Jackie's Take: What's on My Mind in Women's Wellness ✍️ 🤔 📰 

Your Home Is Your Third Skin: How to Design for Wellness, Not Just Aesthetics

If you’re anything like me, midlife has made you look at your home with new eyes.
It's not just about aesthetics anymore — it’s about resilience. About creating a place that restores us, protects our families, and evolves with us.

We’re the Chief Wellness Officers of our households, designing spaces that have to serve everyone: visiting in-laws, kids growing like weeds, teenagers testing independence, and yes, ourselves—women navigating new seasons of health and identity.

That’s why I knew I had to talk to Pippa Lee, an Australian architect, healthy home expert, and founder of Haven.

Pippa’s work lives at the intersection of wellness, environmental health, and intentional living — exactly where so many of us are starting to reimagine our next chapter.
After years working in New York City, she saw firsthand how design elements like air quality, materials, and sensory environments quietly shape our physical and mental health.

In her view, our homes are our "third skin"—just as important as the food we eat or the clothes we wear. And I couldn’t agree more.

I sat down with Pippa to talk about how we can create spaces that don't just look beautiful, but help us rest, heal, and connect in midlife and beyond.

Here are a few of my favorite highlights from our conversation:

🏡 Design for Rest: How Can Your Bedroom Become a Wellness Tool?

I asked Pippa: if someone could only upgrade one space to feel better at home, where should they start?

Her answer was clear: the bedroom.
✅ Prioritize air and water quality (think true HEPA filters, clean water, and breathable natural fabrics)
✅ Choose low-tox materials for mattresses, bedding, and furniture whenever possible
✅ Minimize electronics and harsh overhead lighting to support your nervous system and deep sleep

To Try: Pippa recommends this air filter (use code JASPRVIP50 for 50% off).

🌿 Design for Detox: Where Should You Start When "Healthy Home" Feels Overwhelming?

Healthy home advice can feel like drinking from a firehose.

So I asked: what three changes would make the biggest difference, even if you’re starting small?

Pippa’s priorities:
✅ Indoor Air Quality (low-VOC paints, real ventilation, good air filtration)
✅ Water Quality (invest in a real filter)
✅ Bedroom Upgrades (start with what touches your body most often)

If you're looking for easy upgrades, this showerhead is a great place to start. Your skin and hair will thank you 👱‍♀️ 

She also flagged an important warning: beware of “wellness-washing.”

👵👧 Design for Connection: How Do We Build Homes That Support Every Life Stage?

Today's homes have to flex: for aging parents, teens craving privacy, and all the transitions in between.

I asked Pippa: how can we design for independence and connection under one roof?

Her tips:
✅ Flexible floor plans that evolve over time (think sliding doors, guest suites, adaptable layouts)
✅ Accessibility from the start (wider doorways, step-free entries, universal design)
✅ Spaces for privacy and daily connection—both are critical for mental health

One simple way to support this? Upgrading to Circadian Rhythm-Supportive Lighting to help everyone—from kids to grandparents—sleep better, naturally.

💡 Your Wellness Action Step: What’s the Smallest Change That Makes the Biggest Impact?

When I asked Pippa if she had one final, simple action step for readers this month, she didn’t name a product or a project. She named a mindset shift 🤯 :

One small thing I personally, always fall back on? Adding a beautiful Indoor Plant that supports air quality and reminds you that your environment—and your energy—deserve to be nurtured.

👉 Now it’s your turn! What’s the best healthy home upgrade you’ve discovered lately? Hit reply and share it with me—I’m always on the hunt for new favorites. 🏡✨

✅ P.S. I’ll be rounding up some of your reccs in a future issue—so send me your best finds!

Until next week🌟,
Jackie

The Tea: What's Trending in Women's Wellness & Culture 🍵 🛍️ 

👙 🧠 Sex Hormones Are Brain Hormones. What Does This Mean for Treating Brain Diseases? This article challenges the outdated idea of “bikini medicine” —the myth that reproductive hormones only matter below the waist. Estrogen is a whole-body hormone and a powerful regulator of brain health, influencing memory, cognition, and emotional resilience. As levels decline in midlife, real structural and functional changes occur in the brain—making hormonal health a cornerstone of protecting long-term vitality, not just managing symptoms. (NYT)

🤰 📆 Is This Perimenopause or Postpartum? More women are having kids later in life, which means being postpartum and entering perimenopause are overlapping more than we realize. The symptoms—like mood swings, insomnia, and feeling disconnected from yourself—often have the same root cause: fluctuating and declining hormones, especially progesterone and estradiol. (The Cut)

🥰 💄 The Zitomer Mystique  Zitomer isn’t just an old-school pharmacy—it’s a New York institution where European serums, beauty gadgets, and hidden treasures collide. I was so intrigued, I made a pilgrimage—and found some seriously cool midlife goodies you can peep in my reel. (Air Mail)

Wellness Wordplay: Talk the talk 🔈️ 

Term of the Week: Revenge Bedtime Procrastination

🗣️ After a day of caregiving, decision-making, and keeping the peace, it’s not exhaustion that keeps many women up—it’s the craving for time that’s finally their own. Psychologists call it revenge bedtime procrastination: staying up late to steal back a sense of control. 🫠 

The Group Chat Edit 📲 👯‍♂️ 

🎧 To Listen: Normalize It - From Miscarriage to Midlife. Dr. Jessica Zucker joins the On Health podcast to talk about her powerful new book, Normalize It —a call to break the silence around the hidden struggles women carry, from miscarriage and identity loss to midlife reckoning and loneliness. (Aviva Romm)🎵📻️ 

📲 To Follow: Dr. Lazic is a Yale-trained NYC dermatologist, founder of the @wearhudsons scrub line, and even a children’s book author. But what truly strikes me is the bravery and grace she shows while sharing her personal journey with stage 4 cancer —reminding us what real strength looks like, both in and out of the white coat. 🥼 💉 

👄 To Buy: If you’ve got a tween or teen boy, you already know: the pits, nuts, and butts situation needs...an intervention. Modern Family’s Julie Bowen co-created JB Skrub and I’ve been recommending this line to all my friends. 🐽 😅 

FSH: Facts, Snacks & Hacks 🥨

✅ Fact: Identifying a “generational shift,” BoA reported a 7% increase in credit card spending on “healthy habits” — the biggest jump in two years.

🥨 Snack: I often recommend seaweed to support thyroid, gut, and hormone health in perimenopause. Rootless offers an easy, food-based way to get those essential minerals.

💡Hack: If you are experiencing hair loss, dermatologist Dr. Shereen Idriss has a great YouTube primer on minoxidil for real regrowth. I especially love this hack — use a spoolie to apply your minoxidil for thinning eyebrows.