Violet Gray is currently offering 20% off prestige beauty brands, including Augustinus Bader, Westman Atelier, Barbara Sturm, and more. A few particular products that stand out:
VINTNER’S DAUGHTER SERUM — THIS IS SUCH A FANTASTIC PRODUCT. I USED THIS UNTIL THE LAST DROP AND THEN SWITCHED TO CLARINS + VITAMIN C SERUM AND COULDN’T IMAGINE ADDING THIS PRICEY ADDITION TO THE REGIMEN BUT IT REALLY HELPED WITH THE TEXTURE AND ELASTICITY OF MY SKIN
WESTMAN ATELIER HIGHLIGHTER — DESPERATE TO TRY THIS MYSELF
*Image above via Manebi featuring their rope sandals.
I love not only the bright colors out at the moment, but the BIG designs and statements on offer this season — I’m talking frivolous handbags in exaggeratedly small sizes, platform shoes, and skirt-top sets! Below, some of my favorite BOLD finds for summer 2022, almost all of them priced under $150. Consider, for example, this $90 woven bag from an Etsy seller in SUCH great colors,
*In image above, micro is wearing this Busy Bees romper — one of my all-time favorite pieces of clothing for a little boy. I loved it so much I bought it for two separate summers (in two separate sizes). It is currently on sale plus extra 10% off with code MDW10.
A few great sales on children’s clothing have launched in advance of MDW —
1 // 30% off at Frilly Frog, plus free shipping on orders over $50 with code BOOM30. This includes those Lila + Hayes boys shorts pajamas sets I hunted high and low for on sale! Micro has the lighthouse pair and the shark pair. The sale also includes these popular athletic shorts for girls, which always sell out before summer rolls in. Great for camp!
My top picks from this sale here:
2 // Maisonette is offering an extra 10% off their Mem Day sale section with code MDW10, including those retro athletic shorts my son wore all last summer and classic CPC shorts for girls. Mini owns these shorts in about four or five patterns and wears them with polos all summer long.
*Image via I Love the Upper West Side — an account I still follow despite the fact I no longer live there.
I am currently listening to Nora Ephron’s Heartburn, narrated by Meryl Streep. I’ve read this book at least twice before, and each time, I am completely gobsmacked by Ephron’s brilliance. She is witty, she is clever, she is idiosyncratically chatty, but running just beneath that hilariously-neurotic-friend-from-New-York persona is a sluicing intelligence and a tender heart. The arrangement and timing of her comedy is nothing short of genius, especially given that her medium was the printed word, and therefore uniquely susceptible to readerly skimmings and misreadings and unanticipated breaks that might interrupt or obviate her humor (in a way that, for example, a script might not be). Of course, hearing her words come to life via Meryl Streep only makes everything fifteen times better. There is an outrageously funny part about the way pregnancy transforms a woman’s breasts, and I actually cackled out loud on the street while walking Tilly because of it. Ephron shines on her own, and then Meryl comes along and burnishes her silver. It is epic.
Heartburn is an autobiographical novel in that it follows the shape of Ephron’s own life: just like the protagonist, Ephron learned that her husband was cheating on her when she was seven months pregnant. On this re-reading, I found myself pondering the inclusion of recipes in the book in a way that made me reflect on the ethics and medium of the text overall. Are the recipes actually usable? I wondered. Heartburn is a fiction, and yet it was no secret that Ephron was really addressing the divorce between she and her philandering husband, journalist Carl Bernstein. And so what is “real” and what is not, and does this vinaigrette recipe hold up? The recipes feel like a litmus. (Has anyone tried them?). The recipes feel like they are meant to say something about truth, fiction, and the stories we tell because we must. There is a part in the novel where, in a group therapy session, a fellow participant says: “Why do you have to turn everything into a joke?” and the protagonist responds: “I don’t have to make everything into a joke. I have to turn everything into a story.” It is difficult to parse what is true and what is story, and whether there is a meaningful difference in this novel, and it can occasionally feel like evasive driving on Ephron’s part. She is able to excoriate her husband’s behavior but from the safety of a fictional perch.
I particularly enjoyed on this re-reading her thoughts on D.C. versus New York. The protagonist lives in D.C. when she learns that her husband has cheated on her and eventually moves back to the UWS of New York. She has this to say:
“Even the vegetables in New York are better. It’s not just the vegetables of course. I look out the window and I see the lights and the skyline and the people on the street rushing around looking for action, love, and the world’s greatest chocolate chip cookie, and my heart does a little dance. The little dance my heart was doing as I looked out the window of my father’s apartment was not exactly a polka but at least I was where I wanted to be. If I couldn’t have Mark, I could finally be back making sorrel soup.”
She captures a good deal of the magic of New York in this brief passage, and specifically the frenetic movement of its inhabitants in constant search. The feeling of search she captures so succinctly here is key to my experience of New York. New York is not just raw kinetic energy. It is busy because people are looking for things: the best meal, the best deal, the next 1 Train to South Ferry. And this gives the city a unique, bristling sense of purpose.
Worth a read, or a listen, if you have time this week — it’s a short book (under 200 pages) and a brief listen if you want a bracing display of comedy and heart.
+Already been getting a lot of use out of my SZ Blockprints caftans. This one is on sale. These are SO unbelievably comfortable and lightweight and breezy.
+This gingham flounce swimsuit is adorable and under $40.
+This wedding guest dress is a dream — as if Agua Bendita and Markarian had a baby.
+Several gorgeous dresses from Carolina K are newly marked down at Neiman’s! Love this sealife patterned maxi, this floral, and this shirtdress (in my closet!)
+These platform fisherman sandals are so on trend ATM.
+The smallest thing but I love decanting our cereals into these OXO containers. They keep cereal so much fresher than when kept in box and of course make my organization-obsessed heart sing.
+These are admittedly a bit of an eyesore, but I have heard from SO many moms that these water/sand tables are total MVPs for summertime with little ones. My children would flip!
+Oo! This flirty feathered mini will go home to one lucky size 2 at like 70% off!
Does anyone else go through beauty cycles where you are totally happy with your regimen/routine for months and months and loathe to change a thing and then all of the sudden you want to refill your makeup bag with a lineup of new items? I’m not sure whether this is a marketing message I’ve blindly consumed but I feel like sometimes, after using a product for a protracted period of time, my skin or hair just adapt, permanently, and the effects I originally noticed fade. Anyhow, a few new products I’m excited to test…
+This It Cosmetics SPF/Illuminator tinted moisturizer is sort of a competitor to my favorite SuperGoop product, but have been hearing consistently great things and will give a try. However! Supergoop is running its once-a-year 20% off sitewide sale at the moment (use code SUNNY20), so a good time to test Glowscreen while also stocking up on all your favorite sunscreens.
+This first-of-its-kind SPF-serum-niacinamide hybrid from Ilia is also getting a lot of buzz. I mentioned I was testing a new Vitamin C product last month that I ended up hating. (It might be one of the first products I actually just throw away before depleting or giving away — just not into it at all.) I was planning on going back to my beloved Biossance Vitamin C but now am curious about this guy, as, presumably, it would mean I could omit my usual layer of facial SPF and kill two birds with one stone.
+Wrote about this last weekend, but just ordered this cream bronzer from hot new label Tower 28. The price is right and it’s getting some strong reviews, as are all of their cream blushes.
+I need a new highlighter like I need a hole in my head but I am totally obsessed with this product category. I exercise fairly strong restraint in other categories, but I WILL layer on like three different highlighters when going out. This stuff is getting some serious buzz.
+Clean beauty line Fleur and Bee just launched a new retinol moisturizer that they were generous enough to send me a sample of. I was intrigued because I have stopped using retinol a few months ago after trying to make it work with my skin for nearly two years. I ended up just never getting the balance right — if I applied every other night, my skin ended up way, way too dry and it took weeks (!) for the flakiness to disappear. If I applied more sparingly (every 3-4 days, every 7 days – I swear I tried every cadence imaginable), I feel like it did nothing for my skin. I don’t know — I’m confused! When I first starting using it, I thought my skin looked fabulous, but then slowly it became drier and more flakey. I know so many people have great experiences with retinoids/retinol and swear it has changed their skin, but I could not get to a place where it was working for me despite trying various permutations. SO. I was intrigued by this moisturizer because it describes itself as “beginner friendly,” noting: “Retinol can be difficult and irritating. This is the best retinol cream for everyone new to retinol. We’ve combined 0.03% retinol with over a dozen nourishing and soothing ingredients like squalane and jojoba oil to reduce the risk of irritation.” So far, I have been impressed with the moisturizer — no irritation, no flakiness, and a good amount of hydration. I haven’t seen crazy effects (yet) but it does a good job hydrating skin. I will report back after using it for two months. All in all, though, I do have to say the price is good for a product that delivers so much.
+I ordered some of these Heliums hair ties — so clever that they offer such a broad range of colors to meet nearly any hair color (including gray!). I bought mainly for my daughter, but will keep a bunch for myself, too.
+Guys – scrunchies. They’ve been back “in” (as has everything from the 90s) for awhile now (you know it’s OK if Hailey Bieber is wearing it), but my sister wore one up in New York to tie her hair back and it looked so cute! I had to order some to match. Of course, Slip makes some but they are much more expensive and I held off. But you know how I feel about their skinny scrunchies — weirdly one of my absolute favorite discoveries from the last year. Gentle on hair but actually hold hair in place. My favorite for washing my face.
+Ilia mascara — I used this for awhile and was very impressed with it and then went back to my Armani favorite, which is a bit goopier and more dramatic. But my girlfriend, not knowing I had already enjoyed a fling with Ilia, gave me a tube and insisted I would love it. I am SO glad she reintroduced me to this mascara. It is really the best daytime mascara out there and honestly I find myself reaching for it most days over Armani. It is SO GOOD. Really lengthening and separating but never clumpy/fake.
The roses climbing the west side of our home are in bloom, as seen above. It has been a peculiar delicacy to watch spring unfold into summer here, as it feels that every week brings new and previously undetected varieties of flora. The prior homeowner bore an impressive green thumb: we have fruiting trees of nearly unimaginable variety (peach! plum! cherry! apple!), tiered garden beds that are home to a wide range of vegetables and herbs, and kiwi vines that garland themselves, rather invasively if you are not careful, around the iron railing of our back deck. In August, we will press kiwis into the palms of any and all visitors, as the bounty is abundant and we’ve not yet discerned preparations for the fruit beyond peeling and slicing. Otherwise, they sit in an enormous enamel bowl in our fridge, and it took us until at least November to make our way towards the bottom. (They do hold up nicely in the chill; you place them on the countertop to temper them.) Anyhow, we moved in the dead heat of D.C. July last year, and so we missed the spring-to-summer window of blossom, and I had not even known that we harbor at least four different kinds of roses that have been patiently waiting for a warm May morning on which to unclose their petals and anoint our home.
Only –
Ever since I came across that John Prine song about roses missing the dew, and attached it to the ragged and jagged sensations of grief that continues to surface whenever I think about Elizabeth, I have been unable to look a rose in the face without thinking of my friend. It’s strange the way that happens, the way memories can collect and accrue over time, and what was once an observable, nearly containable concept (Elizabeth!) now accordions into a pastiche.
And so those roses along the west side of our house feel like Elizabeth’s roses.
I am telling you: there is something about May that was meant for me. It is dense with cornerstone memories — the beautiful, evocative, pregnant-with-meaning kind. May is the month of Mary, and my son was born in May, and now these roses have determined that they will bring Elizabeth to me every May until the year we leave this house.
I am grateful for, though wistful about, their presence. She passed away over a decade ago, and I had never connected her to a rose and now here she is, recoloring the flower, reclaiming it! It is a new access point, and at the same time, a lintel into a new phase of my life and my grief over her loss. It is as though she has been replanted in my new home in Bethesda alongside me. New beginnings alongside inheritances, and onward we go —
I wrote last week about some fantastic gifts for little boys. Our final gift list for Hill’s big third birthday is below. I always end up holding back a couple of gifts and keeping in my gift closet for a random Saturday, so we’ll see what I actually end up presenting him with on his birthday. The scooter for sure though!
HOT WHEELS TRACK SET AND CARS — WE HAVE A LOT OF CARS BUT HE RECENTLY MADE A BEELINE FOR THE TRACK SET AT A PLAYDATE AND WOULD NOT LEAVE; WE HAVE NO TRACKS LIKE THIS!
HIS OWN SCOOTER — HE IS ALWAYS BORROWING HIS SISTER’S! DON’T YOU LOVE THE NAVY COLOR?? IT WILL BE A PERFECT MATCH FOR HIS BANWOOD HELMET
“Imperfection charms me, familiar things move me… a celebration of what we have, instead of what we long for.”
We have talked a lot about this concept over the years on Magpie, in various forms: blooming where you are planted, living where your feet are, seeking slices of joy in the everyday, being happy in small ways. But I really love her framing, as I am also (always, abundantly) moved by the intimate. I value the way my husband knows how to prepare my coffee (down to the ounce – he uses a scale to measure sugar and cream) over nearly anything else because of its implied tenderness and familiarity. On Tuesday, my son sprinted to the door of his school, tripped, and lay flat out on the sidewalk with scraped knees and palms, and, between enormous crocodile tears, the only thing he managed was: “Mama, mama!” Every mother the world over is accustomed to this scene, but for some reason, on that random Tuesday morning, the immediacy of his need bowled me over. His instinctual, urgent cry for my arms: a gift.
Shopping Break.
+Madewell is offering 25% off everything right now. A great time to buy white jeans, a chic midi, or jean shorts for the season ahead.
+Love the seasonal colors Dagne Dover’s phone sling is available in — tangerine and lilac! So many Magpies love this little bag. It does seem like the perfect mom accessory while chasing children around a playground. Big enough for phone, key, credit card. Also good for solo travel. I realized this while taking the train to NYC — sometimes you need to leave your bags on your seat but want to keep essentials on your person!
+OO! I love these statement earrings ($115). They look vintage!
+Speaking of chic earrings, my girlfriend wore these floral hoops to lunch the other week and they were SO adorable. I also realized they’d go with basically everything!
+Oh my goodness. This smocked bloomer set. Jacadi was one of my favorite brands for mini when she was around 1-2. The most precious, classic pieces. I have so many good memories of her in this brand. If you are a first time buyer, I find Jacadi runs small and narrow. I also just noticed they have the perfect (!) flower girl or First Communion dress available!
+I got so much use out of my sage Dudley Stephens fleece this season! On sale here, plus extra 20% off with code YOUROCK.
+I am still digging the crochet trend — I love this unexpectedly reasonable tank from La Ligne!
+Anthro’s best selling dress is now available in a chic linen!
+Summer is just around the corner and I am starting to get organized. The children have a few camps/activities/guests/trips but besides that, I am aiming for a slow summer at home. I am going to stock my activity cabinet with sticker books and activity pads, though! Lots of great indoor/travel activities here.
+This $20 ribbed pajama/lounge set for littles is really nice. I’ve bought these in a few colorways — good for sending into school as backup clothes. I like how they look paired with vans! Check out this pastel colorblock pair. Cute!
By: Jen Shoop
*Image via Self Portrait featuring their broderie shirtdress, currently on sale and literal perfection for a bridal event or Baptism.
Wow – another shopping gift. Saks just discounted a bunch of items up to 40% off, and I had a blast sorting through them for treasure…
Wow – how did this happen? Memorial Day is next weekend? I found myself scrambling yesterday to track down some outfits for the occasion! Whether you are shopping for Mem Day or FOJ, some great patriotic looks…
P.P.P.S. “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” What do you think?
By: Jen Shoop
*Image via Horror Vacui, featuring their Martha dress, on sale in a different floral at Matches!
Oo la la — Matches just reduced a suite of exquisite current-season pieces from favorite labels including SEA NY, Horror Vacui, and Olympia Le Tan! Below, some of my favorite picks.
SEA NAVY SCALLOPED TRIM DRESS // SEA PATCHWORK DRESS // JIMMY CHOO SLIDES // HORROR VACUI JACKET // RAEY JEANS // YELLOW LA PIMA SUNGLASSES // SALONI MINI // DAISY SIGNET RING // OLYMPIA LE TAN CLUTCH // HORROR VACUI SKIRT // LE MONDE BERYL SLIDES // LA PIMA SUNGLASSES // HORROR VACUI MAXI (TECHNICALLY A NIGHTGOWN BUT WOULD WEAR FOR DAY) // LIZZIE FORTUNATO NECKLACE // SEA FLORAL DRESS // MARNI TRUNK BAG
P.P.S. “I must sometimes remind myself to write in soft pencil. Not everything — in fact, only the scarce sacrosanct — deserves copperplate engraving.” More here.
While visiting my sister in New York last week, she lamented (in her Nora Ephron manner), “No one ever makes me a salad. A salad is the ultimate gesture of love.” I knew what she meant, even as I sat idly by watching her prepare a salad for lunch: a salad requires multiple tedious, separate preparations of individual vegetables; a semi-mathematical or at least strategic procurement or curation of complementary ingredients; the taste-and-see mixing of oils and vinegars for dressing; tossing; plating. And clean-up is never simple. There are scraps of vegetables, cutting boards, tongs, oily countertops, a salad spinner, nubs of Romaine. A peanut butter sandwich it is not.
Love is leaving the light on — or, in my case, remembering to switch it off. Likely following my wanton ways, our children routinely neglect to turn off the light in the top floor play area, and, every night, Mr. Magpie trudges up there to complete the final chore bookending his day. One night, I popped up there and flipped it off before he’d ascended. He noticed immediately and — I kid you not — told me that it was the most romantic thing I’d ever done for him.
Love bears all things.
I wrote yesterday that a true apology asks for nothing — and neither does love. It exists blind to the concepts of obligation, demand, greed.
Love is listening.
Love is being there. And not often in a dramatic way. I mean that love is often a quiet presence that builds up over time: the grandparent at every baseball game, the sister who always answers her phone, the friends who gather in pews at a family funeral, the neighbor who springily drops by the cup of sugar you lack or the box of puzzles you need while you are enduring 20 days of quarantine or the folding chairs for your party, the parents who write letters to you while you study abroad and then fly across the globe to visit you while there and, later, to listen to you read a very boring, poorly delivered academic paper on James Joyce. (Ahem.)
Love receives. It nods its head, it embraces, it accepts.
Love is worrying not so much about The Thing, but the way The Thing will impact its object. By this I mean, two weeks ago, my parents endured a stressful home ownership issue involving a leak in the first floor of their house. On the phone, my mother was dismissive of the issue itself, instead informing me, testily: “Dad does not need this right now.” That is, she was unperturbed by the issue, but furious that the issue had caused my father any frustration.
My point is this: I looked across the island at my sister as she diced tomatoes into cute quarters, going about her business with a kind of bristling perfunctoriness, drying her hands on the dish towel, swinging open the refrigerator door, whisking the dressing, and I thought my heart would explode. I realized that perhaps I have on occasion overlooked love because it was dressed like salad. (Or a switched-off light, or a testy response to a burst pipe, or or or into infinity.)
Cheers to love.
*Written as I head into my other sister’s deferred-twice-because-of-COVID wedding weekend in Boston! **I owe my sister a salad.
+On the difference between a background in the humanities and STEM.
Shopping Break.
+Aren’t these slides amazing?! (They are basically MEANT to be worn with CeliaB. JOY!)
+Only a few left, but this adorable and festive dress we’ve all been lusting after is on sale. Check out the whole sale section — lots of fab buys there!
+These drawing books are fantastic for kids. They also have a cute thumbprint one.
+Also stocked up on some essentials for mini at RL — they’re having a decent sale ATM. Bought her some solid tees, polos, sleeveless polos, and a polo dress.
+Picked up some extra mealtime gear as we will have my niece and nephew with us for nearly ten days — all my favorites here, but specifically ordered extra silicone mats and these easy lunchboxes for picnics.
