Happy Sunday! Welcome to another edition of The Skinny Mini, which will take you exactly 1.5 minutes to read. This is designed to help enhance your Sunday by inspiring you to enjoy the day with activities that simply make you feel good. As one of our subscribers told us: “You’re like my favorite magazine, just without all the annoying pop-up ads.” 

(And for anyone new here, this is The Skinny, a free newsletter designed to entertain and save you time, which is everyone’s most valuable resource.)

What we’re covering in today’s snackable news: 

• Coffee Day freebies and all the coffee news & trends you need to know, including: dalgona; crack iced; flash frozen & weight loss

• Hairstyle inspiration for your next cut (plus, the best-ever shampoo)

• Soup’s on for Sunday with a roundup of fall recipes and our favorite “fat flushing soup”

💡Did you know: all The Skinny editions are online and searchable—so you can easily find topics/links/recipes/items to shop that we have written about in the past. Bookmark this link for easy reference.

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Morning fix

Coffee lovers, today’s your day

The Skinny: While searches for “national coffee day deals” have gone up 200% in the last three days, we’re here to save you time with the only link you need: this outline of today’s best deals and freebies as well as a fantastic video with an instant coffee taste test, DIY almond milk, mushroom coffee, and why you should sometimes put salt in your coffee (JFYI, the first part of the video is on how to make some kind of gelatin coffee dessert, which we’re not interested in, but the rest of the video is five-star). Grab your cuppa, and enjoy. 

Three to try: Dalgona coffee, also known as hand beaten coffee, originated in Macau and is made by whipping equal parts instant coffee, powdered sugar, and hot water until it becomes creamy, and then adding it to cold or hot milk. Basically hot cocoa, sort of, but with coffee. Sounds a little sweet, but also delicious. And to try it out, here’s how. 

In honor of this special day, we present from the archives, the recipe for Crack Iced Coffee, which is essentially coffee ice cubes in your iced coffee. What it equals is pure java nirvana.  

We have become aware of a new coffee delivery brand (also available in select grocers’ frozen aisles) that we’re obsessing over this week: Cometeer has arrived and the anticipation of enjoying it every morning is helping us get out of bed. Basically flash-frozen coffee concentrates-as-capsules, housed in aluminum pods (yay, no plastic!), Cometeer’s virtues include: convenience (pop out the pod and add water); flavor (coffee is frozen at its peak with beans sourced from independent coffee makers); and feel-good factor (supporting indie brands, and it’s fun to pop the pod out).

Want to try and get 20 free cups of Cometeer? Let us know by replying to this email and we’ll send you a link. 

Another burning question: Can you lose weight by drinking coffee? Signs point to yes maybe and it’s definitely worth a try. A place to start: we are fans of Lean Joe Bean’s Weight Loss and Superfood coffees, but science supports the claims that coffee is a great place to start your mornings. Here are the 9 health benefits of coffee, straight from Johns Hopkins. And for team TLDR, some of those benefits are: protection against Parkinson’s/dementia, its anti-inflammatory properties, and it helps reduce risk of heart disease. Reports this week announced exactly how many cups of coffee you should be drinking daily for your health.

A cut above

Styling tips & inspiration

The Skinny: While today may be National Coffee Day, you’re welcome for the future heads up that October is “National Haircutting Month” (INTERNATIONALLY, thank you lobbyists). So, today is the perfect time to research a new style with these stylist-approved haircuts, and book a hair appointment. 

 While the costs of a cut/color/blowout has increased – and, as passionate commenters of this WSJ story (on “$400 as the new normal”) noted – that is due to their operational costs skyrocketing. We have the highest respect for stylists and colorists, who are insanely talented, creative, and hardworking and as one commenter points out: you get what you pay for. Support your local salon! 

If for some reason you have the urge to DIY, we beg you to read these tips first. And you can look forward to our editor’s upcoming evaluation of a DIY keratin treatment from Van Tibolli’s gk hair. 

Last snips: Fabio Scalia salons in NYC have tips on how to wear your hair on a rainy day, and here’s our Add to Cart listicle: 

• We love this shampoo! Didn’t realize how much until we tried 6 others and hated how brittle our hair felt. This is not a marketing ploy! It’s the best.

• If you insist on it, this split ends trimmer works (and if you get into trouble with a haircut at home or otherwise, help is here).

• Again, if you are going to trim your ends or bangs, for the love of all that is holy, PLEASE USE SCISSORS MEANT FOR HAIRCUTS, like these. They’re not expensive, and will save you from a panicked 911 call to your stylist.

Soup’s on

A hot bowl of autumnal love

The Skinny: One of our favorites – The Pioneer Woman – is here with this roundup of fall soups to try. Love or hate her, she knows her way around a soup. And for those leaning into soup this fall, this is the one item we can’t live without (and its beauty and practicality will also encourage you to make more soup). Yes, it’s a splurge. And no, we are not advanced mathematicians, but taking the dollar cost average of $300 and the 26 years Jill has owned it, using it 4x/week equals…we are winning.

We also need to point out a word of caution, based on experience. Do not be tempted to make soup (or most other recipes, for that matter) from random bloggers churning out stories based on SEO. Trust us: we have been burned many times by food/recipe bloggers who haven’t actually vetted the recipe (or presented an actual photo), and ended up with a bowl of slop despite following instructions diligently. Trust sites like Good Housekeeping, the Food Network, Food & Wine, etc. who actually have test kitchens.

Exceptions to the rule: Smitten Kitchen, 101 Cookbooks and this recipe (that we have made several times) for “fat flushing vegetable soup” courtesy of “Skinny Ms.” or @alfiecooks_ who welcomed us all to his “Soup Season” series last fall with a stunning assortment of seasonal vegetable soups (and Soup Season Two, coming soon).

Ohm, there’s more

This week’s newsfeed

• Should we all be drinking organic wine?

• Sunday is sports-watching day, so we are looking to Harper’s Bazaar for inspo on how to style some new fits with sports jerseys (above, a vintage soccer jersey story in Midtown).

• Last week we shared our love of red wine + ice. And now Meta called that bet, and raised it, by introducing us to Gatorade + red wine + ice. Jill’s gonna wait for the Lions game tomorrow night to break this one out, and will report back.

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