In Which We Discover Ina Garten Did Cocaine
Quick Thinking Vol. 2
Hello hello,
TGIF—THANK GOD IT’S FEBRUARY.
January was approximately 900 days long and an absolute chaos tornado of a month. Our family has been dealing with illness, bad news, and lots of disruption. I’m just returning from a long trip spent hammering away for work, the house is a dumpster fire, the government is in free fall, but I’m holding out hope that February will be a kinder month. At least we know it’ll be a shorter one.
Let’s dive into some Quick Thoughts.
Ina’s Memoir
A highlight this month has been sinking my teeth into Ina Garten’s memoir, Be Ready When Luck Happens. When I picked up the book I was expecting a soothing journey through her victorious rise to household name and proprietor of all things breezy, delicious, and Hamptons-coded. The book equivalent of her mellifluous voice. My friends. I did not get that.
Turns out Ina is a chaos agent and I am fucking delighted about it. Her writing, her devil-may-care attitude, her willingness to divorce Jeffrey over his white-knuckle resistance to dismantling traditional gender roles—I am more in love with her than I ever was. Don’t let the beachy setting, white button up, and gentle voice fool you. Ina gives big Sagittarius energy if that means anything to you. (Turns out she’s and Aquarius which also tracks but surely there is some fire in her chart?!)
Her upbringing was harsh and cold. She is a woman who has truly paved her own way in sweat and mistakes—transforming wrong turns into opportunities left and right. You need to get this book. Store-bought is fine.
Indyx styling services
If you thought I was about to go a couple months without talking about my favorite fashion app—you’d be wrong. For those unfamiliar with Indyx, it is an app that allows you to digitize your closet. You literally take photos of all your clothes (their technology cuts out the background), catalog them in your virtual closet, and use the images like puzzle pieces to build outfits without having to stand in your closet for hours wondering what to wear.
Here are a few examples from my app:
I love this app for so many reasons. Not the least of which because it was founded on the principals of promoting sustainability in fashion and lessening our reliance on consumerism. Shop your closet is the goal. I’ve found myself shopping less and less because I have a full picture of what’s in my closet that I can refer to when I’m out shopping and feeling like I don’t have what I need. It also allows me to save outfits that I love (you can even save selfies so you remember how you looked and felt) so getting dressed is more fun than stressful.
Recently I decided to try out another feature on the app—The Feed. The Feed is ongoing weekly personal styling from a style coach. For a set price each month ($35 and up depending on your stylist choice) an Indyx-approved stylist can provide you with 1-3 outfits per week styled from your own closet. You can give them feedback so they learn your preferences, request occasion styling, and save the outfits they make to your closet in the app to refer to later. I have had one hell of a month and I had all of one brain cell left and I wasn’t going to spend it on creating outfits. BUT I had a couple trips for which I didn’t want to buy anything new and wanted a fresh rotation of outfits.
The fashion gods were on my side because an influencer whose style I love had just joined Indyx as a stylist and I JUMPED at the chance to be styled by her. So far the experience has been fantastic. She put together gorgeous outfits for my trips (see one that I brought to Tulum below) and I can’t wait to continue on with her to see how she reimagines my wardrobe as we move into spring.
10/10 recommend both Indyx and The Feed feature if you need style inspiration or a time saver. I’m not sponsored by Indyx (though I can dream) but if you want to get $10 worth of styling credit to use with them you can use my referral code “bethanycantor” at sign up.
Soft Services
If you’ve been with me from the start, you know I am a product girlie. I love makeup, I love skincare, I love testing out new products, and I especially love sharing the gems I find with you.
Enter my latest love, Soft Services Buffing Bar Exfoliating Body Bar.
The packaging! The Branding! The Efficacy! All. on. point.
I have not one clue how I stumbled upon this soap-but-so-much-more-than-soap, but now I can’t be without it. I’ve had KP on my legs and arms since I was a kid (if you’re not familiar, lucky you, but it’s little bumps of built up skin cells—barf). Many adults have KP of some kind—something like 40% of us have it somewhere on our bodies (for teens it’s 50-80%). You may have heard it called some other increasingly revolting names—chicken skin, strawberry skin—but not matter what you call it, it’s annoying as hell.
This magical little bar using micro crystals to buff away the dead skin. It isn’t gentle per se but it’s very bearable and the results are fantastic. I used it 3x per week for the last month in preparation for a trip to Mexico and it worked beautifully.
10/10 recommend.
Anywhere but Amazon
I love love love to read and I’m trying my best to slowly wean myself off of my dependence on Amazon for about a million reasons. One of my genuine loves in life is to stroll through a new-to-me independent bookstore but when I can’t do that, I’m making a conscious effort to make my online book shopping Amazon free.
Here are few options if you’d like to do the same.
Bookshop.org - Every purchase made benefits small, independent bookstores. You can choose a specific one to support but if you don’t, your purchase goes into a pool of money that is distributed to the stores. They have raised over $35 million for bookstores since opening their virtual doors back in 2020.
ThriftBooks.com - This site is a treasure trove of used and rare books. I was introduced to it by Amber’s delightful newsletter. It’s a great place to find used books so you can minimize your consumption.
Abebooks.com - Abe is a place to find books, art, and collectibles. When you place an order it comes directly from an independent seller. (I just bought this book from a small shop in Lakeside, MI).
That’s all for now. Talk next week!