I just got back from three days in New York City. It was truly summer there, even this late in September – 82 degrees and humid, and I loved every minute of it [even if I was sweating through it].

I got in late, and I was tired, so I didn't pay any attention to the fact that the house seemed a little cooler than usual - but after a long sleep, by the time I was up and out with Babes and Lu out on their morning hike [around 8 AM], it was undeniable – fall is here.

It's thirty degrees colder, the air is bright and dry and crisp, the girls are thrilled – and I am cold.

I love summer. It is, emphatically, my favorite season. I miss the heat and the long days before they are even properly over. I miss the languid pace. Most of all, I HATE being even a little bit cold. I spend summer moving happily through the humidity, soaking in the sun, getting all my joy from vitamin d and bright light and late-evening romps through the still-sunny trail at the 8pm golden hour, from summer clothes, and summer colors, and summer fruit, and summer swimming holes and crickets and fireflies. I dread this moment every year.

And still, here it is.

Tonight, my hands are dry as I type this. My face, which RARELY feels dry, needs moisture. This is how I know the change is real – I always feel it in my skin, well before the temperature or calendar or trusty fall leaves get around to confirming it.

There’s a simple thing I do that makes winter skin so much more manageable – I stop fully drying myself. Before bed, I either shower or splash my face with cold water, and I pat mostly, but not all the way dry. I  seal the dampness in with our Smoothing Body Oil or Nourishing Face Oil. Once the air turns cold and dry, you are trying to add moisture rather than remove it. Your routine does not need to become a project. The conditions changed, so you change with them.

The same is true after a shower or bath: pat yourself off, then apply body oil or balm over damp skin. Locking that moisture in is KEY. You are no longer sweating or collecting humidity just by existing. You are trying to add hydration rather than remove it.

The rest of the shop changes too.

We are stockpiling Skin Saver Winter Balm as we speak. Pretty soon, I’ll be doing what seemed completely insane in summer and sealing my entire face in it every morning. Yes, it is amazing for faces. Yes, it is my daily winter moisturizer.

We are also ordering this year’s batch of the alpaca thigh-high socks our customers wait for. They are made in small, women-owned independent workshops, and we truly cannot keep them in stock once winter arrives.

It is also the season for scalp scrubbers, hot tea, and cold-and-flu bath bombs and shower steamers, so we have plenty of those for our customers.

We all have our favorite sweaters out. Every spring, we pack them away in cedar chips to keep the moths away, and there is a communal box of those chips in the retail office so no one goes without. The alpaca thigh-highs always wind up on the staff, too: with skirts in fall, and under our pants when the temperature really drops.

The rosehips are bright red right now, absolutely impossible to miss. I love that kind of marker – not a decorative idea of a season, but the actual thing happening outside the shop.

Inside, I want a good bouquet of dried summer flowers or seasonless branches of pussy willow in one of our vintage vases - It's hard not to keep all the best ones for myself, but I do my best and we have some good ones in store right now. Summer does not have to disappear completely just because the air changed.

I bake sourdough year round – both for my family, and to sell at the monthly night market in our little village. In summer, good bread feels like a luxury – it's more than enough to have a thin, airy slice served with fresh tomato and basil in the afternoon, or with good butter and last fall's preserves at breakfast. In fall, bread feels more basic – it's thick slabs in soup, nourishment, density, and warmth. The same loaf that felt like a treat now feels  necessary –  and while the bread itself doesn’t change, the seasons do, and our needs and perceptions change with them.  

As a company, the Bébés (the pet name for our Stamford team members) are hard at work making preparations for the fall harvest festival season. We'll be popping up every weekend, from now through late October, at some of our favorite annual traditions. Check the @maisonbabylebebe instagram for details on everywhere we'll be, but my personal favorite is the legendary Maple Shade Hootenanny on October 11 + 12, in Delhi, New York – the scene alone is worth the price of admission, and I'm genuinely looking forward to it.

I'm not pretending I would choose a cold morning over an 82-degree day in the city – not even close. I really, really miss the heat. I miss the long days. I miss going out in my pajama boxers to walk the girls, and I am absolutely going to complain about being cold.  But fall is here, whether I like it or not – and once the season arrives, for my own sanity, I try to meet it as generously and with as much curiosity as I can: a sweater coming out of its cedar-chipped slumber feels right, the morning mists and later sunrises are truly beautiful, and I won't ever say no to a warm bath, a loaf of hot bread, a wood stove, or a richer balm.

Until next month:  It's time to change with the seasons – so stop fully drying yourself.

xx
Remy