My Packing List: On Eileen Fisher, Finn Comfort, and Snif Suganami.

I love reading these, so I hope you'll enjoy mine.

It’s 6:30 AM and I’m the first one down to breakfast this morning, which means I have approximately 30 precious minutes to write down some thoughts, mainly on my packing list. This is the first time this has happened as I’ve been mostly the last one down to breakfast during this 10-day, exciting sprint of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand with 12 other people.

I’m wearing — not for the first or even second time this trip — my black Eileen Fisher Tiered Pleated Silk Midi Dress. If you travel often, buy this dress or something similar. It has the advantage of being pleated, aka pre-wrinkled, so you just knot it up into a little ball and toss it into your suitcase. It’s silk and not washable, my only lament, but can be easily dressed up or down. Other MVPs in my travel wardrobe are my Agolde Low Slung Baggy Jeans, ELV denim split shirt, Pardo Capurgana hat, and Organic Basics black tank top. I wear all but the Pardo hat basically weekly when I’m at home. For me, traveling is not the time to experiment. I stick with my tried and trues in the name of keeping my bag light.

The main players in situ

I’m also a huge fan of in-sink handwashing as well when traveling so the OB tank top being a lightweight, mostly cotton option means I can wear, wash, and hangdry with relative ease. I apply this to underwear as well. I will occasionally splurge on hotel dry cleaning if needed.

In terms of shoes I’ve packed, there are three pairs: Finn Comfort walking sandals, Hoka gray suede Cliftons, and ATP Atelier Tavenna kitten heels — the latter I’ve worn only to dinners and things around the hotel. I could have left them behind, probably, but practicality isn’t the only thing that matters when packing. Indeed sometimes you just want to feel cute, a feeling not necessarily afforded to me by my other choice footwear. I use some flimsy sandals and earrings — almost excluisively hoops — for this effect normally.

The earrings I brought.

I cannot, however, recommend Finn Comfort shoes to you enough. While $300 NIB, mine cost $40 on Poshmark because surely someone’s grandmother died and they had to liquidate her closet. I am 31 with the knees of someone much older and recently, I’ve started prioritizing orthopedic comfort. I would even say go ahead and buy these new if you can. You can wear them for years and years as you can simply replace the cork insoles when they start to get too rundown.

Eileen & ATP on New Year’s Eve — I could have belted this dress for this occasion, probably.

As for fragrance, I hosted a swap in early December during which I got a sample of Snif Suganami by Steph Shep, previously of Kardashian assistant fame. It came highly recommended by fragrance friend, Lucy, and it’s wonderful. A soft, woody amber-iris with a powdery finish. It’s seasonally ambiguous — appropriate for cool or warm weather — and completely inoffensive with relatively intimate projection — perfect for a three-hour bus ride to the Vietnamese countryside. I’ve been toggling between this and Carnal Flower, the latter worn mostly for dinner.

Other beauty items are the usual suspects: Aveeno Oat Gel Moisturizer, a gentle cleanser via Prequel Gleanser (a relative newbie in my routine, but already Holy Grail-level favorite), and mineral sunscreen. The real MVP, though, has been a daily 200-mg dose of NSAID which I started as a prophylactic for a stye and ended up having a positive effect on the worst breakout I’ve had since getting my IUD a few years back. Win win! I Googled this, by the way, and dug up some interesting info from the acne.org archives that echoes my experience.

Speaking of experiences, I have to go now and live some! Maybe later I should ask my sisters to share their favorite items they’ve packed. What do you say? — <3 Addison