Makeup & Beauty Monday: Mini Soleil Balm
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I’d love to find one of these glamorous lip balms from Tom Ford in my stocking.
Designed to fit into a clutch, these mini hydrating balms are ready for a night out. The elegant gold case is a step above your typical drugstore lip balm. They also swipe on clear and then shift to a personalized pink hue.
Tom Ford’s Mini Soleil Clutch-Size Lip Balms are $35 at Sephora. They come in three tones.
Sales of note for 1/22:
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Nordstrom – Designer clearance up to 75% off!
- Ann Taylor – 30% off all full-price suiting, tops, and sweaters + extra 60% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off + extra 20% off
- Brooks Brothers – Clearance up to 70% off + up to 50% off outerwear and cold-weather accessories
- Express – $40 off $120, $75 off $200, $100 off $250 with code
- J.Crew – 50% off last-call winter styles + up to extra 60% off sale styles
- J.Crew Factory – Up to 70% off everything + extra 60% off clearance + 50-60% off hundreds of styles
- Lo & Sons – Winter sale, up to 50% off (ends 1/31) — reader favorites include this laptop tote, this backpack, and this crossbody
- M.M.LaFleur – Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off
- Neiman Marcus – Up to 70% off select sale styles
- Talbots – Red Door Sale on Sale: Extra 50% off + 15% off markdowns + 25% off one new favorite
Caught an earful from my 4th grade son yesterday. He has been chatting with friends and discovered that he and one other family are the only ones in his class who haven’t done Elf on a Shelf. I guess I didn’t realize it was that ubiquitous in our neighborhood. It didn’t exist when I was growing up, and I kind of just missed the memo on it. He’s also a December birthday so I reminded him that basically since he was born I was kinda busy in December, and when he grows up, he’s welcome to do Elf on a Shelf for his kids.
My very sensitive 3.75 yo is struggling with the other kids at daycare saying and doing things that hurt his feelings. He’s reporting accurately (I just watched the playground to confirm) but it’s all normal age-appropriate stuff– minor pushing, silly name calling, etc.
What would you say to him about it? I want to encourage him to come to me for emotional support. But I have no idea what advice or lessons to impart.
2025 was not a great year for me, career wise. I’m worn out and burned out, and I don’t see 2026 offering much relief. Yet I have no plans to look for a new job because my higher ed position is about as safe as one can be in this volatile environment. I have accrued a ton of vacation time. With school-age kids, that’s a huge benefit. I’m just in this weird space where I want to do something different, but the golden handcuffs (not salary, but benefits) are so real. And yet it feels really lazy and complacent to stay. When my DH was having similar feelings a couple of years ago, after 20 years in the same org, he jumped ship. His career has taken off, but he has had to start from the beginning in other respects. IDK. I am trying so hard to find more career happiness, and I’m not even sure what that looks like anymore. There is no path for advancement for me. Just more work that I’m no longer that into.
Paging GCA from the gifted discussion yesterday – made my first burner email if you want to chat: [email protected]. Hahaha
Do you give gifts to aftercare teachers who you can’t really identify? My 3rd grader goes to aftercare at school, and it’spretty locked down– we sign them out at the desk and don’t otherwise interact with the providers. I am hesitant to rely on my kid’s report of who his teachers are– one, because he’s proven to be unreliable in things like this, but also because they seem to rotate depending on the number of kids in each age group and what activity they are cycling through. I honestly have no idea how many of them there are, let alone their names.
Do you give a gift to this group of people? If so, how?
Anyone have a kid who is an avid reader but atrocious speller? My second grader reads well and does fine on her weekly spelling tests, but doesn’t seem to retain the words and when she writes paragraphs most of the words over 4 letters long are misspelled. Most mistakes are reasonably phonetic (“printid” for “printed” and things like that) but occasionally it’s a totally nonsensical spelling. Her interest in writing has picked up a lot in the last month or two and I’m hoping that improvements in spelling will follow but I’m curious if anyone has a kid like this.
The landslide of insta posts about empty stockings leaves me wondering… what do you all do for stockings? (And is this real?)
In my house, I am Santa and stuff all of the stockings. Everyone is happy and everyone is clear on expectations. I bought my things for Black Friday, so I’m still getting the anticipation of waiting to receive them from Santa. It works for us.
I skied the first day I knew I was pregnant in 2024 (before the positive test but I just knew), missed last season completely due to newborn/knee pain related to relaxin and breastfeeding, and now I’m raring to go and we have a cabin booked and the baby’s snowsuit is ready – but there is NO snow and the resorts are getting panicky. Send us your winter vibes, East Coasters! Anyone else looking forward to anything especially fun this winter?
Anyone else have a 2 hour delay this morning due to the arctic blast? It was kind of nice because our kid had such a hectic weekend (a friend’s holiday party on Saturday afternoon, her Hanukkah party on Sunday afternoon, and her Hanukkah program at Sunday school in the morning).
The Hanukkah program was so cute. Somehow in nearly 8 years of parenting I’ve never gone to any kind of class presentation or singing program (neither our old daycare nor our public school does them for some reason) so it was really nice and she was so excited and proud.
Another gift idea question…so, over the past few months I’ve noticed that my 9yo is very into “fixing” things around the house (e.g. our blinds broke and she spent a long time figuring out how they worked and how we could repair them). This is a totally alien interest to me; I am more of an outsourcer than a DIYer.
Any gift ideas that would encourage her to explore this? I’m kind of reluctant to go the Kiwi Crate/Lego Mindstorms “kit” style route…I think she likes doing things that have actual use, rather than just building a robot that throws pompoms or whatever.
Any gift ideas for an 11 year old boy? Likes soccer, Percy Jackson and video games but I’d love to find something without screens… I was thinking a lava lamp? Budget up to 75$. You guys always have good ideas!
We celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah, and on top of that my kid lost a tooth so the tooth fairy came last night. And today we have a snow day! I think he’s going to be burned out on the holidays before we even get to the 25th! I’m hoping we’ll have a few normal days this week to keep him from hyping himself up too much.
we will be at a resort in mexico over christmas. we do not celebrate christmas and I can easily see my children responding to someone at the kid’s club or someone else who says “merry christmas,” by saying something along the lines of “we don’t celebrate christmas, we celebrate hanukkah” or “thanks, but we’re jewish.” given the state of the world, should I be coaching them not to say this for safety reasons? thoughts? or do I just sound like a neurotic jewish mother?
I have started wrapping gifts for extended family and am disgusted with myself at the number of gift bags and amount of tissue paper I am using. It all just seems so wasteful. I know the gift bags can be reused and we do reuse gift bags when we can, but most of ours were in rough shape after years of reuse so I had to buy a bunch of new bags last night. And if you put something in a gift bag you have to put tissue paper in it to hide the gift. Maybe I should nudge our family towards using reusable cloth bags next year.