A “November Box” is Critical For Your Winter Happiness

Kelly Klein’s Central Park West NYC apartment.

A November box is a hedge against winter gloom, prepared during the summer, and meant to be opened when temperatures plunge and it gets dark by 4:30 p.m. You assemble it in August (September at the absolute latest), when you are least inclined to think of winter, so that by the time you open it you’ve semi-forgotten what’s inside.

In the summer I only need full ice cube trays and a wide-brimmed hat, but winter calls for reinforcements, so I approach the coming season with the singleminded focus of a general preparing for battle.

I want my home to be a hybrid of fancy hotel (I like to aim high) and cozy nest. With that in mind, here is this year’s list (clockwise from upper right):

Central heating means you have to kick up the body moisturizing or suffer the itchy, uncomfortable consequences. I also like to add a couple of drops of James Read Click & Glow Gel Drops into my body lotion for some gradually developing colour. If you are pale verging-onto-greenish in the winter like me, some faux glow on your arms and legs will help them look less ghostly when they stick out of sleeves and from under blankets.

The bath needs to be a haven of good smells when nature and all living green things shut down for the season. Fredéric Malle’s Vetiver Extraordinaire body wash ($65 US) is headily resinous, faintly smoky and very green, like you’re hiking through a fragrant jungle. Vetiver is potent, but I don’t understand why it isn’t more widely used. It’s herbal and complex and earthy and I can’t live without it.

Obsessively doom-scrolling Twitter has destroyed my attention span, so it’s short stories only for the foreseeable future. Not only is there immense comfort in rereading old favourites, but as Nabokov observed “one cannot read a book: one can only reread it” (meaning you only start to get it after the second or third time around.) If you haven’t read Nora Ephron’s feminist classic Crazy Salad and Dorothy Parker short stories since you were in school (or ever), now is the time.

Phlur’s Howl candle ($86 CAN) is actually named after Allen Ginsberg’s Beat poem, not the wind that will be howling outside your windows this winter. Its tobacco, smoky oud and saffron blend will stand in for that roaring fire, while the spherical, lidded, porcelain jar becomes a sculptural catch-all after it’s finished.

This oversized jar of Body Shop’s Spa of the World French Grape Seed Body Scrub ($32 CAN) is a great-smelling jolt that will remind your senses that there is a living world outside, while also handily scrubbing away all the dead skin and leaving smoothness in its wake thanks to grape seed powder which is the perfect texture and offers the right degree of exfoliation. It’s not too rough but still does the job.

I am determined to keep seeing friends somehow over the winter and Yeti’s 30 oz rambler mug ($45) in brushed aluminum will keep my coffee really hot for socially-distanced dates in the frigid outdoors. (The Yeti also comes in bright colours, but ewww.)

Naadam’s kilo throw ($325 US) is 1000 grams of cashmere (my kind of weighted blanket) to hide under with your book. This is especially useful if you don’t in fact have a fireplace like Kelly Klein in her Central Park West apartment pictured above.

Atelier Cologne Iris Rebelle Smells Like My Dream Library

Iris Rebelle is a notional library made real

Spraying Atelier Cologne’s Iris Rebelle Cologne Absolue ($195, Sephora) is the olfactory equivalent of rereading an old favourite book while nestled in a library armchair. It’s such a wonderful fragrance that I’m baffled why it never got the adoration it deserves. (It launched in 2018.)

Iris Rebelle actually evokes old books: sweetish, and smelling vaguely like pencil shavings. (I mean this as a compliment, in case that wasn’t clear.) A 2009 study with the fantastic title “Material Degradomics: On the Smell of Old Books”, describes that elusive book scent as “a combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness.”

Apparently lignan, a component of wood-based (aka paper) books breaks down after years and begins to smell like vanilla. Iris Rebelle does not smell musty, but its black pepper and bergamot top notes might remind someone with an overactive imagination of degraded paper.

Add Iris and lavender for earthiness and soft powder, and then sit the whole affair atop a warm base of patchouli, woods and white musk. It’s the very embodiment of never-trying-too-hard elegance.

Iris as a perfume note is like the most complex violet ever. It deserves its own national holiday (ok, maybe not here but definitely in France) for the way it elevates everything it touches. It can be, by turn, powdery and romantic (Frederic Malle’s Iris Poudre), ethereally dusty and cozy (Floral Street Iris Goddess), or even sexy and startlingly metallic (Prada Infusion d’Iris). Or it can be like Iris Rebelle, which envelops you, saying ‘come sit and read and wait out the winter while smelling really really good.’

Guerlain Eau de Cologne Impériale #perfumeeverydamnday

Guerlain Eau de Cologne Impériale

One of my lesser-known skills is the ability to rationalize pretty much any expenditure, no matter how extravagant. Apparently this need to surround myself with “nice” things is standard issue Taurus behaviour, so I don’t fight it. (Besides, I still appreciate a good Cheeto. There is no snack too lowbrow for me. But I digress.)

Take fragrance, for example. A good eau de cologne should be considered a critical element in your daily toilette, ergo it’s as quotidian a purchase as TP or dental floss. So what that it costs a bit more than a 12-pack of Charmin?

Guerlain Eau de Cologne Impériale (The Bay, $121) is an essential with some screamingly fancy bona fides, having been created for Napoleon III’s wife, the Empress Eugénie in 1853. Its formula is very citrus-forward, anchored with traditional notes of lemon, neroli (oil from the flowers of a bitter orange tree), petitgrain (oil from the leaves and green twigs of that same tree) and bergamot to add complexity to the lemon. “Lemon could be sharp,” observes Guerlain’s in-house perfumer Thierry Wasser. “Bergamot is a little delicate, floral.” So you get floral complexity along with that citrussy bite.

Because of all the citrus, Eau de Cologne Impériale won’t last long on your skin, so make sure you give your clothes a good blast as well as your hair, so you can maintain that aura of fancy European clean for hours. It’s some much-needed armour for grey days.

Oh, and if you need me to rationalize any upcoming pricy purchases, just ask. I am happy to help in any way I can.

Dr. Roebuck's Surf Chaser Reverse Aging Serum for the Impossible to Please

Not too heavy, not too light

It’s easy to get Goldilocks-level picky about skincare: one serum is too watery, or a cream is too heavy and smells old ladyish. (But why are so many rich creams strongly fragranced? Do brands think anyone with dry skin is an elderly women who has lost her sense of smell?)

If your skin has gotten drier and lightweight serums feel like a waste of time, Dr. Roebuck’s Surf Chaser Reverse Aging Serum ($75 Can, Shoppers Drug Mart) will give you the the right amount of soothing moisture without feeling sticky, heavy, gloopy.

Surf Chaser calls itself a serum, which I don’t get at all, because it’s almost a lightweight balm, disappearing handily into skin but leaving it feeling nicely plumped and smoothed. It has what cosmetic formulators call an ‘elegant texture’ and is perfect for when you just need a little bit more but don’t want to start spackling with super-rich creams. 

And as nice as it feels, Surf Chaser also feeds your skin with peptides and amino acids to support collage production and minimize the look of wrinkles, and it contains Spilanthes Acmella Flower Extract, a natural active ingredient which mimics the effects of Botox and may even stimulate collagen production.

Dr. Roebuck’s is an Australian dermatologist brand, run by the good doctors’ (not a typo, both parents were doctors) twin daughters who exude cheer, intelligence and good health. They radiate a kind of glamorous practicality, like you’d be an idiot not to use what makes them so glowy.

Dr. Roebuck’s feels like an under-the-radar discovery, despite having been around since 2012 and having launched in Canada in 2014. (A soothing cream for reactive skin based on a 30 year old recipe was their first product.)

The line’s marketing trots out all the standard green beauty buzzwords, assuring you that it contains ‘no nasties’, but textures and cutting edge ingredients and formulas (and spare, elegant packaging) make it feel luxe, so you don’t have to sacrifice anything to stay green.

Forever Summer: Caudalie Soleil des Vignes

Caudalie Soleil des Vignes is pure beach in a bottle

Here’s a counterintuitive take: summer fragrances should be released in August to help ease you into fall and give you something to hang on to during the cold, coming months.

Whether by design or not, Caudalie’s summery Soleil des Vignes ($46 CAN) eau fraîche just launched in Canada, And while I’m wearing it now because it smells like monoï oil, I will be gripping it with ice-cold hands throughout the winter. It is pure and potent summer-in-a-bottle and I’ll need that more in January than I do now.

Monoï oil is tiare flowers (aka Tahitian gardenias, see photo below) steeped in coconut oil to create a singular, complex, vanilla-ish floral, coconut scent. And while that sounds like a lot, it’s actually ethereal, sunlit and very beachy, but in a glamorous, non-Hawaiian Tropic way. (In France, monoï is available in every pharmacy, like it was toothpaste for heaven’s sake. Lucky French.) Caudalie’s homage to monoï is spiked with bitter orange and mandarin, transforming it into an energizing but still beach-evoking eau fraîche.

There’s also a Soleil des Vignes bath gel, which I am not even cracking open now, but saving for my February box, because I am forward-thinking and I know how much I’ll need it then.

Monoï oil from Tahiti via France. (See the now-darkened gardenia floating just above the label?)

A February Box is an assortment of summery gifts you collect now to give your future self when you will be at your lowest, olfactorily and psychologically speaking.

This is not to be confused with the November box, which is stuffed with cozy treats, because in November you’ll need things that aid in creating your winter nest.)

And yes, I make it through the endless Canadian winter with a variety of targeted boxes. Sue me.

Return to Me, Vanishing Lip-Line: A Quick, Two-Product Fix

The Quickest of quick fixes is lip balm and a bit of pencil.

My lip-line vanished. What was once a crisp line, poetically called “the vermillion border”, is now blurry and threatening to disappear altogether. Mother Nature pulled a fast one and I am exasperated and ragey (futile I know). She’s already taken the colour from my hair, brows, eyes and cheeks so I permanently appear cadaverous and like a third-generation photocopy of my former self.

I do miss having a visibly defined mouth, even now while stuck at home. (You never know when you might catch your reflection in the tea kettle.) Sure, full-on red lipstick solves the problem, but most days I don’t want to haul out the whole makeup kit.

Retracing the still-faint lip line with a pinky-nude (or nudy-pink) pencil and then applying lip balm on top is the quickest of quick fixes and the effect is subtle, but sharpens everything. Because there is nothing funnier than when a man says “I like how you look with no makeup.”

(Products)

Lip pencils, from top: Charlotte Tilbury Lip Cheat in Pillow Talk ($27 CAN.) The ultimate YLBB (your lips but better) colour. It also comes in two darker shades: Pillow Talk Medium and Pillow Talk Intense so everyone can play. 19/99 Beauty Precision Colour Pencil in Neutra ($26 CAN). This new Canadian beauty line is spare and fantastic. More on them really soon. And finally, a quality drugstore find: NYX Extreme Colour Lip Liner in Bedrose ($10 CAN), the perfect almost-plum pink.

Balm: Burts Bees Moisturizing Lip Balm in Pomegranate ($6 CAN). It’s barely red, but just red enough and is a necessity in each pocket and beside each chair in the house. (And in each purse. Remember purses?)

Dangerous Beauty: Vichy Liftactiv Specialist Peptide-C Ampoules

The French do not care about your convenience. They are not here to make your life easier. They are here to make it better. (See also: French wine, food, literature and art.)

For example, they really have a thing for glass packaging. Eau de Bouche Botot, a French, impossibly fancy, clove-flavoured, taste-bud searing mouthwash comes in glass bottles and years ago, Phyto haircare’s shampoo and conditioners came in glass bottles as well. So you’d be handling freaking glass in the shower with soapy hands, praying that you wouldn’t let go. (Phyto eventually switched to plastic bottles, but there is no gambling with your life with a plastic bottle. Very dull.)

Equally intimidating are the glass ampoules of serums, vitamins and mysterious herbal remedies found at French pharmacies. Because ampoules contain no air, their valuable contents are protected against uv, heat and oxidation. They are hermetically sealed until you snap them open.

Ampoules are a perfect vehicle for Vichy Liftactiv Specialist Peptide-C. Vitamin C is a powerful skin brightener, but it’s also notoriously unstable. Exposure to air makes it lose its potency, so cracking open a fresh dose every day means you are getting it at its peak. Add peptides that stimulate collagen synthesis to minimize the look of wrinkles and some hyaluronic acid to increase your skin’s moisture levels (hey, winter is coming, like it or not) and these ampoules are the perfect nourishing hit your skin wants.

Vichy Liftactiv Specialist Peptide-C ampoules, which come ten to a box, are also alcohol, preservative and fragrance free, each one containing a double-dose that stays fresh for 48 hours after opening. Use one ampoule morning and night on one day or on two consecutive days. 

Ampoules, although they may look unnerving, are actually easy to open. Place your fingers on either side of the white stripe at the base of the top, wrap some paper towel around the top and snap it off at the white line. Vichy’s even come with a small plastic cap to pop on top and protect it from spillage until you use it up. Because in addition to being both skincare- and beauty-ritual obsessed, French women do not like to waste money.

You Always Remember Your First Chanel

Photo: Janine Falcon

This ancient, scratched-up Chanel No 5 spray wasn’t always mine. It belonged to a girl I never met, who roomed with my best friend at college in New England in a typical, off-campus student house with mismatched furniture and an emptyish fridge. The house was owned by Kevin, a towering, affable guy who managed the town’s coat hanger factory, which is psychically as far away as you can get from the most expensive college in the US.

One time I was visiting and nosing around in the bathroom for toothpaste, I saw something that seemed completely out of place. Trying to sound casual, I said to Kevin “there’s Chanel No 5 in the medicine cabinet.”

“Oh. That must have been Charlotte’s,” he said. “She moved out. You can have it.”

Who leaves Chanel behind? My best guess is someone who already has a lot of Chanel or unfettered access to more Chanel. This was unfathomable to 20-year-old, poor student me. This abandoned bottle was almost half full and I wouldn’t have been any more surprised to find a Fabergé egg or a diamond bracelet.

I shouldn’t have been. The girls who attended this college were very fancy, but hid it under baggy sweaters and thrifted jeans. My friend explained that back home they had “long driveways” which was her oblique way of saying that their (rich) families lived in enormous houses, set so far back from the road that they weren’t visible to passersby.

I took the bottle, obviously. It was impossible to pretend I didn’t want it. Thirty-five years later I have a lot of perfume (none of it nicked from other people’s bathrooms, by the way.) And even though it’s always been rather banged up, I continued to buy refills for Charlotte’s bottle. The fact that this style and size is still available speaks volumes about the endurance of Chanel.

It now lives on my dresser, beside an even older No 5 bottle that belonged to my mother. It’s not called hoarding when it’s Chanel, right?

Eau de Givenchy #perfumeeverydamnday

Eau de Givenchy

There’s a breeze blowing through Eau de Givenchy, a 2018 reimagining of the 1980s classic. This new version gets you with its fizzy bergamot, lemon, orange and grapefruit opening, before veering into a greenish bitter almond and then resting on a featherbed of pillowy floral hedione, the synthetic jasmine note created in 1958 and reputed to drive women wild with desire (Steve McQueen allegedly wore it.)

Before you leave your house and head out into the world, spray Eau de Givenchy into the air in front of you and walk through it, so your clothes are imbued with the scent. You will feel like you hung your laundry to dry in the garden of Hubert de Givenchy’s Saint Jean de Cap Ferrat mansion, le Clos Fiorentina.

I know it’s highly unlikely that a mansion would have laundry lines near its gardens, and the staff probably wouldn’t even let us anywhere near them. But such details interfere with my fantasy, so I ignore them. And if now is not the time to construct elaborate parallel universe fantasy lives, then I don’t know when is.

Clos Fiorentina, Saint Jean Cap Ferrat

Weekend Dinner: Summer Pasta Lets the Sun do the Cooking

These simple ingredients mean dinner is almost ready.

Summer pasta is the best sort of recipe. A no-cook sauce that uses the heat of the noonday sun to infuse roughly chopped tomatoes with the flavours of basil, garlic and olive oil, you prep it in the morning, so when dinner time rolls around you only have to cook (and drain) the pasta and add it to the bowl. Plus all the tedious (and potentially dangerous) chopping was done hours earlier, which is great if you’ve now consumed a glass or more of rosé and shouldn’t be allowed near knives.

A 1980s artifact from The Silver Palate cookbook, Summer Pasta bears the hallmarks of that more-is-more decade. The original recipe went heavier on the olive oil and called for an indulgent, entire wheel of camembert. Sure it’s a whole wheel, but if you’ve removed the rind, that has to reduce the calorie count too, right?

But maybe I’m just rationalizing. If it still seems like too much, you can use less cheese, but I wouldn’t recommend it. This is not the time to be mingy.

Summer Pasta

Ingredients (serves four)

·       5 fist-sized tomatoes or 7 roma tomatoes, cored, seeded and cut into ½ inch cubes

·       A half-pound wheel of very ripe camembert, rind removed (don’t substitute a strongly flavoured brie, because the sharpness will dominate. You want bland creaminess.)

·       ½ cup basil leaves, torn up or chiffonaded (rolled up and cut into thin strands)

·       2 medium cloves of garlic, finely minced

·       ¼ to ½ cup of olive oil (the original recipe called for 1 cup. Ugh. No.)

·       1 box (450-500 grams) of spaghetti or small pasta shapes

·       Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Dice the tomatoes into a bowl and add the torn basil leaves, finely minced garlic cloves and a healthy glug of olive oil (a quarter cup is more than fine.)

Remove the rind from a half pound wheel of ripe camembert and put its gooey interior into the bowl along with everything else. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and place it in direct sun for the flavours to meld. And finally, while you’re still feeling all briskly industrious, put a lidded pot of salted water on the stove, ready to go. (Obviously, don’t turn the stove on yet.)

When everyone starts thinking about dinner (and when you feel least like it), drag yourself to the kitchen. Cook your pasta as directed and then drain (reserving maybe a quarter cup of pasta water) and place back into the warm empty pot.

Add the very warm, sun-melded tomato and basil sauce and fold in quickly with a wide spatula. The cheese will melt and vanish, coating each pasta strand. You will not need parmesan. Divide into bowls and garnish each with fresh basil leaves and then take them outside to join your friends.