The theme is extreme coziness, and I’ll give you things for your bath, and, to accompany that, a Netflix and a book recommendation in this new series on the blog: January best beauty finds!
Having baths (with Lush stuff and without)
After Christmas, after-christmas-sales start. And, every year without fail, I’ll sit in front of my laptop and watch the Lush website for its big end-of-year-sale to start. And while I buy staples (shampoo and hand cream, nowadays) I’ll ALSO give in to temptation and buy their Christmas edition bath bombs and bubble bars for 50% off.
Never mind they’re Christmas-scented – I like warm and spicy scents, and every Sunday, I’ll pop in another bubbly, fragrance-rich treat and languish in the hot waters of my bathtub.
The sale goes on until 31/01, and some bath stuff is still available. (I loooooooove the Butterball bath bomb, which always pops up as the Butterbear for Christmas. Also, I always break the bigger balls and bars into two or even three pieces. There’s still enough scent and bubbles, trust me.)
Watching cozy TV series
The Makanai (9 episodes, Netflix) is another iteration of cozy for me. The plot moves around Sumire and Kiyo, two friends coming to Kyoto to train to become maikos (aka Geishas in training). While Sumire excels, Kiyo doesn’t – but realizes her strength is in cooking. The plot meanders gently through a year in the girls’ lives, and while there’re a lot of big issues to navigate (love, of course, but also friendship, sisterhood and family) it does so feather-lightly, and always cushioned by the dishes Kiyo cooks. This will definitely make you hungry.
Reading cozy fantasy
Legends & Lattes (by Travis Baldree, 8,99€ Amazon Kindle) belongs to the genre of cozy (yup, you guessed it) fantasy – a genre I didn’t know existed before coming across this one. Cozy mystery? Sure. Love them (try the Lady Hardcastle series if you’re up for some gentle detecting in a 1905 English village by the eponymous Lady Hardcastle and her maid and companion). But cozy fantasy?! I was intrigued. And then, utterly charmed.
Imagine: Orc Viv is fed up with her life as a blade for hire and fulfils her dream of opening a café, and bringing the wonderful gift of coffee to a provincial town. There’s friendship, baked goods, a tentative love story, a giant cat and a jealous jackass, and, of course, a happy-end. I devoured the whole thing in one day and hope it’ll become a series.
If you’ve made it till here…
First, thank-you for reading something that’s not completely beauty-centred and also not a review. (It won’t be a surprise to anyone that reviews are the genre that does best on the blog.) We stopped doing monthly favorites a few years back because it wasn’t sustainable for us any more, we felt: it often stressed us out, because we had to review an additional product per month, and also led to us often buying another product to do that. To not to do that again, this time I want to really reflect on the (maybe) little things that featured in my beauty life any given month, and also other stuff I enjoyed. If that sounds good, I’d love to see you again next month!
Please note that this review is not sponsored in any way. We buy products ourselves, with our own money, and don’t accept exchanging goods, or money, for reviews. We are completely independent, and our reviews reflect that.
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