What is it about January that makes it feel like the longest month ever? I’m glad it’s over and the days are already getting noticeably longer. I can’t wait to have at least a solid hour of daylight after getting home from work again. This month I settled into a fairly consistent beauty routine, and a few new-to-me products ended up becoming daily staples. I also met a cooking goal, started reading more, and watched a lot of Netflix with Brett (his schedule rotates monthly, and we were on the same schedule during all of January).
Beauty
I really tried to pare down all my routines last month. My skin was drying out and becoming irritated, so I focused mostly on hydration and barrier repair and kicked all my actives to the curb. I really fell for First Aid Beauty - their Ultra Repair Dry Oil and Multi-Fix Salve have really saved my skin. I mix the oil into my night cream, my sleeping mask, and my day cream, and it’s been keeping my skin nourished and soothed without being heavy in the slightest. I’m blowing through it, but I’ve already got a backup on deck. The salve is a nice consistency - it has a matte feeling rather than being oily or slippy, and it instantly feels soothing on any irritated spots. My eyebrows were a dry, itchy nightmare for most of January, and this has been really helping. I also fell for the new Laneige Cica Sleeping Mask last month. I still use it every night as the last step of my skincare routine, and it’s really been keeping my skin moisturized all night long. I like it a lot better than their original sleeping mask, and it’s quickly becoming my favorite out of all of my sleeping masks.
I also ended up cutting down my daily makeup routine - I’m still not comfortable enough at work to wear as much as I used to and don’t want it to look too noticeable, although it’s not an environment where that would actually be an issue. I also like the extra time in the morning to snuggle my dogs in bed. I’ve been skipping foundation altogether most days, instead going for a thin layer of the First Aid Beauty Bendy Avocado Concealer under my eyes and on any redness. It’s hydrating, dewy, and is more like a “tinted moisturizer” of concealers, so it’s great for the minimal look I’m going for. I’ve also been skipping out on bronzer and going straight for blush, and the BareMinerals Bounce & Blur Blush in Mauve Sunrise has become my favorite. It’s got that kind of mousse-y/squishy cream-powder hybrid formula that’s super easy to apply - I use the Real Techniques Stippling Brush. It leaves an easy wash of color rather than being super pigmented and hard to blend, and the mauve shade is absolutely perfect for me. I’ve also been going for moisturizing glosses rather than lipsticks, and while the Dior Lip Glow Oils are always a favorite, the new Bobbi Brown Crushed Oil-Infused Glosses got a lot of wear last month. They’re more pigmented than the Dior but still let your natural lip color show through, and they feel really comfortable and lovely on the lips.
Food
I set myself a goal last month to try three new recipes, and I did it! I noticed I was cooking the same meals over and over and wanted to branch out. The three I ended up making were Bon Appetit’s Crispy Mushroom Pasta, Lemon Pound Cake (I made this twice!), and this baked chicken recipe that made me actually like baked chicken. They were all easy, and I’m still really loving cooking and baking. I think I’m going to set myself the same goal for this month. I’m trying to not look only to Bon Appetit for recipes, so maybe I’ll make my goal more specific for the month to try a certain number from other places. Let me know your favorite places to get food content!
Books/Music/TV/Etc
I always go through a weird phase with music in January - I literally listen to nothing but Christmas music in December, so I kind of go all over the place in January trying to figure it back out. For the second half of the month I was doing inventory at work, either packing parts in new boxes or loading all the info into the computer system for the entire day, so I listened to a lot more music during my workday than usual. My playlist of some great movie scores was perfect - there were no lyrics to distract me, but the melodies were still familiar and something I enjoyed listening to. I’ve also been listening to Harry Styles’s new album a lot, of course. I think I mentioned this in my December Edit, but Canyon Moon is still my favorite song from the album. I’ve also been listening to a lot of old Dean Martin/Rosemary Clooney/etc kind of stuff - it’s actually my favorite kind of music to have on while I’m cooking.
I made it a goal to read a book this month, and I guess I completed that - I finally finished The Godfather by Mario Puzo. I started it back over the summer but just completely stopped reading for most of last year. I still had about two thirds of the book left to read, so I finished it. I really liked it - I love the movie, and it was interesting to see how closely they stuck to the same plot. I did like the extra side stories with Johnny Fontaine in Hollywood though. So I didn’t read a full book, but I’m still calling this goal complete because I started another book and got about halfway through - you may have seen me talking about The Radium Girls by Kate Moore on Instagram lately, because I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s the true story about the young women who worked as watch dial painters around the time of WWI and used radium paint to make the numbers glow in the dark. They ended up getting radiation poisoning, and the book is mostly about their legal battles with their employers to provide compensation for their medical bills. It’s so infuriating to read about what these women went through, how long it took for them to be taken seriously, and the ways the companies tried to avoid responsibility. It’s not a happy or easy read, but I’d really recommend it.
In January Brett and I watched a lot of Netflix - we finished The Witcher and season 2 of Sex Education. I thought The Witcher was so good. Brett and I have played through the Witcher: Wild Hunt video game twice now, and it’s probably my favorite game we’ve played together, so I was really into the show. I will say that knowing some characters from the video game made the show a little harder to follow - before a character’s identity was explained, we’d be sitting there trying to guess who it was from the game. But it got really good around the third or fourth episode. We watched all of Sex Education within a week when it came out last year, so we were psyched for Season 2. I liked this season, but I didn’t like the way it ended. And (small spoiler?) Mr. Groff’s spiraling out of control was just hard to watch and seemed way too exaggerated. I’m still excited for Season 3 though.
We also finished the Lego Harry Potter video game that Brett got me for Christmas, and we ended up buying and starting the Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens game. If you’re not very good at video games like me, or you like a fun 2-player game, I’d definitely recommend any of the Lego games! They’re a lot of fun, and I don’t get frustrated with them like other games. I like that you have to solve puzzles to complete each level, rather than just fighting bad guys or whatever. The first level of the game was actually the end of Star Wars Episode Six, and I probably annoyed Brett by refusing to play as any character except Princess Leia (in the Lego games, certain tasks/puzzles can only be solved by certain characters and you can change your character while in the middle of playing).
What did you get up to in January?