I forgot to include a few details about my trip to San Francisco two weeks ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since this was a work trip, I had to work. A lot. But much of the downtime was spent with my friend K, who happens to be a BFF from high school who’s in the same profession, so when we can, we both attend this conference and share a hotel room. We stay up waaaay too late, catching up.

One more view from our room:

I already posted about eating three meals at The Grove, a local mini-chain with food I love:

Since I’ve been on a healthy eating kick for the past two months, I didn’t eat my way through San Francisco like I usually would. I did have a some excellent bread twice and this was worth the splurge, but I decided to still forego cocktails and all sweets. I only missed them a tiny bit and felt a lot better in the end for skipping the gluttony.

One day I had a short amount of free time and walked to the Ferry Building, where I finally got to try Pressed Juicery (long-time admirer, first time drinker):

Since one of my many nicknames for Trixie is Bumblebee, I love all things apian, like this tea towel I found at a garden outpost in the Ferry Building:

BTW, I also scored this charity shirt (the last one in store!) at a SF J. Crew on a separate occasion:

Back to the Ferry Building: there were at least two more stores worth mentioning. One was Benedetta, a farm-sourced organic skin care line. I really liked their Rose Hydrosol, which is a facial mist (photo from Benedetta).

I’m also a sucker for sampler sets, so this travel-sized Ylang Ylang regimen appealed to me. This isn’t exactly meant for my skin type, but the scent won me over:

The last thing that I bought was a body wash with a scent that’s hard to describe. After I got it home, I thought it smelled like stout. And I mean that in a good way.

 

The second place that I had to visit was Heath Ceramics. I’d heard high praise for this line for a long time in various design magazines and sites.

The Ferry Building stall isn’t large, but I still spent a long time looking at everything they had on display, finally deciding on a pair of candles:

Walking back to my hotel from the Ferry Building, I spotted a farmer’s market with a gluten-free stand. I brought back two brownies, one for my friend K. and one for Trixie. They both have severe celiac disease, so this was a treat.

Randomly, K. and I were out walking and shopping one night (she needed a dress for her nephew’s wedding this summer and found a great one), and we got a sample of free chips:

And then the samples kept coming. Score, score, score.

I hit the Neiman Marcus near Union Square because I know they carry Aerin cosmetics in-store. Aerin is seriously hard to find.

I previously purchased some Aerin there in 2012, shortly after the line’s launch, and I really liked the lip gloss.

The Aerin line is very edited, and there are only two glosses available now. They’re called Weekday and Weekend, and I got them both.

The texture is smooth and they’re slightly rose-scented. The colors are subtle and pretty. Total wins.

Since it was close to Mother’s Day, there was also a lip balm and hand cream set in a pretty case. I don’t have a photo of this, but at $60, it was a good deal since these normally retail for $48 (bag) + $28 (lip balm) + $40 (hand cream) = $116.

But … wait for it! The salesperson at the Aerin counter – and no joke, I still remember her from 2012; she is so sweet and helpful – absolutely showered us with free samples:

I felt like I’d won the freebie lottery. 

A parting shot:

 

See you next time, San Francisco!