somethings nice 20: honeymoon
a body oil time machine, and more
Around this time last year, after the fever dream of the wedding, we left for three weeks in France. Some of our closest friends, made even closer by the time we spent together, joined us. I can’t think about this trip without getting emotional—it was life changing. Someone asked me what the best trip I’d ever been on was, aside from the honeymoon, and I didn’t have an answer. This was the best one. Nothing compares.
I want to be back in our villa so badly but even if I booked it again and assembled the same group of people, it wouldn’t be the same. This is true of any experience and it’s one of the hardest lessons to learn. Still, through certain sensations, I can briefly transport myself back.
1. Huile Prodigieuse Or by Nuxe
Thanks to TikTok, I sought out a bottle of Nuxe body oil as soon as Marshall and I landed in Paris. The one I chose at the pharmacy had a slight shimmer to it and it’s impossible for me to accurately describe the scent at this point; it just smells like the honeymoon. It smells like a day spent drinking rosé from a paper cup at the beach and a hot shower with the window open and the thrill of knowing the only place we needed to “go out” was to our own backyard. It smells like knowing all your friends are also washing the sand from their hair and rubbing oil on their legs right upstairs. It smells like too many Vogues in the ashtray and jumping in the glowing pool late at night, like a game played around candles on the patio table, like the tail end of a breeze off the nearby sea. It smells like possibility, like the tingle of realizing a new want. I have a bottle at home and save it for when I need to go back. As a long summer without France rolls forward, I need it more and more.
2. A cheap radio
Christian blew our minds with this tiny radio he brought on the trip. We found a classical station in Antibes and let it play most mornings and afternoons until we, inevitably, put on brat. The sound of classical music floating out amid digital crackles still lives so vividly in my mind. Immediately, I’m on the chaise by the villa’s pool, eating grapefruit slices sprinkled with Tajin that Racien brought down from the kitchen.
3. Limoncello
On an overnight trip to Italy, we drank too much limoncello. As in, we drank almost an entire liter, straight from the bottle. We had no other choice. They were selling it right there at the front desk. The moon was hidden and the stars were pinholes to heaven. We regretted it later, but not as much as we should have.
4. Ice cubes in rosé
It’s impossible to know how many bottles of wine we went through. There was a stack of them in the laundry room at some point, dozens of bottles, many of them dripped with candle wax. Someone finally took them all out to the recycling bin early one morning. We kept putting ice cubes in our wine because it was hot and humid and we didn’t want to deny ourselves the pleasure of a chilled rosé. It’s nice when the ice melts and waters your wine down a little bit. It’s nice when one flavor becomes another.
5. Vichy sunscreen
I’ll be at a loss when we finally finish our bottle of this sunscreen, which has the best scent of any sunscreen I’ve ever worn (and I grew up wearing Banana Boat, which smells like candy!). How to describe it… The scent has depth. It’s almost musky. I love it for the same reason we love the smell of any sunscreen: It reminds us of time spent doing nothing.
6. The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess by Chappell Roan
What’s left to say? What’s left to say when you’re in Marc’s U-shaped apartment and it’s Bastille Day and the only thing available to drink is a warm bottle of red wine? What’s left to say when “My Kink is Karma” comes on for the fourth time because the album has been looping for hours? What’s left to say when you’ve been together for weeks and it still doesn’t feel like enough? That’s what a honeymoon is for—that’s romance. This is such a funny album to feel sentimental and romantic about. I know I always will.
À bientôt.