in that it full sinks into the skin and doesn’t feel at all tacky, and it has more of a calming and restorative effect because it has added ceramides in the ingredients. Because this serum is so lightweight it works perfectly under a thicker night cream, without making your skin feel heavy and clogged. If you are more oily this is a perfect serum to check out if you use lightweight moisturizers as well because, again, it will give you the hydration without feeling like you’re adding tons of heavy oily product to your face!

Currently Burning | A Candle Collection

If there’s one “frivolous” thing I will always spend money on it’s candles. I once watched a Sali Hughes video about her perfume collection and in which she touched on her candle collection. One of the points she made that resonated with me was that while candles can be extortionately expensive, the difference in quality and burn time is significantly better if you go slightly higher end. I can attest to this because I have had higher end candles that have lasted me months and months, while some cheaper candles burn through in the blink of an eye. Candles certainly aren’t a necessity but every once and a while can be a nice treat to yourself and your home.

If there’s one candle that encapsulates fall and winter, it’s Diptyque’s Feu De Bois. I am a total sucker for woodsy scents (as you will find out once you finish reading this post), and, to me, this is the cream of the crop for woodsy scented candles. Part of what I love so much about this candle is how subtle it is. There’s nothing about it that is too smokey or heady, but it literally smells like the most quintessential wood-burning fire. So often woodsy scents are too heavy or cloying, but this one somehow strikes a perfect balance.

I spoke about this candle in a previous post, but one of the best more “affordable” candles on the market is the Maison Louis Marie No. 4 candle. It smells almost identical to Le Labo Santal 33, but comes in at about a third of the cost of the Le Labo version. This candle smells incredibly luxe and is one of my favorite year-round candles and luckily it’s not too expensive to buy back-ups of somewhat frequently!

I bought the Byredo Bibliothèque candle almost a year ago and it is still going strong! This is the perfect example of a candle that was pricey, but doesn’t need to be burned very often or long to get the scent. This candle is definitely on the sweeter side of the type of scents that I like. It has a pretty strong vanilla and plum note, but it is balanced out by some leathery and light patchouli notes. This candle really does stand by its name, because it evokes the feeling of being in an old library.

Now this one was a Christmas candle but, the Space NK Shimmering Spice Candle is still going strong in my candle collection. SpaceNK release this candle every year around Christmastime and it has been a long-time favorite of mine for more festive candles. Even though it’s a holiday candle, it’s not over the top or very sweet smelling, which a lot of Christmas candles are. The candle literally smells like orange, clove, and cinnamon, which actually translates really nicely beyond the Christmas holidays and into cozy winter nights.

The most recent addition to my candle stash is Byredo Tree House. Going into spring, I wanted a candle that was a little bit lighter than all of my winter candles, but still something that had woody notes to it. Tree House is definitely less smokey than Feu De Bois, but it still has strong cedar and guaiac wood notes. There’s also a slightly sweeter, more leathery notes that cuts the woodiness and makes the scent profile more complex.

What are your favorite candles at the moment?