Still Here, Still Writing
Reflections on three years of newsletters, identity, and the small things that matter
Somedays, all I can manage is one newsletter every two weeks. Other days, I hit you with two back to back. I guess that’s what you signed up for!
I want to tell you all about my three year writing journey but before that, I first want to share few things I’ve been loving this recently:
Making cookies - I love fudge cookies that are crunchy on the outside and chewy in the middle. These ones are amazing. You can find them in the refrigerated section at many grocery stores. They are school safe (nut, dairy, egg and gluten free) and taste amazing even to people who have ZERO allergies.
After almost two years of searching and two months of it sitting in the packaging, I finally have the perfect entryway mirror and I am OBSESSED! Can’t thank Sasha enough for helping me find it.
I bought the new Good Weather Skin’s new All Over Sun Milk and it’s great, especially for body. Only gripe is that its 120ml (great value for money) so not travel friendly if you adhere to the 100ml rule and only take a carry-on.
Because there is no such thing as too many SPFs, I would also highly recommend this new Ilia one that I have been reaching for a lot. It looks tinted but it’s not really tinted enough to add color to your skin, more to prevent a white cast. It is also very “chewy” when you feel it but it’s super cooling on contact and definitely controls oil to some extent.
This hair oil is doing wonders for my short hair. I had been using the hair milk and the oil mixed when I had longer hair but given its short, I only use oil and love the light sheen and frizz protection it provides without weighing it down.
These new heeled sandals (also on MAJOR sale) are not the most comfortable (you’ve been warned) but they are so fun to wear. Definitely only wear them when you know you will be sitting for the most part.
I just got One & Only by Maurene Goo from the library Libby app! Can’t wait to read it!!
This is my new spring jacket and I freaking love that it’s a 2 in 1. You know I am a sucker for multi-weable stuff and this is just so cool.
Three Years of Showing Up
Today marks three years sine I published my first Substack newsletter on May 22nd, 2023. Fresh off a layoff, I was foundering. My husband suggested it as a way to channel all my incessant commentary to him and our friends about brands and products I loved. I thought Substack was really only for people who already had an audience, and I didn’t even have a personal Instagram anymore at that point (mental health and all that jazz), so what would I even say?
I started writing regardless.
Mostly about brands I liked and why I liked them, and most of them happened to be sustainability-minded. I told a few friends and it slowly snowballed. I expanded beyond brands to introducing the founders behind small labels I loved, because I wanted to give them my platform, as tiny as it was. Then I started writing about fashion and beauty because I genuinely spend a lot of free time thinking about jeans and moisturizers.
The value of something like Substack is that it gives a voice to those of us who never saw ourselves reflected in the mainstream. It lets anyone with a laptop and internet access play stylist and beauty editor. We don’t need anyone’s validation - technically though we might still crave it. The work can speak for itself. And somewhere out there, there is almost certainly a niche audience ready to read your work and cheer you on.
Still, it is not always easy to show up and write. Some of the pieces I have poured my heart into barely get any likes or reshares, while others I whirled out during a bout of insomnia perform so well that I land on the rise charts for a few days. Every single time that has happened, I have been genuinely speechless.
When I first told a close friend about the newsletter, she said: Do it for you. Do not look at the followers or the metrics. Write for yourself and you will grow the right way. That is easier to nod along to than it is to actually live. Because the reality is that I would love a bigger audience, more engagement, more comments. It is hard not to sit with that and wonder why someone else’s post is doing so well when yours isn’t.
Through all of it, I still want to sit down and write what feels true in the moment - even knowing pure fashion and styling content performs better than brand and founder features. It's not that I don't want to write more fashion content. It's that I want to hold onto what got me here in the first place: writing about small brands and the founders doing the hard work of building something different, something that isn't easy, and something genuinely worth our attention.
So as I wrap my third year, I want to of course say thank you. Thank you for reading, for sharing, for liking and commenting and reposting. I am genuinely grateful. To the friends I have made on Substack, thank you for making me feel welcome, for including me in collaborative posts, for the happy hour invites and the DMs. And to the people I have never met who comment, re-stack, share, choose to be a free or paid (!!!) subscribers, thank you does not feel like enough.
Jennifer Cook said it really well in her recent newsletter about her own two-year Substack anniversary: she does not want to be famous, she wants to be known. Do we not all want to be seen and valued for who we actually are? Our varied interests, our eccentricities, our humanity, our joy?
One of my truest joys is writing these newsletters, even when I have the worst writer’s block, or when I have so much to say I cannot organize a single thought, or when I have nothing to say but want to share just a flicker of something that I wish would become a bigger piece magically. As much as I groan when I have to take outfit photos and then spend hours editing and reorganizing everything back onto hangers and into the closet, I still want to show up. Because I think what I share has value, even if I do say so myself.
I did not grow up seeing much variety in fashion and beauty and I am not here to be a representative. I am here to say that diversity of thought matters in this space. From the perspective of age (deep in the late thirties), size (5’3” and some pounds that go up and down), skin (oh so sensitive), and life stage. And even with all that variance come real commonalities, especially when I talk to fellow toddler moms or other millennial women navigating career, family and everything in between.
As work and the economic landscape continue to shift, I keep coming back to one of the original reasons I started this newsletter. I wanted an identity outside of my job title. I wanted some value and joy outside of performance reviews. Who am I? That was the question I was sitting with three years ago after the lay-off. That fear still surfaces when someone asks what I do. Slowly, I have started to say I am a multi-hyphenate and I do a lot of different things. Also, if that answer rubs someone the wrong way, that is genuinely a them problem.
I have also been actively building other things that give me joy. I started dance lessons again (and quickly realized my knees are not what they used to be). I started reading again, (which has been wonderful, except that it is not really insomnia if you are choosing to finish the book at 2am). I tried wheel throwing and discovered it is absolutely not a hobby for wanna be perfectionists (the rage I have been feeling because I cannot recreate a travel tumbler I found on Pinterest after three whole classes is real and specific). A sneaky happy hour or dinner with a fellow mom friend can be described as nothing but pure bliss. I am happy to have all of these little things that are just mine. Small joys, I’ve realized are actually really important.
On that note of things that give me joy: I really want to get back to a weekly writing cadence, but I also believe quality matters more than quantity. So here is what the next chapter looks like.
Monthly Five on the Fly is coming back. Long-time readers know this one: five (sometimes ten) things that brought me real joy that month, ranging from podcasts to beauty to home goods.
I will continue to write one to two fashion and beauty pieces because it challenges me to write about things I genuinely love without just chasing whatever trend is happening that week.
I am also working on a new format that I am buzzing about and need to put the finishing touches on. You should hopefully start to see that from next month!
And I am going to keep trying to highlight a small brand / founder each month. This one is harder to maintain because it requires participation from the other side, but it is important to me and I am not ready to let it go.
There will of course be the occasional travel piece, toddler survival piece and whatever else feels worth sharing.
Thank you for being here.
Truly.
If you have thoughts on content that you have enjoyed or would like more of, I would love to hear it.
Here’s the deal: every newsletter takes me hours to write and edit. It’s a true labor of love and something I look forward to, even if it takes way more time (and tea ☕️🫖) than I care to admit. If you enjoy reading Brands and Bobs, I’d be so grateful for your support.
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Charu!! Congrats on 3 years. Just showing up, writing, being present and sharing is what matters most and you’re doing it!! You already doing it. Here’s to 3 (and many more) years!!
So glad you’re here, Charu! Congrats. Can’t wait to see what’s in store next!