Hi friends!

How are you doing, my loves?? Is it fall where you live? I hope you’re enjoying some nice, crisp fall weather. September and October usually have some of the hottest days of the year here in Los Angeles–it’s when we have wildfires, and I believe there are three burning as we speak. But weather-wise, this week has been fairly cool and lovely (highs in the low 70s F/around 21 degrees C). Also, I bought some apples, a fall scented candle, and have been watching spooky movies, so in a way, I’ve been making my own fall.

It’s also been a really stressful time for me, I’m not going to lie. In addition to starting a new job where I am very busy every day, my dad briefly ended up in the ER this week (he’s fine, false alarm, but it was scary!!), and my husband Ross and I finally had our small claims court date to try to get the rest of our security deposit back from our former slumlords building management company (still waiting on the verdict to come in the mail). I’ve been practicing a lot of compartmentalization. But then, on Thursday, after our court date in the morning, I had the rest of the day off, and I went for a walk around the Silverlake Reservoir and the weather was perfect, sunny with a cool breeze, and I felt tremendously better afterwards.

Ross and I also celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary this weekend! We have been together for a total of 15 years and have never broken up. The older I get, the more that feels like an achievement, not because being married to Ross is hard (it’s not, he’s my very best friend), but because LIFE is hard. I always feel like each couple has a different threshold for the amount of pressure that can be applied to them without them shattering. Some might have higher thresholds than others, but no one is invincible. You just have to hope life never hands you that level of pressure that would break you, I think.

Sorry, that got kind of dark! Marriage is fun! The best part is that you never have to plan a wedding again, and then you get to celebrate every year. This year, we went out to dinner at Nancy Silverton’s Pizzeria Mozza, which is omgz so good. When I made the reservation, without thinking much of it, I checked off that we were celebrating an anniversary, thinking maybe they’d give us a small dessert with a candle or something at the end. They actually gave us free glasses of prosecco to start the meal, then sent over an order of meatballs halfway through, which I swear they heard us talking about! We also had Nancy’s chopped salad, which is this magical salad that tastes just like an Italian sub, and two pizzas, one white with fried sage, the other, a meat lovers’ pie. Capped it all off with two espressos and the stone fruit cobbler with vanilla gelato and yes, a little candle on top. Oh, and we splurged on the sparkling water, a bottle of San Pellegrino, which cost $10 (we switched to tap after we finished the bottle, we’re not millionaires after all!). And then we got home, and our cat Zadie had shit in the tub again, bringing us back down to reality.

Let’s get into some very important things:

Why You Should Be Watching The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives

First of all, Seth Rubin sold me on this show when they wrote about it in their Substack, so go read that first because they’re way funnier than I am.

Back? Okay, here’s my pitch:

1. The show centers around a group of Mormon moms in Provo, Utah who all make TikToks and call their group “MomTok.” You may have heard of this group because about two years ago, their “founder,” Taylor, got on TikTok Live and announced she was getting divorced after she and a bunch of her Mormon friends had been swinging with each other’s spouses (refresher from The Cut here). I remember there being a lot of media breaking down “the Mormon swinging TikTok drama” at the time, then it went kind of quiet. Well, now there’s a reality show about Taylor and her (non-swinging?) friends, and one of the executive producers is Ross Weintraub, of Crappie Lake.
   
   

2. If you like The Real Housewives: Salt Lake City (and why wouldn’t you? It’s been one of the strongest franchises for years), you will like this show.
   
   

3. All of the women got married super young, so they’re all, like, in their late twenties with two kids and having been married for 10 years. It scares me. Most of them are white, but not all of them, which was a nice surprise.
   
   

4. They consider themselves “progressive Mormons” and the goal of their group is to uplift women and chip away at the patriarchy. At the same time, about half the group (the “saints”) are very devout and abide by traditional Mormon rules, while the other half (the “sinners”) will do things like drink and have sex before marriage. I find it hard to keep straight who’s in what group, though, because sometimes the saints will openly talk about sex in a way that’s surprising to me, while sometimes the sinners will talk about going to church every week as if it’s a given. These contradictions are endlessly fascinating to me. Also, most? All? Of the women are the breadwinners in their families, which is cool.
   
   

5. Many of the women (the saints) do not drink alcohol AT ALL, but they have done ketamine therapy (?!), and get laughing gas when they get Botox, which is insane. I’ve gotten Botox before, and it takes at most 10 minutes and is virtually painless. That’s like doing mushrooms before getting a bang trim. It’s always wild to me how these conservative religions with so many rules will always have these work-arounds that seem, to me at least, inconsistent with the intention of the rule. But what do I know, I’m an agnostic heathen who lives in a recreational marijuana state. (I have never done ketamine, though, for the record! The Mormon gals have me beat on that one!)
   
   

6. Because they don’t drink alcohol, they are all addicted to 44-ounce bespoke soda concoctions from a chain called Swig. Here’s Swig’s menu, it actually sounds pretty delicious. But again, if a key component of Mormonism is treating your body like a temple, I don’t know where consuming over a liter of soda a day comes in.
   

   

   A Swig concoction containing Mountain Dew & half and half

7. The women go to Las Vegas to celebrate a birthday, and when one of them surprises the other women by taking them all to a Chippendales show, one of the women’s husbands THREATENS TO DIVORCE HER. I’m 100% serious. She doesn’t even go to the show! She leaves before it starts! Meanwhile, this same husband stays out until two A.M. gambling, which is honestly kind of tame for Vegas, but considering gambling is absolutely not allowed in the Mormon religion, is pretty hypocritical. (But again, what do I know? My husband and I went to see Magic Mike Live together and had a great time.)
   
   

8. That said, to the woman who organized the Chippendales surprise, I’m kind of like… what did you think was going to happen? You know some of these women are super conservative and have controlling husbands. That’s kind of fucked up to put them in that position. You can’t just throw people into situations without warning when it might affect their relationship boundaries. Or, I guess you can, but it’s still kind of a dick move, even if you think their boundaries are stupid.
   
   

9. The main conflict of the season is between Whitney, a saint, and Taylor, a sinner who might as well have a scarlet letter on her chest. Let me just say now, if you’re Team Whitney, you’ve lost the plot. I don’t throw around the term “narcissist” lightly, but the girl is so “ME ME ME ME ME,” she sounds like a singer doing vocal exercises. Taylor has made a lot of terrible choices, but Whitney is just a mean girl.
   
   

   

   Whitney in another voluminous t-shirt

10. Most of the time, the women wear leggings and various forms of cozy loungewear, which is a shock to my senses, as someone used to the Housewives’ full glam in every scene. However, sometimes they put on real clothes, and I am most fascinated by Whitney’s sense of style. I have never seen someone with such a voluminous wardrobe before. Every dress is a circus tent! Every t-shirt, a tarp you could cover your porch with! She also LOVES a Peter Pan collar. I actually think she’s pretty kinderwhore adjacent, but I guess the point of all that fabric is probably modesty, so then again, maybe not.
    
    

11. The men on the show are all useless trashbags, but you probably figured that out already. It’s a reality show. If this series gets renewed, at least 25% of the group will be getting divorced next season. That’s just part of the process.
    
    

12. One of the women gets labiaplasty and shows her post-surgery snatch to all the other women, which is wild. I run in pretty liberal circles and have seen some of my female friends naked, sure, but if there was a camera crew in the room with us??? AND we belonged to a conservative religion that requires you to wear special modesty undergarments??? I just don’t see it, nope, sorry!
    
    

13. Last point: All of this shit has happened and I AM ONLY HALFWAY THROUGH THE SEASON. Watch it!! Trust me!

Let Me Save You Some Money on Makeup

Since I got this new job, I finally have disposable income again and can waste my money on stupid shit like overpriced luxury makeup!! What a gift!!! However, one thing I’m learning in my splurging? Not all splurges are created equal. (I’m going to stop saying “splurge” now, it’s starting to sound filthy.)

Anyway, here are two very expensive things I bought recently that really aren’t worth the money:

- Dior Lip Glow Oil ($40). First, let me just say that I realize spending $40 on a lip product makes me a disgusting capitalist pig… but it was a little treat for myself! Blame the death grip “little treat” culture has on us right now! I have been SO curious about this lip oil for years now, and the unfortunate thing about a lip product is that even if you swatch it on your hand at Sephora (which I did!), you can’t really get a sense of how it feels on your lips unless you directly apply it to them, which I sure as fuck am not doing with a Sephora sample that might as well be a petri dish containing the next global pandemic.

As far as lip oils go, the Dior one is very good. It is very hydrating and slippy-smooth, not sticky, and if you get one of the more tinted ones (I got “Cherry”), it even provides a light wash of color. But! Is it noticeably better than the e.l.f. Glow Reviver Lip Oil ($8), a dupe, especially to the tune of costing $32 more? I do not think so!!! They are INCREDIBLY similar formulations. I find the Dior one slightly more hydrating and long-lasting, but really, it’s by a hair. I actually prefer the smell of the e.l.f. one a lot more–it’s lightly minty, while the Dior one is supposed to be a combo of vanilla and mint but instead smells exactly like the My Little Ponies of my ‘90s childhood, I swear to God. Some people might be into that scent, but to me, it ironically makes the product feel less youthful. The packaging could be cuter, too. In general, I don’t like mirrored packaging because it immediately gets fingerprints all over it, and then it looks like crap. I actually think the e.l.f. lip oil has some of the best packaging they’ve done, plus, it comes with 0.05 fluid ounces more of product, in case you’re counting. If you stick with the e.l.f., you’re really not missing out on anything, I promise.

- Hourglass Ambient Lighting Edit Unlocked Palette ($90). This is a limited edition/holiday face palette that Hourglass puts out every year. It comes in three different designs with three different combinations of colors inside, all unique to 2024. I got the evil eye design with Color Palette 1 (the lightest) inside, which comes with one bronzer, one highlighter, two blushes, and two finishing powders.

Look, I know: $90 is a LOT of money to spend on one item. I’ve always wanted one of these palettes, but could never stomach the cost before, and then they would always sell out because they’re limited edition holiday products, and I would be sad and have FOMO. But finally, this year, I justified the cost as a special gift to myself to celebrate my first paycheck from my new job.

First, let me say: the (metal) packaging really is beautiful, and feels substantial (heavy). Though the palette is smaller than I expected, the pans are domed, and it contains a good amount of product. I had never tried any Hourglass products before, and it’s really true what they say, that these powders blend seamlessly into your skin and create a beautiful, natural, your-skin-but-better look. They are also very lightly pigmented and have to be built up in application, so it’s kind of impossible to put too much on, which I like.

And yet… I have oily skin, but I don’t usually have issues with my blush and bronzer needing touch ups during the day, but these disappeared within hours of application!! I was SO disappointed! I used my favorite mattifying primer, too. For $90, these should not only be staying on my face all day, they should be [redacted]-ing my [redacted] and [redacted]-ing on my [redacted], too! Jeez!! I will try them with a grippy primer and setting spray next time and see if that makes them last any longer, but man. I’m disappointed, because they looked so freakin’ pretty on first application!

Luckily, I have a dupe, for the blush at least! I recently tried Milani’s Baked Blush ($9) in “Luminoso” for the first time (I know, I know, it’s been around forever), and damn, it pretty much has all the same qualities I liked about the Hourglass blushes, but with more staying power! I just wish Milani had a wider shade range for this product, because all the shades kind of look the same to me.

Have you ever tried a luxury product that made you realize the cheaper version was better? What was it? I love a good bargain!

Welp, that’s it for me for this newsletter!

If you have a second, I’d love it if you’d like or comment on this post–just click this link to go to the post page. This post is public, so feel free to share it on social media, or forward it to a friend.

Until next time—enjoy the fall!

Love,

Liz

XOXO