🫧 The post-holiday self-care wind-down

Your civilian’s guide to real-life re-entry

Credit: Photoholgic 

There’s a pretty particular kind of exhaustion that hits me the first week of January. It’s not quite burnout. It's more like, my body is a snow globe someone shook aggressively for a month and then set down. The decorations are still half-up, and suddenly I'm left with the quiet realization that you haven't eaten a vegetable since December 18.

Can you relate?

This calls for a post-holiday self-care wind-down—the gentle glide back into being a functioning person. No 5 a.m. Wim Hof showers, just small, tactile comforts that make me feel like a person in the world who does things again.

Here’s what’s getting me through the re-entry.

---

ICYMI:

---

Also, a quick thank-you for being here! I’m grateful for every page you read, link you click, comment you leave, and share of TIBAAC or my Instagram with a friend. I just finished up with a couple of client projects and while I find my next ones (I’m also open to full-time copy, content, and editorial roles) I’m focusing even more than usual on this Substack — my favorite place on the Internet. ❤️

---

The exfoliating bar that smells like a reset

I’ve been testing MUTHA’s new Detox Greens Exfoliating Body Bar (launching January 14), and it’s basically their cult-favorite buffing bar in a scent that feels like the opposite of December. Eucalyptus, lilac, cardamom, amber—it’s spa-like without being aggressively zen. You know that first deep breath you take when you finally have time to yourself again? It’s that. The bar itself is the same formula people lose their minds over—gently exfoliating, deeply moisturizing, no weird residue, with a fragrance that makes it feel like you’re actively shedding the holiday chaos. Bright enough to wake you up, grounding enough to make you feel like you’ve got your life together.

My foundation boycott continues

I refuse—refuse—to put on actual, factual foundation in January. Even tinted moisturizer feels like too much commitment. This dewy hydrator and primer in one is my loophole. It’s skincare that moonlights as a complexion product, and that’s the only energy I’m accepting right now. It gives me a soft, hydrated glow that suggests I’m trying. I’m not.

Lounge pants life when I can

You and I both know January is not the month for hard pants. It’s barely the month for pants at all. These lounge pants are the closest thing to socially acceptable pajamas I’ve found, and that’s the only category of clothing I’m interested in right now.

My hair’s January rehab program

Holiday heat styling. Travel dryness. The emotional toll of December humidity. My hair has seen things.

This bond repair treatment is my quiet little reset button. It’s quick. It’s science-y. It makes my hair feel like it’s been forgiven for everything I did to it between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. AMBER20 gets you 20% off. Not sponsored, just the only thing that’s helped my haystack hair look smooth lately.

Because cold lotion in January is a crime

I can’t—cannot—slap on cold body cream in the dead of winter. This solid body moisturizer melts on contact and feels like moisturizing with a warm pebble from a spa with delish cucumber water. It’s the only thing stopping me from turning into a lizard. My skin drinks it up, and I don’t have to brace myself before applying it.

The reset button for skin texture

December was a blur of tights, boots, and questionable hydration. This delightfully scented low-key buffing bar is the exfoliating equivalent of inbox zero. It smooths everything out—arms, legs, the weird patches that appear out of nowhere—and makes your moisturizer actually work again.

At-home pedis: because feet deserve rights, too

No one is seeing my feet until April, but I am. And they’ve been through it.

This pedi system turns the whole thing into a ritual instead of a chore. It’s meditative—like a tiny spa appointment you give yourself while watching something deeply unserious on TV. Our binge of choice right now: Friday Night Lights streaming on Amazon. I saw it 15 years ago and loved it, but my husband never saw it and I’m loving the rewatch.

My winter glow hack

January and February belong to this moisturizer, and this moisturizer only: it’s thick, comforting, and deeply committed to keeping me from cracking like a saltine. I mix in a few drops of this for a subtle, morale-boosting tint that suggests I occasionally step outdoors.

As someone who’s written probably 1,000 new year, new you stories for various women’s publications, it’s weirdly freeing to be done with that whole enterprise. Instead of trying to become a new person for the 45th time, how about coaxing the current one back into existence?

January is for gentle upgrades.

February is for repeating them.

March is for remembering who you are again.

Tell me your self-care wind-down tips in the comments!