Mess Recs: November 2025
Gobble, gobble.
Hi!
It’s so cold out there, my friends. But it is nice to feel like we’re having a real winter this year after so many totally snowless seasons.
This week, I was on the Inside and Outside podcast talking about all of my favorite topics. Plus, we played a rousing game of “Does This Celebrity Actually Garden?” What a treat. Also, a major publication requested that I submit a fit pic to them……lmao. Can’t wait to show you all that.
In the meantime, here’s some stuff I consumed last month, just in time to make some last-minute holiday panic purchases!
Buy:
Trader Joe’s Freeze Dried Mangos
My sister left these freeze dried mangos at my house. This is otherwise something I would never buy for myself because I feel like I’ve been burned by freeze-dried fruits too many times before. I’m thinking specifically of the strawberries which I always think are going to be way tastier and fluffier than they actually are. But the mangos might be the one fruit that actually lives up to the hype. I want pure astronaut food from my freeze-dried fruit and that is exactly what the mangos deliver.
Trader Joe’s Shea Butter and Coconut Oil Hair Mask
I am also obsessed with this stuff. I think this might be the best thing that’s happened to my hair in years. I use it once or twice a week in place of my usual conditioner, and at $4 I feel like you can’t go wrong. Do keep in mind that I have a LOT of hair that soaks up heavy products like a sponge, so this is not an endorsement that everyone out there should necessarily blindly follow. However, if you fit that description, get into it. And I feel like the reviews I’ve seen online have been largely extremely positive.
I picked up two loaves of Breads Bakery babka to bring to Thanksgiving in Maine this year as I didn’t want to show up empty-handed and I figured this travels easily and is a classically NYC treat. And wouldn’t you know it, the babka was a HUGE hit at the function. Who doesn’t love a chocolate-y carb-y treat to really kick off the decadence of the season. If you want to really take things to the next level of gluttonous, grill one up in a pan with butter or turn it into a slice of french toast!
Morning Star Palo Santo Incense Sticks
I just bought my second pack of these after being influenced by a recommendation from my pal Elena in The Stink on her favorite room scents. They’re so good. The smell is exactly the sweet, citrusy wood smoke you’re after and the thin incense sticks deposit just the right amount of it into your space. It never feels too smoky or too cloying.
Operation Shylock by Philip Roth
I ambitiously bought this thinking I would read it alongside Doppelganger by Naomi Klein because she references it heavily in that book and it sounds interesting. Of course, in reality, I have yet to crack it open, but perhaps I will over the break!
Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan
This is another book I ambitiously purchased and have not read, but I feel like it’s going to rock my way of thinking about celebrity and media to its core once I finally do. Maybe a good future book club pick??
I actually totally forgot I bought this until curating this round up and now I know what my weekend crafting activity is going to be. I fell victim to the TikTok Christmas paper chain propaganda and now I must make one for myself. But I figured if I was going to go to all that trouble, I wanted to make something that would be a little more enduring and could be reused for future holiday decor, so I thought hot gluing felt would be a good solution to that problem. I’m hoping to make some seriously chunky bois. I’ll share pics if it turns out cute.
Conair Dual Deluxe Mini Styler
I impulse purchased this because for the first time in my life I have these long bang type face-framing hair pieces and they drive me nuts if they’re not styled a particular way. And while I have a full-size straightener it just feels a little unwieldy for such a precision job and I can also foresee times in the future when I will be traveling and want to fix this on the go and I refuse to sacrifice my precious suitcase space to a full-sized hot tool. So I bought this and it’s worked perfectly so far! The one thing I will say is that if you poke around, especially on Mercari and eBay, you can find these things for wayyyyyy cheaper than in the store.
Here’s the one Christmas gift I purchased that I can share with you ahead of the holidays because I am 100% positive my nephew does not read my newsletter. Every year I struggle with what to get him, but I hit it big last year with a mini bluetooth speaker and I am looking to ride that high again. So this year I decided to get him a leather chef’s knife roll monogrammed with his initials. He just got promoted at work to butcher and I figured this would be something practical he could use, but also a little bit nicer and fancier than anything he would buy himself. I’ll keep you posted on what he thinks of it, but if any of you have chefs or butchers in your life, I think this could be a sweet, unexpected present.
Beyond the paywall, the various paper calendars/habit trackers/organizational tools I’m purchasing to ramp up the semblance of control I have over my life in 2026, a recommendation for the fancy hairdresser who executed the young Ozzy cut of my dreams, and a recently discovered antique plate dealer on eBay who I would trust with my life. Plus, everything I watched, listened to, clicked on, and read last month.
