taking notes: katie stone

the voice behind plant based thinks wellness is annoying, we should all be eating more vegetables, and pleasure is the heart of life

Welcome to our tenth installment of “taking notes” where I pester both internet and IRL friends about what makes them tick, their creative process, and how the hell they got so cool. In this edition: Katie Stone of the unparalleled beauty and wellness newsletter, Plant Based

Truthfully, I can’t quite place exactly how Katie and I first met. I believe it was some time last summer. Probably at one of Erika Veurink’s events. Of course, I knew who she was, though. As someone tangentially connected to and extremely interested in the wellness space, I love and am endlessly fascinated by anyone writing about it; plus, I have been addicted to her “into the fridge” series since I discovered Substack, and I’m sure I had to resist the urge to ask her all my burning questions and just keep my fucking cool.

Fast forward to today. I’m pretty stoked to consider her a friend, now, because she’s just a genuinely great human, and also selfishly so I can finally pester her with my annoying queries.

Given it’s “wellness week” here on mom friend, I thought she would be the perfect person to talk to about what she thinks about the wellness industry, what it looks like to her, and what she wishes we would all do more of. Enjoy!

First, let’s start with the basics:

What’s your name: Katie Stone

What do you do? I work with brands on their creative marketing strategies, partnerships, and identity. I also write freelance for publications (The Strategist, Vogue) and am the creator of Plant Based, a digital wellness and beauty publication.

Where did you grow up, and where do you live now? I grew up in the suburbs outside of New York, and I currently live in Greenwich Village (ed note: that’s a neighborhood in Manhattan, for all my non-New Yorkers)

What does your family look like - kids? Partner? Pets? I am the eldest daughter (anyone who knows me can confirm I act like it too) to a younger sister and brother. I live alone, but my sister lives two floors above me in my building, which is the best.

What does your day to day look like? It’s so hard to answer this because it truly varies so much. Every weekday I wake up early and do my morning routine. Ideally, I’m spending the first hour or so of the workday writing. From there, it’s a mix of answering emails, doing strategic work, meeting people IRL, taking calls, and hopefully writing some more.

Where can we find you on the weekends? Out and about! I don’t like to spend too much time at home on the weekends. I’m either walking around, trying a new restaurant, going to a museum, at the movie theater, or a combination of all of those.

Walk me through a typical morning at your house: Funny enough, I just wrote about this at length. The condensed version is: wake up, take supplements / medications, have some bone broth or a date or something light and quick, do some journaling / spiritual-esque practice, chug a bottle of water, and get out the door and go to the gym.

What’s your favorite thing about living where you live? Least favorite? My location is incredibly convenient - everything I need is truly within a five minute walk radius, including a very well-connected Subway station. Least favorite: said Subway station is one of the nastiest in the city.

Now let’s get into it…

You have one of the (imo) best wellness centered newsletters out there. How did you get into Substack, and where did Plant Based stem from?

THANK YOU! That really means so much. A couple years ago after running a boutique marketing agency, I decided to merge it with another and go out on my own. I’d studied journalism in college and writing has always been the most natural form of expression for me, so during that time of complete uncertainty and lack of structure, I returned to it, yes as a creative mechanism, but mostly as an anchor of consistency. I actually started out writing case studies about brands—I’d review their marketing output and test their product to see if they actually lived up to their hype. It was such a great way to build confidence in my marketing skills, but it soon became way too much effort on top of the work I was doing with clients with pretty little return. Editorial is my first love, particularly magazines and blogs, so it was a very intuitive decision to shift my content in the direction I’m going now.

This is a big question, but what does wellness mean to you, and how does it fit into your life?

I think wellness, in an industrial sense, is annoying and corny. Wellness, to me, is the way we live our lives, the way we take care of ourselves, and actively pursuing feeling good. I subscribe to the theory of Epicureanism, which basically posits a hedonistic approach to life is best, but that doesn’t necessarily mean more stuff. In fact, pleasure is defined as a peaceful absence of pain and anxiety, and therefore feelings of contentment should primarily come from the basics—community, home, food.

I do want to be clear that I’m not a minimalist when it comes to my lifestyle habits. I love fancy spas and bathhouses and exclusive Pilates classes and expensive serums. It’s all fun, but it’s all extra.

I feel like rituals are a large part of “wellness”. I know that personally I count my morning routine and daily writing as part of my wellness routine. I’d love to know about yours. What do your writing rituals look like, your daily rituals, anything you need regularly to in order to feel good.

My best friend and I always joke that it requires so much to achieve a baseline of generally feeling good.

Between journaling, exercising, cooking myself breakfast, and doing my skincare, the morning is pretty full of rituals and routines that essentially set my brain and body up for a successful day ahead. I try as hard as I can not to schedule calls within the first hour of the work day, and use that time to write. Even a half hour just getting something down makes me feel connected to myself and my own perspective which feels increasingly more important in a very noisy (online) society.

My wind down routine is a bit less extensive and harder for me to be strict with. I’m admittedly not good at putting my tech away at the end of the day, and I tend to work until it’s time to get in bed. I do always end the evening with a mug of Rest + Digest tea and a magnesium supplement (sometimes in drink form). When I get into bed after my nightly skincare, I moisturize my hands with Theraplush, put Le Chouchou on my lips, and read my book until I can’t keep my eyes open any longer.

Tell the people a little bit about your musts: must do work outs, must have supplements, must read books on the subject, must stock food in the fridge…anything you really can’t live without.

Walking as much as possible, a fitness class 1-2x a week so I can shut my brain off and let someone tell me what to do, sweating regularly (ideally in a sauna), Vitamin D, probiotics, Magnesium, reading fiction, laughing really hard, an excess of lemons, Soft Services Buffing Bar, manuka honey face masks, drinking coffee every single day.

Your series “into the fridge” is a fan favorite? Why the fridge? What can you tell about a person by looking at how they stock theirs?

I’ve always loved reading profiles, and my favorites have always involved some sort of snapshot of the subject’s life. Into the Gloss’s Top Shelves in particular were a huge influence on me (as you can tell)—I loved learning about the small objects and practices that define a person’s taste. That said, makeup isn’t all that interesting to me—I’m much more curious about the way we feed ourselves as a means of taking care of ourselves.

A fridge, visually speaking, will tell you if the person is organized, interested in cooking, prefers to dine out, etc. But truthfully, I learn the most from the way people talk about their fridges and their nutritional habits. Some people hate condiments, some can’t get enough. Some people rely on leftovers for the week, other people despise the idea of eating something more than one day in a row. Inevitably, there’s something in the interview that sparks a passionate response in my interviewee, and I’m always excited to see what it is.

Has anyone you’ve featured genuinely surprised you? And have you been influenced to change your own habits by anyone?

Genuinely surprised me? Maybe not. There are a few small mentions that sort of puzzled me, though. Brendon Holder told me that he boils his water to filter it and then he refrigerates it and drinks it.

I’m not as much inspired by other people as I am by my own intuition. I know internally when I need to shift one of my routines or abandon a practice altogether. That said, I am very inspired by the photos people share. I love looking at the way people capture their own lives.

How has your perspective on wellness changed in the years since you’ve been writing the newsletter - both positively and perhaps in any not so great ways?

I used to feel embarrassed that I was interested in ‘wellness.’ I ate salads and didn’t drink alcohol and went to Pilates and people thought I was a freak. Now, wellness is trendy and in some circles, cool. I personally find the culture around wellness to be dorky and aesthetically ugly, and the more I’ve written about wellness, the less I feel inspired by the people in the wellness industry, actually. That said, the more I write about wellness, the more its definition expands in my eyes, which I think is a positive.

What’s the number one wellness “trend” you wish people would quit.

Blindly following what other people say on the internet. I find that to be such a lame answer, but it’s true. Critical thinking and personal adaptation is essential for well-being.

And the one thing you wish everyone would adopt?

Eating more vegetables.

Who are you writing for, and what do you want them to learn about wellness as a whole?

I’m writing for people like myself—curious, open-minded people who value taking care of themselves as a means of being a better person in totality. I want my writing to educate people, entertain them, and realize that it’s ok to try new practices or let go of other ones and have a sense of humor while doing it. Wellness is deeply personal and yet inherently communal, so I want to expand people’s definitions of what that actually means in a tangible way.

With “wellness” now a multi billion dollar industry, where do you see the future of it going from here? It feels like there is no ceiling, and yet so much of the industry is flooded with things that may not actually help but are just trying to sell something. How do you square this in your own life, and what do you hope for the future?

I do think a lot of people demonize the wellness industry, or see it as some looming threat that’s going to capitalize on our desire to look and feel good. I don’t agree—I think fashion, beauty, etc are just as big and are equally as commercial, and they don’t even try to help people. We spend a lot of time focused on the “bad” parts of the wellness industry (phony supplements, expensive healing modalities, whatever) but again, these rely on consumers to buy into them. You have agency over your purchases and you don’t have to spend your money on something that doesn’t align with your needs! Also, what’s bad for one person isn’t necessarily bad for another. This all being said, a lot of it is dystopian and I try to listen to my gut as much as possible because it’s always right.

In terms of the future, I think it behooves us to focus on some of the positive examples of innovation in the health and wellness industry because we really do have the potential to improve the quality of life for so many people. For instance, BeSound is a new breast imaging company that uses a new form of infrared technology to detect cancer that’s often missed in traditional mammograms. Let’s not forget about the advancements that are changing the world for the better—hope is essential to our collective well-being.

Rapid fire round:

Favorite restaurant: EVER???! This is impossible—I love restaurants. Maybe All Time in LA? Joseph Leonard is my perfect neighborhood spot.

Most worn item in your closet: Agolde low slung jeans or Unna Everywhere Pants

Can’t live without product: Can I say my computer? I bring it around with me more than a normal person should.

Dream vacation spot: Copenhagen

Favorite place for creative inspiration: books!

Currently reading: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Currently watching: I’ve been really uninspired with TV lately, so I’m going to have to go with Architectural Digest YouTube videos

Can’t miss podcast: Talk Easy by Sam Fragoso

Song/album/artist you have on repeat? Lately I’ve been going through a Radiohead phase

Anything else you want our readers to know? What’s next for you?

Always something new on Plant Based, including some new, non-digital formats. :)

Link to where everyone can find you! Substack & Instagram

ok that’s it from me this week, hope you enjoyed! see you tuesday!

xx

jen