Good morning! Welcome to The Skinny Mini, which will take you 1.5 minutes to read (or less). We designed these lighter editions to help enhance your Sunday with ideas and inspiration for activities that 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: 

• Sniffing out the best fragrance news and inspo for your new signature scent(s) & how to find the new Rolling Stones Eau de Parfum

• Your New Year’s Day just got a lot less painful with this tasty hangover hack

• Sunday cooking with The Skinny: spanakopita meatballs

• Coffee Mate dropped two new flavors and a collab that we just don’t get

• Plus: the least unhealthy holiday desserts, Netflix’s series-themed yule logs & T-rex with a Christmas jumper

💡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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The allure of fragrance

New Year, new signature scent

The Skinny: Fragrance, the fastest growing beauty sector, has been on fire since 2021—YoY sales have increased as high as 80% and 18% of holiday shoppers had fragrance on this year’s shopping list. Start spritzing, because we have the inspiration if you’re investing in a new scent for 2025.

• For the men: hot list of best men’s colognes, including the scent that, when one editor smells it, “will follow that man down the street.”

• Forget cheap-smelling sweet fragrances—gourmand fragrances have gone luxe, with vanilla predicted as continuing to trend in 2025.    

• What does Mocha Mousse, the Pantone Color of the Year, smell like? Keep an eye out for the new color-inspired scent from fragrance house Firmenich. 

• You can always get what you want, that is, if you’ve always wanted the Rolling Stones to launch their own fine fragrance. 

• Fragrance mixology, in the form of scent layering, has been popular this year both in the home and on your skin. Here’s how to do it using scented body lotion as a base, and what to do at home for wellness zones by “scent scaping.”

Sacrebleu!

Eating cheese before drinking can reduce your hangover

The Skinny: You’ll thank us on January 1 for this science-based hack that involves a few of our favorite things: cheese and cocktails. 

It appears that eating cheese before drinking alcohol helps lessen your hangover by “improving alcohol metabolism.” But not just any cheese—raw milk cheeses are preferable. For anyone wondering what raw cheeses are, we found the perfect article for your cheese education, but some of the most common (available in the U.S.) are Parmigiano Reggiano and Roquefort. Noted for our New Year’s cheese board—we are going to try it but also want to hear your thoughts (and cheese board tips!).

P.S. and spoiler alert: the Camembert you’ve been enjoying in the U.S. is different/not nearly as good as what you’d eat in France. The above link explains why. Je suis désolée. 

P.P.S: We love this “cheeses of France” puzzle.

Collab this

Coffee Mate dropping two ‘The White Lotus’ flavors

The Skinny: As you sip your morning coffee, with or without Coffee Mate, take a minute to ponder their recent collab with HBO dramedy The White Lotus.

Flavor-wise, these sound tasty or at least intriguing—we like the idea of Thai Iced Coffee, and for Pina Colada…we’re adventurous so, why not. That’s where this collab starts, and ends: just two flavors “celebrating” the upcoming season of the show, whose characters are the types to have likely never heard of Coffee Mate—nor would we imagine them ever using it.

These two summer-y and iced coffee flavors are also available in the dead of winter (to coincide with the new season) with an astute commenter wondering: “I don’t understand how y’all don’t have a toasted marshmallow flavor for the holidays or literally any new holiday flavors.” Give the people what they want, Coffee Mate! 

For the full list of this year’s best, and worst collabs, Marketing Brew has dredged up them all—including several we hadn’t noticed.

Yes, chef

Sunday cooking with The Skinny

These spanakopita meatballs from Julia Turshen were incredibly easy and delicious, plus we love that she cooks by “thinking in formulas” and outlining variations as charts. Take these meatballs: you can make them your own by substituting any green, any cheese, etc. Feel free to freestyle!

OHM, there’s more

This week’s newsfeed

Quick links for our holiday spirit edition:

• A new twist on your TV yule log: Netflix unveiled three themed “live fireplaces” for the season based on sets from “Bridgerton,” “Squid Game” and “Spellbound.” ICYMI this years Grateful Dead Yule log ( a tradition started in 2021) features selections from the bands 1977 run at Winterland Ballroom in SF.

• Holiday parties also mean way too many plates of cookies and desserts, so our hostess gift to you is this guide to which ones are the least unhealthy. 

• Spending your gift card: a luxury cashmere sweater is always a win, and here’s one from a brand with an interesting concept—selling only one product. Their 8 plied All Day Sweater is “made to last for genrations,” knitted in Italy and comes in colors like Porcupine (for Mocha Mousse vibes). 

• Apparently the London Museum of Natural History outfits their animatronic T-rex with a new Christmas jumper every year and, well, it’s just really cute. 

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