The Trtl Pillow
Alright, so confession: This pillow is 99% of the reason this post is being written. YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT IT. (But then I realized that a Travel Essentials post sounds like a better idea than a You Need To Know About This Pillow post, hence the four other truly phenomenal items listed down there.)
Let's get to it.
The other day, I sat down to start cobbling together a post called “8 Products I’m Still Obsessed With One Year Later.” Because here’s the thing: beauty writers (and any writers with public platforms) get asked to review lots of products. Which means that if one of these writers - me, say - is not only still using one of these products a solid year later, but has actually subscribed to a delivery service for said product, and still insists showing said product to people who come over to her house because they need to know about it…
You know it’s a good product.
Which is to say that one product that I knew from the get-go was absolutely guaranteed a spot on this list of mine is quip - the electric toothbrushes that I first wrote about last spring. I hadn’t been aware that the toothbrush industry was one that could be disrupted, as they say, but it also hadn’t occurred to me that I could have a toothbrush that can only be described as “stylish.”
I LOVE it when things like this happen.
OK, so a couple of months ago I was in Malibu with my mom, and we went into a little boutique filled with many, many things that I wanted to own but could not afford. My mom felt similarly, but nevertheless decided to try on everything in the store, so I ended up wandering around by the cash register, picking various things up and putting them back down while trying to keep my children from doing the same, and one of the things I picked up was this little rollerball perfume oil from a company I'd never heard of called "Riddle."
I couldn't put my finger on what, exactly, it smelled like, but I was instantly OBSESSED, to the point where I flagged down the woman who was standing in the corner folding $300 t-shirts to ask her about it. She had virtually no information to offer me and had seemingly never noticed it even sitting there in the shop, so I figured it was some ultra boutique-y oil made by, like, the owner's friend. It was also a little pricey ($50 for the small oil, $80 for the large), so even though I definitely thought about buying it, I managed to restrain myself and went on my (now blissfully perfume oil-ed) way.
I wouldn't call myself a "beauty blogger," per se, but I've certainly written about beauty (treatments, techniques, procedures, products, and so on) a lot over the years, including two entire YouTube shows produced by Allure (#memories).
What this means: I've tried out a lot of products - far more, I'd guess, than your average non-blogging bear. And I've liked - even loved - a lot of them. But like any human being with non-abnormal quantities of time to spend on things like makeup and skincare, there are only so many new discoveries that I actually continue using over the long-term (and on my own dime).
So Francesca and I were texting each other the other day about adorable things we found on the Internet - as we do - and all of a sudden we found ourselves on Etsy and eBay, going down a total vintage Laura Ashley wormhole.
You know Laura Ashley, of course. Your mom probably had Laura Ashley bedding with roses all over it in 1984 (mine did, too).
But what you might not know is that the vintage Laura Ashley look - all those florals and lace and the feminine everything - all of a sudden feels super fresh. See that dress laying across my bed up there? It's a 1970s lace Laura Ashley nightgown with big belled sleeves (found it on Etsy), and I plan to wear it alllllll over the beach this summer.
