After last weekend’s dance-in-the-streets elation—all that wishing and hoping and thinking and praying mostly behind us—there is suddenly more bandwidth to pine after something else. Anything else. If the apt Wizard of Oz meme on social media in recent days involved a fallen house on a no-good witch, let this dispatch evoke the moment when the black-and-white movie shifts into Technicolor. There is more possibility in the world, more sweetness, not to mention a ruby mascara tube to covet.
With all that in mind, this edition of Pretty, Please—a recurring roundup of skin-care finds, wellness essentials, and beautiful things—arrives with celebratory notes and feel-good ones. In honor of cannabis legalization wins in New Jersey and Arizona, there is a chef-created confection available in CBD form (plus a THC version for Californians). Those who have transitioned their stress-baking into holiday mode might delight in some vivid loaf pans; meanwhile, an immune-boosting tincture made with manuka honey from New Zealand hopefully packs in some of that nation’s pandemic good sense. Equally lush with flora and fauna are the paintings of Mexican artist Carlos Rodriguez, currently on view at Brooklyn’s Fortnight Institute. In his innocent-seeming worlds, a fuzzy unclothed man wraps his arms around a soft-bellied narwhal (pictured above in Ballena mágica), or gazes Narcissus-like with his animal pals into a reflecting pool. The intimate scenes remind us that there’s strength in softness, in getting cozy when you can.
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