June in review | (un)natural beauty, another reminder to stay present, and monthly recs

Whether you're a beautiful stranger or a special human I know, I'm equally glad you're here. Now pour yourself a glass of your favorite liquid, sit down somewhere quiet, and let's get started.

I know it was August Taylor Swift blamed for slipping away like a moment in time, but for me this June was all the same. I blinked, I had some great time, and it was over. In June, (for the hundredth time) I felt grateful for living in Los Angeles and having my routine and being able to spend my days at a much slower pace compared to what it was like in New York City. In June, my husband and I went on a date night at a culinary school and spent 4 hours mastering the art of Korean BBQ and it was the coolest experience ever. In June, I had my best friend fly for 12 hours to spend a week at my place and that week was one of happiest weeks in my life this year (so far). June was kind to me, and I look back to it with a ton of gratitude.

And, of course, the month came with some thoughts and ideas and content I cannot wait to share with you all. So let’s dive right in (and do it headfirst because that’s what the coolest kids do).

Getting old is getting old.

This has been my Roman Empire for months and months now—the idea of how all the innovative beauty procedures and terrifyingly normalized plastic surgeries and increasingly affordable injections make us forget what a normal person in their 30s or 40s or 50s actually looks like.

I mean, really, do we even know it still? Because, frankly, I don’t think I do.

I live in Los Angeles, where people have always been known for taking good care of their bodies and spending lots of money and energy on their looks. I also live in the world of social media, where A-list celebrities don’t think twice before sharing explicit lists of all jobs they’ve done to themselves (alongside the names of their clinics and doctors) and influencers hop on the train like it’s just another silly and harmless TikTok trend. I live in a reality where 26-year-olds inject Botox in their foreheads as a “preventative” measure and tell me all about it as if I asked them to (I didn’t).

The other day I was watching a movie on a streaming platform and the ad came up (because now they serve you ads even if you pay for a subscription), and it was a commercial featuring women in their 50s telling how they want their foreheads to not have lines and—wait for it—how it is all possible, for as little as a few hundred dollars a month. And don’t even get me started on the Ozempic and its generics because I swear I’m going to explode. The way it is advertised so irresponsibly and the way people use it so carelessly—two things that are mutually reinforcing—makes me want to hide in the closet and scream for hours.

And it’s not that any specific, individual case of “beautification” makes me sad. I have friends with lip fillers and friends with enlarged breasts and friends who’ve been injecting Botox in their foreheads for years now. It is their bodies, their choice, and all I can do is accept it. It’s not that what makes me so sad. What then? Good question.

I guess, it’s democratization of these procedures, the normalization of sharing with the world what kind of job one has done, and how—cumulatively—it results in the reality where people look increasingly the same, their age sadly indiscernible, their faces and bodies reflecting nothing of who they really are. And how surrounded by such people both online and offline, where 45-year-olds have foreheads of toddlers, every now and then I look in the mirror and the idea crosses my mind: do I want a perfectly smooth forehead, too? Should I?

And I know I wouldn’t be even thinking about it if not for all this obsession with the artificial youth. I know I would not spend so much time thinking about it if not for Instagram pushing on my reels of girls trying to frown on the front camera but failing because there is Botox in their foreheads.

Maybe I’ll change my mind in a few years, I don’t know. But for now, I want to see the little crowfeet in the corners of my eyes because those are proof of me smiling too often. For now, I want to be able to express emotions with my whole face and not just the lower part of it. I like it that my upper lip is thinner than my lower lip because this is how most natural lips look like. And this is beautiful. I like my breast, which could have been bigger, if I’m honest, but they are beautiful just the way they are and I wouldn’t want to do anything about it.

I hope Gen Z and whatever other generation is younger than them now won’t be like us. I hope their unique beautiful faces won’t blur into one same-looking Instagram face. I hope, I hope, I hope.

Idea of the month

I don’t know why I feel like I always need to tell you the origin story of every issue’s idea of the month, but for some reason I do. So here’s the story: there is a girl I really like who lives in the same apartment complex as I do. Her name is Dakota, she has no idea I exist, but I follow her on Instagram and really like her energy (I guess I’ve lived long enough in LA to make comments like this, yeah). Last week I noticed she had something new written in her bio. I read it and liked it so much it’s made its way here.

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Keep your head and your feet at the same place.

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I know it’s hardly groundbreaking. I agree it’s yet another way of saying “stay present” or “be mindful” or “live consciously.” And I won’t argue that this idea is very simple. But simple doesn’t equal easy. And, in this particular case, I’d go as far as to say that keeping your head and your feet at the same place is one of the hardest things to do for a human being in 2025. So, I guess, one more reminder won’t hurt.

Monthly recs

To watch

“Forgetting Sarah Marshall” (2008)

If you, too, were a little disappointed by Celine Song’s highly anticipated and heavily advertised “Materialists.” If you, also, felt like you were promised something different and, therefore, you left the cinema feeling befuddled. If you, just like me, got the urge to watch a really good and anti-confusing (!) romantic movie right afterward. Then I’ve got a recommendation you can use.

A couple weeks ago both my best friend and I watched “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” for the first time, and boy oh boy was it a beautiful movie night. With vibrant Hawaii as a backdrop, and ridiculously young and hot Jason Segel, Mila Kunis, and Kristen Bell playing the leading roles, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” is everything you want a good romantic comedy to be. Funny, touchy, naive, and yet—wait for it—believable!

To read

“The Best of Everything” by Rona Jaffe (1958)

This one is a book recommendation from one and only Sarah Jessica Parker. In one of her recent interviews (not the Call Her Daddy one, although I did watch that one too), she was talking all things books and reading and, naturally, ended up sharing some of her all-time favorites. “The Best of Everything” was one of them and I was ordering it before she even finished describing the premise of the story.

I read it, I loved it, and now I want you to read it too. If I had to describe the vibe, I would say it’s a love child of “Sex and the City” and “Mad Men.” The book follows five young women building their careers in publishing. The time is 1950s. The place is Manhattan, New York. The atmosphere is unmatched.

The reason I fell in love with this book is that it made me feel two conflicting things at the same time. One being that the world described in it feels so long gone it is hard to believe it was the reality less than 100 years ago. The world where New York City was mostly charming, it was allowed to smoke on a plane, people thought there was nothing wrong with drinking hard liquor during their lunch breaks every single day, and one could not just survive but rent an apartment and afford occasional shopping on Fifth Avenue with a weekly salary of $60. And yet at the same time, some thoughts and feelings and moral dilemmas of the characters felt so relevant and modern it made me wondering if we, as a society, really progressed much or at all.

Wrapping things up

And that’s that for this month. I hope my rumination over plastic surgeries and botox wasn’t too much. I guess I’m just trying to be honest here and openly share what’s taking a lot of space in my head. If you have anything to add or argue with, let me know. Let’s talk! But until then, I hope you’ll enjoy some of the content recommended in this issue. It’s chef’s kiss, and just what one needs during the hot days of summer.

And if you think you could use a few extra points added to your karma this month, feel free to share this newsletter with a friend or two. It’s only with your help that I can keep this thing growing! ♦