Whenever I buy something for myself, there has to be a good reason for it. I am often able to justify a purchase if I think it will help me feel more put together. “Put together” can mean different things to me and is very dependent on whatever I’m going through at the moment. Sometimes a $20 purchase can go a long way in making me feel this way. Sometimes this feeling requires a ~$2000 purchase. My point is being able to spend more does not equal having it all figured out. Here are seven things I bought in pursuit of that feeling. Some worked and some didn’t.

The Celine Bag

Cost: ~$1,500? $2K? (I don’t remember the exact price).

It was my birthday and I had just gotten married. I was on the last stop of my honeymoon. I was starting a new job when I got back. I decided I needed something to make me look and feel put together in this next phase of life. I wasn’t necessarily shopping for a Celine bag, but when I tried it on in the store, something clicked. Then, I decided not to get it. I had my mind set on Loewe (when in Spain, I guess). But then, I couldn’t sleep that night thinking about that purse. I went back the next morning and they had sold the last one, so I spent the hours before my flight running across Barcelona in search of the one other bag left in that style and color.

It was everything I wanted. Brown, buttery soft, not heavily branded. It made every single outfit better and I didn’t question the purchase or think about the money once.

Then I had my daughter. It’s very hard to wear a soft leather shoulder bag when a tiny human is projectile spitting up on you. To be clear, it isn’t about being precious. I wore white jeans while potty training. It’s about all the stuff you have to carry when you have a tiny baby.

For all of her stuff, I carried a Bugaboo backpack diaper bag instead (which I HATE). And now that she’s a little older and the Celine could technically be functional again, it still doesn’t work because what I need is essentially a garbage bag. I need something I can throw pouches into, her toys, wipes, maybe a diaper that needs to be thrown out at a later time (pee only, okay!).

What I carry now is a green leather tote. I don’t even know the brand. I think it’s from Spain? Guess I got my Spanish purse after all. I paid about $100 for it second hand and it holds everything including a change of clothes for her, and my keys and wallet are permanently buried at the bottom under half-used napkins and Legos.

As previously discussed, we’re potty training, so the diaper bag is close to fully retiring, but I still don’t think it’s time to bring back the Celine. Maybe when I’m out without her, which is about 1% of the time. For now it sits on a shelf in my closet where I can admire it from afar.

Verdict: 100% proven, no regrets. I’d buy it again in a heartbeat and look forward to the day I can give it to my daughter. I will come back to the bag when it functionally makes sense again.

The La Ligne Marilyn Jeans

Cost: $175, down from $250

I bought the jeans on a whim on Shopbop because I saw they were on sale. They were full price on La Ligne’s site at the time so I couldn’t resist. I could write a medical journal about the physiological things that happen to my body when I discover a “deal” like that.

I’m actually wearing them as I write this. They’re slightly barrel shaped, have a flattering seam detail down the front which makes you look twice in a good way, and are not obviously branded (which as noted above is very much my vibe). They’re my current favorite jean. I’m 5’3” and they are the perfect length for me. I have worn them to WFH, to dinner, on an airplane, to a concert, a house party, barefoot, with flats and heels and everything just works. I love them.

Verdict: 100% proven. Barely any research, no deliberation, they cost a fraction of what my bag cost and they are doing the same job.

The Buck Mason Tank

Cost: ~$48

Back in 2020 I purchased the most perfect white Zara ribbed tank. The fit, the weight, the length: all 11/10. I’m sure you can imagine what it looks like after all this time, but I still own it. I have tried to replace it countless times over the last six years and have failed every single time. I tried Zara again and again, Free People, Reformation, just to name a few brands. None of them worked.

Then I found these tanks and they do the job.

To be clear, the Buck Mason tank is not better than the OG Zara tank when the Zara tank was new. The hem is longer, the straps are different and it doesn’t fit quite the same. But it is very much better than all the replacements I have bought before it, which is a different thing.

Verdict: Proven, but with an asterisk. In this case I paid ~$50 to stop searching.

Crown Affair

Total cost: ~$80

I’m about six weeks into my Crown Affair hair routine after my girls’ trip focus group and I have to say I still love it. The smoothing air dry cream is light and doesn’t leave my hair greasy. The finishing gel holds my baby hairs without plastering them down so I can still let my hair loose if I want to. These products give my hair options, which nothing else I have tried has been able to do.

I keep trying to photograph a good hair day. I look in the mirror and think my hair looks great, but when I snap a photo it’s just not the same. I’m not sure what to make of that, but I’ll take liking how I look in a Google Meet square or in the mirror any day.

Verdict: Still under review. So far, so good, but I don’t feel comfortable making a call after only six weeks. Will revisit in December.

The Candles

One Aesop, two Byredo, one of the big boy Diptyques.

Total cost: ~$500

I don’t light them. I got them before my daughter was born, but now I have a toddler and they are literally fire. I also remember watching something on IG when I was pregnant about the toxic fumes candles emit, which I have not verified and am not going to pretend I have, but the reel has clearly stuck with me.

So the candles sit on my dresser, side table, credenza and bathtub ledge, which is the real reason I believe people buy candles at this price. You’re buying the vessel and you get to show it off/keep it when the wax is gone. I repurposed an old Byredo vessel as a very chic holder for my tongue scraper.

Anyway, my daughter broke the big boy Diptyque. We tried to salvage it, but without the original ceramic it just isn’t the same. We put it in a hurricane glass and I found that I literally do not care about it at all. The wax is still there, so is the scent, but I have no feelings about it, which tells me I wasn’t into the candles merely for their scent. Though I will say, I still love my Byredo room spray, but not all fragrances are created equal.

Verdict: Not worth it. I don’t think I would really miss the candles if they were gone.

Biologique Recherche Crème Masque Vernix

Cost: ~$225

I already wrote about the facial I had at Biologique Recherche in Paris thanks to my very generous friends. I felt so lady and came out the other side feeling so reenergized that I of course needed to buy something to maintain the feeling. I purchased the Crème Masque Vernix because my facialist told me it was meant to replicate the vernix a baby is born with, which would be good for my very sensitive skin.

I had just had a baby, I wanted to look like I had slept like a baby, I was in Paris, it just all made sense in the moment. I brought the jar home and used it to the very last drop. I liked it. It wasn’t groundbreaking, but it felt nice and luxe.

Then I ran out and a friend happened to be going to Paris. I asked him to pick up a jar because in my head the math worked out slightly cheaper. Looking back, I think I missed a decimal point or something, but I swear it all added up at the time.

The novelty wore off about halfway through the second jar. It’s still in my medicine cabinet. I use it as a mask sometimes, but I’ve mostly moved on to a simpler, cheaper routine that I honestly think works better.

Verdict: My first jar was a souvenir and I’m okay with that. The second, imported jar was a mistake.

The Tiny Silk Rug

Cost: ~$1,200

My husband and I were in Turkey for our one-year wedding anniversary and we got wrapped up in wanting to buy something on the trip.

I’m staring at this tiny rug as I type this. It sits in front of our dresser and it’s very nice to step on. It’s a fine rug, but I can’t look at it without thinking about all the other things $1,200 could have bought. At the time of purchase, I think we told ourselves some lie about how this rug could live at the foot of our baby’s crib. The shop owner was also super charming, which never helps my case. We were obviously swept up in emotion and charisma so I can give myself a tiny bit of grace. I think sometimes I find myself worrying too much about manufacturing nostalgia.

Verdict: We’re f*cking idiots.

The bag and the rug were both expensive and both purchased on meaningful trips.

When it came to the bag, I really wanted it. I wanted it enough to lose sleep over it and to spend the last few hours of my vacation running around to find it.

With the rug, I wanted to have bought something. It was our anniversary. We were in Turkey, we had recently found out we were pregnant and I wanted something to remind me of that moment in time when we were transitioning from just us to something way bigger. The rug was that proof, but it could have been literally anything else.

Kind of the same thing with that second jar of Crème Masque Vernix. The facial was in Paris for my birthday and I needed to take something home from it because I thought it would preserve the feeling.

The candles are a different failure. I bought them for the life I had, but then my life changed (for the better) and now I feel nothing about them.

Except that’s also true of the bag. I bought that for the life I had too and it’s been on the shelf for ~2 years. The difference is that the bag got to do its thing every single day before my life changed shape around it while the candles sat around mostly unlit. I miss how wearing the bag makes me feel. I don’t miss anything about the candles.

At times I think about my daughter borrowing my clothes one day. She’s only two so right now her interests are really just Jelly Cats and sticker books, but I like to imagine her as a teenager going through my closet, taking something without asking and wearing it in a way that I would have never thought of.

I want her to think I have great clothes and I want her to think her mom is cool.

I of course realize that there are more important things I should want my daughter to think, like the fact that her mere existence makes every cell in my body tingle and that she never has to edit or changing anything about herself before bringing something to me.

But I also want her to look at me and see a woman who didn’t disappear when she became her mother. I want her to look at me and my life and see how much fuller she made it simply by being my daughter and know full stop that I didn’t have to subtract anything from myself to make room for her.

I admit this is a lot of pressure to put on a shared wardrobe, but hear me out.

My daughter is two. She doesn’t care if my ass looks good in my barrel jeans or whether my jelly flip-flops confirm I have a pulse in 2026. As long as I can meet her where she is, she’s good. And I obviously don’t need her to think I’m hot or cool. In fact she most certainly will think I’m the opposite of that when I tell her she has to clean her room or that she can’t hologram her friends after 10pm (or however kids will communicate in 2036).

What I want is for her to see that I still care about myself. I want her to see me take time to get ready, take care of my skin, play tennis, buy things for myself and wear clothes that make me feel good. I want her to grow up understanding that caring for yourself and caring for your family are not competing interests.

I’m not sure this is something I personally understood growing up. There was always an underlying feeling of not having enough in my house. We weren’t exactly financially insecure, but we weren’t as financially stable as I would have hoped to be. My parents’ anxiety around money was palpable and it was the undertone of so many decisions, even when no one explicitly said it out loud.

My mom always loved fashion, but I never really saw her participate in it. She worked incredibly hard, but I don’t remember her ever buying something just because she liked or wanted it. If spending money on herself meant my brother or me would have to go without something, she always chose us.

In sixth grade, I wanted an $80 Kipling backpack because all my friends had one. To my parents, spending that much on a backpack (especially in 1998) was insane, but my mom bought one for me anyway.

I have zero idea what she didn’t get for herself so that I could have it. At the time I only knew that I got the backpack I wanted. I most definitely did not understand the invisible subtraction behind it.

I understand it now because I do the math every time I want something for myself. I can look at an outfit and immediately convert its price into a contribution towards my daughter’s 529 or a month’s worth of activities for her. My brain will not let me proceed without accounting for what else the money could become.

And when I do buy something for myself, I feel both things. I feel immense gratitude and pride that I can have the outfit or the bag or the shoes and still give my daughter what she needs and then some. At the same time, I still wonder if the money should have gone towards something else for her instead.

I am incredibly grateful that my mom gave us everything she could. I just don’t want to repeat the part where giving your children more always means keeping less for yourself.

A few mornings ago my daughter woke up in the middle of the night. My husband took the 1am shift and I relieved him at 4 until she finally went back to sleep at 5:30. Later, we got up, had breakfast and went through our normal morning routine. I went to get ready and consciously put on a knit tank and white jeans.

Nothing mind blowing, but we’re in the middle of potty training so between that, fractured sleep and toddler dinners, white jeans could understandably be described as the deranged choice. But ya know what, the jeans looked good, I was having a good hair day and my Saltyface tanning water was doing the Lord’s work.

Maybe I’m gas lighting myself, but I felt less tired. The outfit didn’t undo the fact that I had been awake at four in the morning and it certainly did not make potty training any easier. Even by 8pm, though, I didn’t feel as exhausted as I think I would have if I had spent the day in sweat shorts and a t-shirt. Getting dressed didn’t solve anything, but it did stop a difficult part of my morning from defining the outcome of the entire day.

This is also why I no longer save my clothes for “special occasions.” Most of my life does not contain a special occasion by standard definition. I work from home and spend a lot of time on the floor. A normal day for me might include 100 hours of Google Meet, the park, making dinner and having my daughter wipe an unidentifiable substance on my shirt. If I wait to have plans to wear the clothes that make me feel good, I will spend most of my actual life waiting to feel good.

I would rather just wear the white jeans. If they get dirty, I’ll wash them. If they get ruined, they get ruined. I absolutely hate the idea of spending my life protecting my clothes from the life I bought them to wear.

Recently, I wore one of my go-to Buck Mason t-shirts with a pair of baggy, brown Deiji Studios pants and the jelly flip-flops I bought instead of the Manolos I already wrote about here. I wore this outfit while I worked, to bring in the recycling bin, to sit on the bathroom floor while trying to convince my daughter to pee, and to a baseball game where I contentedly drank a beer. I didn’t look incredibly polished, but I was certainly polished enough.

At one point in my life, I may have heard “polished enough” and thought of it as a concession. Like I was giving up. Now I think it might be just the right theme for this season of life. I need clothes that can move through all parts of my day without requiring me to become a different person for each one. I want to look good on a work call and still be able to get on the floor when my girl decides we are Mommy Princess and Baby Princess mermaids. I feel like the styling brief is met if another mom sees me and thinks, “that woman has never crossed paths with a Tractor Wheel or encountered a Go Go SqueeZ purse explosion in her life.”

To be clear it’s not that I want a life without those things. I am beyond thankful for what these previously unfamiliar food groups represent in my life and am beyond obsessed with the tiny, perfect human that brought them into it. I just don’t want the mess to represent how I see myself or look like my life has completely run me over.

This is where the entire effortless, hot-mom thing becomes a double-edged sword though. Taking care of myself gives me confidence. It also lets me control what other people see. If I look put together, perhaps no one will look at me and think, “woah, she’s going through it,” even though sometimes I am very much going through it.

I don’t want to lie to my daughter or make her think that having feelings is some kind of personal failure, but I also don’t want a sleepless night or a hard moment to become the status of my life. I don’t want the evidence that motherhood is difficult to somehow become interpreted as evidence that my daughter made my life worse. Am I projecting? Maybe and probably. But just in case, let the record show she made my life infinitely better.

I also want to be clear that this isn’t about status. I’m not interested in having the latest it-bag so that everyone knows what it costs or being the most fashion-forward woman in the room. What I want is to look like no one in my house was denied of anything, including me.

Which is not the same as saying I’ve figured it out. I still want more clothes. I still want more money to buy them. I want to be able to see something beautiful that I don’t need and just purchase it without presenting myself with a detailed report on all the more responsible things I should/would/could do instead. I’m still doing the math. For now I’ll buy the thing anyway and let the calculations run in the background like they always do. I was in remedial math my entire high school career so how accurate could the numbers be anyway?

One last thing: Some links above are affiliate links; I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. I link to things I’ve bought, things I’ve rejected, and things I’m still deciding on. I’ll always say which.

They retail for $835. The ones I got were ~$400 and in such good condition, I don’t even think they were ever worn. At the time there was only one pair in my size so I snatched them up.

I work remotely which means that while I do make an effort to get dressed from the ankles up every day, shoes are 99.9% optional. However, I had some in-person work sessions coming up and was tired of the ballet flats I had been wearing over and over again.

The Manolos felt like the right next step. They were flat, easy, black and the kind of shoe that makes any outfit feel put together. No one would know or care that they were Manolos, but I would.

I wasn’t looking for that specific pair before I found them. This is an important detail I chose not to think about at the time. Instead I was doing some RealReal perusing and innocently came across them. I looked up the retail price, confirmed that $400 was essentially a steal and my heart started racing from the discount I felt I was getting (and probably from the timer counting down in my shopping cart).

I have lost things on the RealReal before. I’ve waited, decided I did in fact want the thing, gone back and was devastated to find it was sold. I didn’t want to make that mistake again.

When the Manolos arrived I was beyond excited. I opened the box, put them on and immediately knew they were too small. My heels were hanging off the back. I asked my husband, hoping he’d tell me my feet looked like delicate little croissants gently tucked into the pastry box of my new suede shoes. Instead he confirmed what I already knew: my feet were spilling out of the shoes like Pillsbury dough after you pop the can.

I was genuinely bummed. Bummed enough that I emailed the RealReal explaining that I loved them and wanted to keep them, but the size just wouldn’t work. They kindly waived my return shipping fee so I could return and buy them in the correct size.

Except…I didn’t.

There was another pair available in the right size, in a similar condition for roughly the same price. I went to buy them and then suddenly $400 felt like $1000. Same shoe, same-ish price, but the excitement of the deal was gone.

The work session I was planning to wear these for was cancelled and I had just come back from a trip where I felt like I had spent too much money. And now that I had actually seen the shoes on my feet, I knew something I didn’t know at the time of purchase. They were nice, but they weren’t mind-blowingly special. Without the work session they would become $400 shoes I was buying to sit in my closet until I could invent somewhere to wear them to. So I made the difficult decision to close the Chrome tab.

Since then, I’ve come back to the RealReal to check on them a few times. I’m not really sure why because I’m almost certain I don’t regret not getting them. More so because I now know that they seem to have a fairly steady supply of this particular shoe. If I find the right size at a low enough price, maybe I’ll buy them. They’re a good black shoe, but I also worry they’re the Gucci slide of 2015. Those are still sitting in my closet, untouched for years. Wait, should I just wear those?

I’m usually very susceptible to the regret that comes with not buying something when you had the chance. Resale makes this worse because scarcity is a real issue. There may be only one in your size and someone could buy it while you’re thinking about it.

I realized the first time I saw the Manolos, I wasn’t only deciding whether or not I wanted them, I was also deciding if I was willing to lose them. Those are very different things.

The return gave me another chance to decide. And then another pair appeared, and then another. Once I stopped believing that this was my only chance to own them, I was able to think about whether I actually wanted to.

In the meantime I bought a pair of jelly flip-flops for a fraction of the price and have worn them almost every day. This isn’t an argument for jelly shoes over Manolos. I still kind of want the Manolos, but the point is I don’t need them right now. There will be another pair.

A few nights ago I started researching light bulbs. I wasn’t even trying to research light bulbs. I was actually trying to figure out why the limewash I’d just spent the weekend painting on my walls looked so yellow.

This is how I operate.

I have ~4 hours to myself after my daughter goes to bed. I try to shower and brush my teeth before I do bed time with her so that the rest of the hours are mine to spend as I like. Usually that means I get into bed, and instead of catching up on a show I’m 4 episodes behind on or getting 8+ hours of sleep, I decide I’ll look something up quickly. In this specific case, I decided to use this time to figure out whether a second coat of a different limewash color might fix the walls of my windowless hallway. Then I started to realize that maybe the problem isn’t even the limewash. Maybe it’s the lighting, which means I need to understand the temperature of my light bulbs.

Suddenly, I look up from my rabbit hole and ChatGPT paint renders and it’s close to 1 a.m.

I do this all the time and for whatever reason, there’s something about that time of night during the week that doesn’t even feel real to me. It’s almost like a fever dream of defiance and the pursuit of reclaiming “me time.” I can literally spend four hours trying to figure something out and not register that four hours have passed.

What’s even more interesting (to me at least) is that I don’t even particularly enjoy researching things, but I do really enjoy having researched them.

Please note the difference.

There are certain categories in my life that I consider settled. Laundry detergent is Dirty Labs. I also use their dishwasher detergent. I subscribe and I couldn’t tell you exactly what I pay for it. That’s between Dirty Labs and Amex. I truly do not care.

My cold brew is Wandering Bear. It just shows up. My body oil and exfoliating body wash come automatically through my Osea subscription. Same thing re: it appearing at my front door. There’s a specific Buck Mason t-shirt that, as long as they keep making it, means I never have to research the perfect white t-shirt again. La Roche-Posay makes the vitamin C serum I use. If I’m flying somewhere Delta flies, I’m likely flying Delta. I have status, I know how it works, and I don’t really compare the price against other airlines anymore.

These are some of my favorite purchases because I don’t think about them. Though I want to be clear that it’s not because I don’t care about them. Quite the opposite. It just means that I cared enough at some point that I spent ~4+ hours working to figure them out.

The Buck Mason t-shirt is a good example. If you told me tomorrow that someone had tested every white t-shirt on the planet and mine came in 17th place, I wouldn’t care. You couldn’t bait me into opening that search back up because my mind is made up.

I’ve tried enough t-shirts. I know what this one costs, I know how it fits and I know how I feel in it. Someone complimented me on it recently and I was all too jazzed to tell them exactly which one it was.

That’s another part of this operating model that I love.

Someone in a group chat asks, “Does anyone have a recco for xyz?” and I have the answer.

I’m not sharing 17 links. I’m not hedging and saying, “I’ve heard this one is good.” I have a definitive answer because I’ve done the research. I’ve bought the thing. I’ve lived with it. I still like it. I can tell you to buy it without adding six qualifications.

My decision has been validated.

I think for a long time I thought I was looking for the “best” things.

And I still think I want the “best,” but what I really mean is the thing that will make my brain stop humming. I want the best shampoo. The best white t-shirt. The best detergent. The best whatever it is I’ve decided I need.

And “best” can mean many different things.

The best skincare product for me is one that doesn’t break me out, makes my skin look good and makes me feel good using it. The best clothes are the ones that make me feel like the effortlessly chic, hot mom I aspire to be and keep my dry cleaning expenses to a minimum. Sometimes the best version is expensive. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes part of what makes something the best to me is knowing that I bought the original instead of the version that came afterward.

I’m aware of how that sounds, but if I buy the Zara version and every time I look at the thing I think about The Row, then to me that purchase wasn’t really the better deal.

The thing I have a harder time tolerating more than spending too much money is buying the wrong thing and then having to think about the fact that I bought the wrong thing. My brain will not let me forget it.

This is exactly why I still haven’t bought an Oura Ring.

I’ve researched it. I’ve thought about it. I’ve polled the masses. I’ve added it to cart. At this point the cost isn’t even the thing stopping me. My real concern is that I don’t know what more data would do for me, other than giving me something new to think about every morning. Like, I already know if I slept like shit? I digress.

The point is I don’t want another thing that asks something of me after I buy it. I quite literally want the opposite. Even if I don’t realize it at first, I am almost always asking the purchase to silence something, which is also why my research can get completely out of control.

I’ll find something perfectly acceptable on Chrome tab four and still open Chrome tab five. Could I get it cheaper? Faster? From somewhere more interesting? Is there a more authentic version? Is there a place that makes more sense to buy it from?

Recently I wanted an Alessi napkin holder. I liked the idea of ordering it from a European retailer, preferably an Italian one. Alessi is Italian. It felt more appropriate somehow, almost like an ode to the heritage of the thing.

Don’t be mad, but I bought it on Amazon.

The package of napkins sitting on my kitchen counter was taunting me and Amazon could have the solution at my house faster and without any customs fees.

In this case, heritage lost and Amazon won. (Sorry!)

This is probably the most honest version of how I shop. I can make a purchase incredibly complicated until one variable becomes important enough that everything else falls away.

And once I decide, I really want the decision to remain decided.

For a minute I thought the manufacturing specs of my Buck Mason t-shirts changed. I ordered new ones and compared them with the old ones and they seemed slightly different. The length seemed longer and the cotton seemed…pilly-er.

This was extremely alarming. A Buck Mason representative told me my theory was incorrect and I’m choosing to believe them though I was very close to reopening the white t-shirt investigation.

For now, the case remains closed, but there are plenty of others that aren’t.

Shampoo and conditioner are currently open. Parts of my skincare routine are open. Apparently my hallway lighting is now open, although a few days ago I didn’t know hallway lighting was a category that now required my opinion.

That’s the danger of research though. Sometimes instead of answering a question, it creates three more.

Limewash becomes light bulbs. Light bulbs become color temperature. Suddenly something that wasn’t even on my radar yesterday has become something I need to solve.

When that happens, my brain often short circuits and I walk away. But oddly enough, I don’t really resent the time spent.

If I spend from 8:30 p.m. until 1 a.m. figuring something out and eventually land on an answer that makes me feel excited or energized or more productive, I usually think it was worth it because more than anything I like solving problems.

I like doing it at work. I like doing it for my friends. I like doing it for my family. I like fixing things. Give me a problem with a finite set of possible answers and the opportunity to figure out which one makes the most sense, and I will happily sacrifice an entire evening to it.

A purchase is just a very low-stakes version of that. It’s also a good distraction from problems that don’t have a finite set of possible answers (but that’s for me and my therapist to figure out).

There was a time when I cared more about the illusion of having nice things, which sometimes meant fast fashion or home decor dupes. That has changed.

Now I care much more about having the right things and by that I don’t mean the fanciest thing. I love a nice purse and a beautiful pair of shoes. I love fragrance and beautiful objects for my home. I’m not going to pretend otherwise, but the thing, whatever it is, has to make sense for my actual life.

Perhaps that’s what all of this ladders up to.

I like looking around and feeling like the things in my life are there for a reason. That there’s a rationale. I chose this detergent because the scent transports me every time I put a shirt on. This t-shirt because I can throw it on and it looks put together. This Vitamin C serum because it doesn’t break me out and my skin looks noticeably brighter after consistent use.

Nothing feels random or scattered.

It makes me feel in control, I think. Maybe even successful in some small way.

My husband is even more extreme about this than I am.

He has had the same Arc’teryx ski jacket for like twenty years.

During our last ski trip, the zipper broke. He sent it back to Arc’teryx and they offered him a credit toward a new jacket, but he didn’t want a new jacket. He wanted his jacket.

He refused the credit and argued relentlessly with them about their warranty program until they fixed it and sent it back.

To him, the problem had already been solved twenty years ago. Why would he volunteer to solve it again?

Personally I don’t need my white t-shirt to last twenty years. I’ll buy another one when this one wears out, but already knowing which one I’m buying is so incredibly satisfying.

Maybe that’s the thing I’m willing to pay for. Not the best object in some objective ranking. Not even necessarily convenience. All I want is to make the decision once.

I want to do the ridiculous research, open the tabs, consider the alternatives, get it right, and then move on to something else.

Because I don’t actually want to stop thinking about things. I’m sure that if every category in my life were magically solved tomorrow, I’d eventually find another problem because I like the solving part too much.

I just want the satisfaction of knowing that when I solve one, I can leave it solved.

One quick note: Some links below are affiliate links; I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. I link to things I’ve bought, things I’ve rejected, and things I’m still deciding on. I’ll always say which.

Closed for now

Laundry + dishwasher detergent: Dirty Labs
Cold brew: Wandering Bear
Body oil + exfoliating body wash: Osea
Vitamin C serum: La Roche-Posay
White t-shirt: Buck Mason
Airline: Delta

Still open

Shampoo + conditioner
Skincare, partially
Hallway lighting (opened three days ago, against my will)
Oura Ring: in cart since spring

I left a facial the other day feeling so good that I wanted to spend money.

I didn’t even want to spend it on anything specific. I was driving home, excitedly gripping the steering wheel while blasting Mari Froes thinking, Oh my God, I want to rage so hard (in an emptying my bank account sort of way). Anyone else feel that way when they feel on top of the world?

I know this is probably a point against the facial, but please let me explain.

Every month, Alexis Lauren charges $225 to my Amex and deposits it into what they call “the Vault.” I’m a founding member so I pay less than the current $300 monthly rate, but every dollar becomes a credit I can use toward treatments or products nonetheless. Anything I don’t use rolls over forever, and my membership gets me a discount on treatments.

Essentially this means I’m giving Alexis Lauren $225 to put towards my future skincare budget. In exchange for letting them hold the money until I spend it, I get better pricing. A you scratch my back, I scratch yours situation (or at least that’s what I tell myself). This arrangement should probably make me feel like I’ve prepaid for things, but instead every time I go in, I feel like I’ve discovered free money.

When I get an $800 Dysport bill and $450 has accumulated in my account, I feel like I got a huge discount. Rationally speaking, I know that it was my money all along and that I forked it over, but psychologically, it trickled out of my bank account slowly enough that I have already emotionally recovered from spending it by the time I go to use it.

A bank for my face

I joined Alexis Lauren’s Bal Harbour location shortly before they opened (hence the founding member rate). A friend of mine did some design work for them before their first location opened in Coral Gables, which is how I ended up learning about them and following along on social media in the first place. That’s the extent of it. I pay the full founding member rate, nothing is comped, and no one there knows I’m even writing this into my Substack void.

When they announced a founding membership, I was skeptical. I looked into it mostly because it seemed too good to be true and I had never seen a medspa membership structured this way before. For $225 a month, the money wasn’t disappearing in exchange for some vague promise of “member access.” The entire dollar amount was safely set aside for me to spend when I was ready.

Alexis Lauren aside, I was already getting Dysport two or three times a year, plus the occasional Sculptra. There were also lasers and other treatments I was considering, but never moved forward with due to a combination of fear and never-ending research. It seemed every time I would get close to landing on something, the fear of putting my face out of commission for an extended period of time became too much to bear and/or a new laser or treatment would come out and the research clock would restart.

Before Alexis Lauren, I went to a dermatologist in Coral Gables who I absolutely loved. The only issue was that she was about 40 minutes away and I could easily spend almost $2,000 in one visit between Botox or Dysport and Sculptra.

The long-winded point I’m trying to make is that I didn’t need a medspa membership to convince me to spend money on my face. I was already doing that, albeit sporadically. The membership just allowed me to change when I spent it.

Instead of raw dogging a $1,000 treatment in one shot, I pre-spend $225 every month. Peanut-buttering the spend if you will. By the time I actually want something done, a good chunk of the money is sitting there waiting for me.

It is basically a sinking fund for my face except I have no control over said fund, which may actually be the reason it works for me. I can’t move the money, spend it anywhere else or talk myself out of it. It’s patiently waiting for me to use it for my personal skincare.

I am apparently a person who gets facials now

Until the other day, I got a facial approximately once every two years.

Thanks to generous friends, my last one was at Biologique Recherche in Paris, so the bar was high.

I loved the way I felt after that facial. Covered in Crème Masque Vernix I felt tingly and reborn. I made a mental note to do more of that and yet I hadn’t booked another one until recently.

Part of my hesitancy is my skin. It’s very sensitive and eczema-prone, and putting my face in the hands of a stranger who is about to apply 100 things without knowing how my skin will react has never been particularly relaxing to me.

Separately, I had also made up my mind that facials are uber luxurious. If I’m going to spend a few hundred dollars and an hour lying on a table, I’ve historically chosen a massage due to the full body nature of the experience. If you’re calculating cost per touch point, it just feels like a better deal.

Then I started complaining about my jowls.

Okay, “jowls” is maybe dramatic for a woman in her late-ish 30s. What I really mean is that I have started noticing slight changes around my smile lines and lower face. Likely due in part to spending every working day staring at myself in a Google Meet square.

I brought it up to the woman who does my Dysport. We talked about lasers and microneedling with PRP. I’ve talked to dermatologists outside the practice who have mentioned Fraxel and IPL.

I have also booked some of these appointments and then canceled them out of aforementioned concerns. Lasers make me nervous. Anything that requires me to stay out of the sun is not particularly compatible with Miami, and the combination of pain, downtime and my extremely reactive skin has made it difficult for me to commit to something when I’m not 100% convinced I’ll get the result I want.

The last time I went in, instead of suggesting another aggressive treatment, my injector recommended I start with a facial. She suggested a microcurrent treatment, noting it of course wouldn’t permanently change anything, but I could see how my skin would respond, get a temporary lift and potentially prolong some of that effect if I started doing facials regularly.

A facial I could handle. I could even get excited about it so I booked one.

One quick note: Some links below are affiliate links; I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. I link to things I’ve bought, things I’ve rejected, and things I’m still deciding on. I’ll always say which.

There is value in someone knowing your face

I had never met the facialist before, which would normally make me nervous, but she listened when I told her about my skin. When I reacted to something, she noticed. She dermaplaned, did extractions, massaged my upper body, suctioned my nose, did some sort of very hydrating situation (idk, my eyes were closed) and used microcurrent gloves. Aside from a NuFACE (which I love), I had never experienced anything microcurrent before and I think I’m hooked. This experience was that on steroids. The muscles in my face reacted so hard that it caused my arms to twitch. It felt like my buccal fat was put to work on a Pilates reformer.

What I enjoyed most about the experience was that it was on my terms. I was grateful to past me for carving out this time for myself. I again felt rejuvenated and thankful that I could lay on a table for an hour and be slathered like a French baguette while gravity helped these fancy serums seep deep into my dermis. I’m really trying to live a more unhurried lifestyle and this was an hour of doing just that. Looking good, feeling good, am I right?

I also appreciated that no one was trying to sell me a new face. The facialist and I were working with what I have. She tried to tell me to mask. I said no. She told me to exfoliate around my nose. I said maybe. But that was the extent of it.

I think that’s another part of what I’ve accidentally been paying for.

I research almost everything I buy to an unreasonable degree, but I don’t necessarily want to optimize my face. I just want someone to know it and collaborate with me on what makes sense for me.

The woman doing my Dysport has seen my face repeatedly. She knows what I’ve done, what I hyper focus on and what I’m nervous about. When I started complaining about something new, she helped me explore my options, didn’t immediately try to sell me the most expensive solution and instead told me to start with the least permanent option possible. Now thanks to her I’ve found a facialist I trust, too.

There is a lot of value in building out a roster for your [gracefully] aging face.

The $2,700 problem

Let’s address the elephant in the room. $225 a month = $2,700 a year.

When I first did that math, I kombucha-girl’d.

Oh shit.

Followed almost immediately by:

But wait.

I could spend close to that in one visit to my old dermatologist.

If I’m remembering correctly, Botox or Dysport alone could be around $1,000. Add Sculptra and I could leave spending ~$2,000. If I do that twice a year, the $2,700 I’ve slowly contributed to Alexis Lauren doesn’t sound quite as insane.

I also know that this math only works for me because I was already spending the money. If I canceled my membership tomorrow, I’d still get Dysport. I might spend less overall, but honestly probably not? And when it comes to facials, my next one would likely be timed to the LA Summer Olympics.

Instead, before I left, I booked another facial for next month and I’m actually very excited about the appointment. That’s also worth something to me.

Settled

Sometimes when I see the $225 Alexis Lauren Amex noti I think to myself, come on ladyyy. Then when I go to use that credit later, it feels like finding cash in my jeans’ pocket. It was always my cash, but finding it makes me feel like I won something.

If you’re thinking all of this is irrational, just know you are probably right and that my husband agrees. I know the money is not free. I know that it’s my money that I gave them.

But the irrational part is what’s working for me. Feeling like I’ve found $450 is what gets me into the chair. If that money were still sitting in my checking account, I’d be weighing a facial against every other thing $300 could buy me, and the facial would lose, the way it has lost every time for the last several years.

I like that I don’t have to decide whether I should spend money on myself each month. I’ve already earmarked it and that small shift is enough to turn me from someone who gets one facial every two years into someone who already has her next one on the calendar. That makes me happy, okay!

Who this is wrong for

Which is also why I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this to most people.

When you check out at Alexis Lauren, there are no receipts and there’s no exchange of currency. I'm only told when I owe more than my available balance, which almost feels like you're at a hotel, charging everything to the room. That lack of friction can be dangerous in the wrong hands.

I would not recommend a membership like this to someone who is just starting to think about skincare and isn’t sure what they want. I would definitely not recommend it to someone who is budget-conscious but can be convinced they need every treatment on the menu.

The whole point is that it keeps pulling you back in which is great if you want to be there. Not so great if you don’t.

Personally, I thought I was signing up for a deal on injectables, but what I actually got was a commitment to taking care of my skin.

And sure, $2,700 a year could buy me a bag, but I barely carry a purse anymore. These days a purse is really just a vessel for Legos and Tractor Wheels (IYKYK) anyway.

Right now, I’d rather have good skin.

Receipts

Verdict: Proven for me. This is not a general recommendation for everyone! (see above for who this is wrong for).

What it replaced: A beloved dermatologist in Coral Gables, 40 minutes each way, roughly $2,000 a visit between Botox/Dysport and Sculptra, two or three visits a year.

What I paid: $225/month as a founding member ($2,700/year). The current membership is $300/month. Credits roll over forever. My membership gets me 25% off Facials, Botox/Dysport at $11.20/unit, and 10% off several other treatments.

What would change my mind: If I started accumulating credit faster than I could comfortably spend it, found myself booking treatments just because the money was there, or stopped trusting the people treating my face.

Revisit: August 2027.

Then I sat with it some more and I realized we’re measuring completely different things. She’s indexing on price. I’m indexing on how long the thing is going to stay in my head. I research so I can stop noticing things. It’s not always about finding the best thing. Instead, it’s the price I pay to avoid rumination and resentment.

My question is less about what it costs and more about how long will this thing make noise, and how loud will said noise be?

I would agree that things you stop noticing within a week deserve ten minutes. For me those are things like the gallon of milk in my fridge and the construction paper I restocked my daughter’s art supplies with. I would argue that if getting something wrong would bother you for months, then it’s definitely worth the 57 tabs.

My husband and I researched our mattress for weeks and have not thought about it since first laying our pretty little heads on it upon its arrival over two years ago. That is exactly what we paid for.

The automatic blackout shades we installed in my daughter’s room were the same deal until one started squeaking six months in so it’s worth noting that the silence isn’t always permanent.

And then there’s the Alessi napkin holder which involved four hours of research, two customer service emails and one bulk Costco order of napkins. Technically there was never any noise to prevent, well aside from the ripped plastic napkin packaging mocking me from the kitchen counter. I created the noise myself by researching it. I’m still on the fence about the napkin holder which is probably the worst possible outcome considering how much time I invested in figuring out what to buy. That’s the price you pay to play though: four hours can turn a thing you literally never previously thought about into something you avoid eye contact with at the dining table.

In my professional overthinking opinion, things that are worth seriously researching are:

• Anything that you touch or interact with daily, like your mattress or your dining chairs

• Things you install in your home. These things are usually expensive to redo, often resulting in you having to live inside the mistake

• Literally anything irreversible be it a cosmetic procedure or something marked “final sale”

• Things that are annoying when they fail. I don’t necessarily mean the things that break (though yes, those too), but the things that get slightly worse with time like pilling sheets or a vacuum that doesn’t do its job

• Anything that commits you to buying something else forever like an espresso machine or a printer

Things that may not be worth as many tabs (though if I’m being honest I would probably still fire up the tabs):

• Anything that has a generous return policy (can more stores please bring these back?)

• Anything where the replacement timeline is set by a clock vs. quality like a winter jacket your toddler won’t fit into next year

• Things where the gap between “good” and “best” is negligible like a sheet pan or batteries

And in case you’re wondering, no, I will not be adopting the ten minute rule unless I’m grocery shopping on Instacart.

I stopped counting somewhere around the point where I realized I’d been buying the same eyebrow product for about five and a half years without ever once considering an alternative.

That’s certainly not normal for me. I research everything. Most recently I opened seventeen tabs to buy placemats so the fact that this thing has quietly survived every makeup bag purge, every trend cycle, every “well, what if this new product is better” is the whole reason I’m writing about it.

I spent about three minutes researching this product and unknowingly over a year researching the person who recommended it.

Some links below are affiliate links; I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. I link to things I’ve bought, things I’ve rejected, and things I’m still deciding on. I’ll always say which.

My brows

They are thick, long, and definitely sisters, not twins or whatever the saying is. I’m grateful for the thickness. I have witnessed the alternative and know what people pay to fake it. But mine curl and grow like weeds in multiple directions. I can comb them one way and in the blink of my eye they’ve curled downwards in an attempt to tickle my eyelashes.

For years I got them waxed. Over $75 a visit by the end, and I was on the hamster wheel where you go, it looks great for ten days, and then you have to go again.

I used to work in beauty and fashion. I wasn’t an editor which meant I wasn’t on the press list, but I was close enough that I had visibility into the beauty closet and sometimes was the beneficiary of free products. Better than that, there was the information. And the piece of information that changed things was someone telling me to stop waxing entirely. Tweeze only. My brow guy told me tweezing would preserve the natural shape and warned that repeated waxing could eventually thin the hair. So tweezing at around $200 a session, it was. It was either that or going bald in the eyebrows.

And then I stopped. No waxing. No tweezing. I decided I’d lived with my own face long enough to figure something out, and I wasn’t going to keep paying that much to have someone else decide what my brows should look like.

And that’s where I still am today. I was able to figure out a general routine, taking what I learned from my brow guy and apprehensively applying it. “If you’re unsure if you should pluck a hair, sleep on it” he would tell me. I went slow and was conservative, but there were times I accidentally trimmed too much or plucked chunks out of my brows. Thankfully their thickness and length allow me to employ a combover technique of sorts. And that’s where Anastasia Beverly Brow Freeze comes into the picture.

But first there was the soap thing. Do you remember people smearing bar soap on a spoolie and combing it through their brows to hold them in place? I watched that from the sidelines with skepticism and never tried it.

But then I noticed when actual brands started releasing their answer to it. A TikTok trend is one thing, a trend that companies with formulation budgets start responding to is another. I was listening.

The one that got me was a former colleague posting about the Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Freeze Flexible-Hold Clear Lifting & Sculpting Wax. Sponsored, or something like that, I would normally keep scrolling.

Except in this case I’d worked with her for nearly two years. I’d been to Japan with her on a work trip. I’d seen her brows in person, in humidity, not just through a ring light. And she went to the same person who used to tweeze mine.

I didn’t need to research the product. I’d already done the longer version of that work on her without even knowing it so I bought it.

I’m technically using it wrong

The official method is to dip the brush in the product, swipe it on top of the lid and work the product through from there. That’s what she demonstrated and that’s what I did. It worked immediately. My brows stayed put. In Miami nonetheless. Which, if you’re familiar, you know that this is a city that undoes blowouts on the walk from the car to the door.

Eventually I stopped bothering with the lid and started going straight into the jar and straight onto my brow. I find the jar lasts me longer that way and mine are thick enough to take it. I’ve found the more product I work in, the better they hold. Your mileage will differ if yours are finer.

My current jar is on day 314 and isn’t quite finished. Its replacement is already waiting in the wings.

It’s important to note that Brow Freeze wasn’t the entire fix. I also had to learn to trim them, and figure out which direction actually suits my face rather than which direction they happened to grow. That part changed my face more than the product did and influenced how I do my makeup, how I photograph, how I look at myself, etc. The Brow Freeze just allowed those efforts to stay put.

If I let them get too long, they’ll curl back down regardless of how much product I use. Trimmed, they hold. Untrimmed, no sculpting wax on earth is going to freeze them.

The brow lamination detour

I got engaged and did what a lot of people do, which is obsess over my face, experiment with different beauty treatments and decide that the version of my face I liked the most needed to be preserved for the big day.

Lamination was supposed to do what Brow Freeze does for me every day, but last for an extended period of time. How lucky would my husband-to-be be if he got to wake up next to my perfectly styled eyebrows every morning I thought. I learned the hard way that lamination was most definitely not the way to go for me. The chemicals burned my skin, and when it settled, the result was worse than what I get from a jar of Brow Freeze in thirty seconds every morning.

I paid over $250 to make something semi-permanent that I already had. That’s an expensive mistake that is hard to warn people about because the alternative isn’t necessarily a service someone can sell you an appointment for.

I wore the Brow Freeze on my wedding day.

Gotta be honest

I have not meaningfully tested the eyebrow product field.

I tried Refy Brow Sculpt Shaping and Lifting Gel with Strong Hold once, on a girls trip. I borrowed it from a friend and it was less than fine, but that’s not really data. I used it twice, in the car after visiting a national park and then on the way to a rodeo. It wasn’t mine and the rest of my makeup wasn’t done so it’s not really a comparison. At best, I guess you could call that an anecdote.

So I can tell you with confidence that Brow Freeze works. I cannot tell you it’s the best one, because I haven’t lived with anything else long enough to know, and I’m suspicious of anyone who claims otherwise about a product you have to use for months before you know how it truly fits into your life.

So is six jars a verdict, or complacency?

Complacency renews whether or not you’re paying attention; it’s basically a subscription. This is definitely not that. Every time I’ve almost run out, I’ve noticed, and bought it again over everything new I’d been shown in the meantime. All that to say, I keep choosing it.

Receipts

Verdict: Proven for me, not proven against what else is out there.

What I paid: Five or six jars over the course of about five years. Against $75+ a visit for waxing, ~$200 a visit for tweezing, and one lamination burn I’ll never get over.

What would change my mind: If Anastasia Beverly Hills changed the formula or if I read an article like this about a similar product I hadn’t considered.

Revisit: February 2027

I had a thought in the shower after getting back from a recent weekend in Newport with close friends: girls’ trips are in fact focus groups.

A group of women in their 30s sharing a hotel room for a long weekend will no doubt lead to an unpaid qualitative research study. Everyone’s toiletry bag is exposed, suitcases are exploding across the floor, someone needs to borrow someone’s [insert forgotten travel necessity here]. It’s the closest thing to a live product demonstration I have ever experienced.

It doesn’t take much to be flooded by product recommendations from aspirational influencers with hair/skin/homes/etc. you have never seen IRL. Social media obviously makes it easy to understand what products are trending and what brands people are currently flocking to, but on a girls’ trip no one is trying to influence you, which as it turns out is exactly why it works. You get to see products you may have been eyeing exist in their natural habitat, which for me is far more convincing than almost anything else on the internet.

A girls’ trip provides the context people don’t mention in their GRWMs, and context is of course everything. I know who heat-styles their hair every morning, who never washes their makeup brushes, who impulse buys and who has had the same moisturizer on their bathroom counter for the last five years.

A trip with your friends lets you test and see something on someone whose body, hair, personal style and buying habits you actually know. You get to find out whether the styling cream is the missing ingredient for your slicked-back summer hair, if the canvas hat you keep coming back to is worth the splurge, or whether you actually need to make room for milky toner in your skincare routine.

By the end of the weekend I’d spent $100 on products I had tested my way into and validated a few hundred dollars’ worth of stuff I already owned. All it took was borrowing everyone’s stuff and letting them borrow mine. Nobody was selling anything and yet everybody bought something.

Here’s what got a unanimous vote of confidence:

Crown Affair Smoothing Air Dry Cream + Finishing Gel

Crown Affair’s styling cream and gel are well worth it. They smell great, control flyaways and keep baby hairs in place without feeling like there’s anything in your hair. We all have different hair textures ranging from straight/fine to wavy/thick and took turns squeezing the last drops out of my friend’s bottles during the trip. I ordered my own set as soon as I got home.

Lack of Color Canvas Holiday Bucket Hat

This bucket hat is a 10/10. Tried and tested by four women with different complexions and head sizes, we all looked good in the beige in size Medium/Large. The ties are great for windy days, but can also be tucked away if that’s not your vibe. The brim folds to meet your level of sun protection and it’s easy to pack without destroying the hat.

Buck Mason Parachute Poplin Pants

People are apparently talking about the Leset Kyoto Carpenter Pant? IDK her, but my Buck Mason pants (at almost half the price) were apparently a good “dupe” according to those in the market. They have a relaxed fit through the hip and leg, don’t wrinkle too easily and are a great lightweight pant to throw on after the beach or to walk around town.

Homéoplasmine

The French pharmacy staple does indeed reign supreme. Great for dry lips, eczema spots, irritation, you name it. It’s an ointment similar to Aquaphor, but better because you get to say you got it in France! Not linking this one because there are a lot of counterfeits online so it’s worth getting from an actual pharmacy or a friend going to France.

The jury’s still out on:

Vacation Chardonnay Oil SPF30

Smells and spreads okay, but it’s messy, doesn’t absorb well and transfers. Fine in a pinch, but wouldn’t be the one I reach for. Plus at least one of us got a sunburn wearing it (though to be fair, that was most likely user error). I currently prefer this one from Bask or this one from Supergoop.

Eadem Le Chouchou Exfoliating + Softening Peptide Lip Balm

I was outvoted, but I’m not convinced. Three out of four women on our girls’ trip approved Eadem’s message, but in my opinion there’s nothing an overpriced lipgloss can do for me that the aforementioned Homeoplasmine can’t.

Byoma Milky Toner

Unsure. Half of us swore by Byoma’s Milky Toner. One of us had just ordered a different brand to try and the other couldn’t justify adding yet another step to their skincare routine. Further testing is required so we’ll have to come back to this one after another girls’ trip.

Purposely not tested:

Lettuce (or uncooked greens of any kind)

We were all shitting a brick about shitting a brick and agreed because of the Cyclospora outbreak at the time we would avoid any uncooked greens the entire weekend. We survived on lobster, french fries and martinis.

Either way, it turns out the best product testing lab is in a hotel room where four women have to share a bathroom.

Some links below are affiliate links; I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. I link to things I've bought, things I've rejected, and things I'm still deciding on. I'll always say which.

The four hair tools I own are also the four I never bought. Each entered my life by chance and none were the result of weeks of obsessive research (which is incredibly off-brand for me).

I should flag up front that these brushes were either stolen or gifted. This is important context because it’s often easy to love something you didn’t pay for. Spending someone else’s money might remove an entire layer of scrutiny, but it doesn’t remove the test of time.

Some of the brushes are newer than others so I’ve split them into two categories. Two are settled after years of use while the others are still under review.

Settled

Mason Pearson Dressing Comb (C1)

Let’s start with my most prized possession of the bunch: the comb.

I don't know how the tooth broke. Maybe in a moving box somewhere between Brooklyn and Miami.

I’m not sure if I stole it from my now husband that way or if it broke in my custody. I usually notice everything, but this comb has simply existed in my drawer, reliably doing its job over the course of seven years, through a move, a wedding and a baby.

I’ve never considered replacing it.

I have long, thick, wavy hair. Every inexpensive comb I owned before that flexed the moment I tried to part my hair. I’d start a center part, hit resistance and watch the teeth bend sideways instead of continuing through. I could never get a clean line.

I wasn’t looking for anything fancy, I just needed a comb that didn’t lose every single argument with my hair.

The Mason Pearson Dressing Comb is double-sided, with fine teeth on one half and wider teeth on the other. The fine side gives me the cleanest center part I’ve ever had. It doesn’t flex or catch. It goes exactly where I want it to, missing tooth and all.

Once my part is done, I flip it over and use the wider teeth to gently comb through the rest of my hair without unnecessary pulling, especially around my crown, where I’d prefer to keep every strand I have.

One small detail that makes me appreciate it even more is that Mason Pearson brushes are made in England, but the combs are manufactured in Switzerland by a company that specializes exclusively in combs. That’s the level of attention that could really get me to justify a purchase.

Would I replace it with my own money?

Immediately. It’s the only thing on this list I’d order again the same day if it disappeared, but I’d have my husband buy it so I could steal it again.

This comb has definitely earned its keep.

Mason Pearson Pocket Bristle & Nylon Hairbrush BN4

I’ve had this one for five or six years. It was a gift from a friend who somehow found it at Costco, which feels like either the least or most aspirational way to acquire a cult British hairbrush.

Mine is the bristle-and-nylon version, and I think that’s the one most people with thick hair actually want.

Pure boar bristle is better suited for finer hair. Pure nylon is primarily for detangling. The combination gives me both. If you have thick hair and buy the all-boar version because it’s the one everyone photographs, I suspect you may be disappointed without immediately knowing why.

This brush lives in my toiletry bag. It’s traveled everywhere with me, and as you can see it’s incredibly well-loved.

Would I replace it with my own money?

Yes. Every time I’m at Costco, I roam the aisles hoping it has returned. I don’t need a replacement, but there’s something absurdly satisfying about making a luxury beauty purchase at the same place you can buy a rotisserie chicken and a 48-pack of paper towels.

This too has earned its keep.

Still Under Review

La Bonne Brosse No. 02

I’ve been using this since it was gifted to me on my birthday in October 2025.

It’s French, made with boar and nylon bristles, and its twisted handle is beautiful to look at and feels great in the palm of your hand. Seeing it on my vanity brings me joy and it makes brushing my hair feel like a special ritual. IDK what magic they’re cooking up in France, but my hair feels soft and shiny after every pass.

And yet the strongest endorsement I can give isn’t actually about mine.

I bought one as a gift for my husband’s stepmom who is almost impossible to shop for. She loved it. Gifting is the higher bar. After all, you’re putting your money and your taste on the line.

Would I replace it with my own money?

Yes (and ahem, technically I did), but ask me again in another three years.

Oribe Teasing Brush

I’ve owned this for two months after it came in a care package in the mail (I have great friends). I don’t believe that’s enough time to tell you it’s forever, but we’re getting along great so far.

Its job is simple: smoothing baby hairs and flyaways when I wear my hair slicked back.

Compared to the inexpensive Amazon version I already owned, the biggest difference is the bristle density. The bristles are packed more tightly together, giving you noticeably better grip and control around your hairline.

That’s a real, albeit small improvement.

For some people, that extra control will absolutely justify the price. For others, the Amazon version will do just fine. Slightly better isn’t automatically worth paying more for, but I will say the Oribe one is beautiful to look at.

Would I replace it with my own money?

I honestly don’t know yet.

Of the four, the one I’d grab in a fire is the one I stole from my husband at the beginning of our relationship, and it’s missing a tooth.

It wasn’t a carefully researched purchase. It wasn’t even my purchase. It just quietly kept doing its job, year after year, until I forgot there had ever been a problem to solve in the first place.

This was yet another reminder that research doesn’t buy attachment. The products I love the most are usually the ones that have kept their promises for years until I stopped noticing them altogether.

Buy the comb. Sit with the rest.

Receipts

Verdict: Proven: the Mason Pearson comb and pocket brush. Still Under Review: La Bonne Brosse No. 02 and Oribe Teasing Brush

What they replaced: A drugstore comb, a Tangle Teezer and an Amazon Bristle Brush

What would change my mind: Honestly, nothing.

Revisit: June 2027

The sheets left an impression on me long after I checked out so much so that I called the hotel about a week later to ask them who made them. “Somma 1867,” said the woman on the phone who seemed accustomed to providing guests with that answer.

Something about how matter-of-fact she was and how easily I was able to gather this intel made me feel like I would be swimming in my own version of the Baccarat Hotel bed in no time.

I fired up a Chrome tab only to discover that I didn’t actually know which sheets I was looking for and that none of the dimensions on Somma 1867’s website matched my mattress size.

I emailed Somma 1867. No response. I emailed again and still nothing. This sent me into an obsessive spiral. I needed these sheets. In my mind, they had somehow become the missing piece. I started down a rabbit hole researching bedding brand after bedding brand all while remaining hopeful that Somma 1867 would get back to me. I searched for Somma 1867 distributors, called the Baccarat hotel back to see if they could sell me sheets, and tried keyword after keyword, only to come up empty-handed.

It was time to pivot. I got a set of sheets at the Frette outlet and I remember feeling so chic and mature. If I couldn’t have the Somma 1867 set I dreamed of/in, then a brand as renowned as Frette would be an excellent consolation prize. There’s just something about making your bed with a fresh set of fancy sheets that slaps so hard. That euphoric feeling lasts all of about 30 seconds though if your bedroom isn’t a luxury hotel suite.

I suddenly realized what my brain was up to in trying to recreate that restful night of sleep. I thought I could simply buy my way back into a memory.

But the thing is my bedroom already had blackout shades, a great mattress, crisp AC and a beautiful silk quilt I scored at the Frette outlet (10/10), but my bedroom was never going to be the Baccarat Hotel because the Baccarat Hotel doesn’t have a dishwasher I need to unload or a pile of laundry I need to put away(!!!).

We experience luxury as though it’s the result of a single extraordinary object when it’s almost always the accumulation of dozens of very thoughtful decisions.

Yes, of course the sheets mattered. But so did the fact that someone else made the bed, that the hotel had a signature scent, that this was one of the last trips my husband and I took before our baby arrived, that I felt energized after hanging out with friends I hadn’t seen in a long time in one of my favorite cities in the whole wide world.

The moment I managed my own expectations I was able to realize that importing sheets from Italy wasn’t going to be the life-changing purchase I expected. Note to self and anyone else who obsesses over homewares thinking fancy textiles will turn you into a new person: luxury isn’t one perfect thing, it’s a bunch of tiny things working together.

Looking back, it’s actually pretty funny that I believed the answer to better sleep was hidden inside a textile mill in Como that continues to ghost me.

In the meantime, here’s where I landed in the sleep department. Flagging that my only real test for whether something is worth it is whether I’ve stopped noticing (obsessing over) it.

Frette Sheets and Aeptom Sheets

While the search continues for the perfect sheets, I’m currently alternating between Frette and Aeptom.

Both brands are good, not great, and leave me wanting more.

The Frette are 100% cotton, beautiful and feel luxe. They are sateen, which sleeps warmer than I want in Miami, and they started pilling after a few washes (despite using my washer and dryer’s delicate setting). I don’t remember the exact amount I paid at the outlet, but it was somewhere around a quarter of the retail price, which is why I highly recommend checking out the outlet before purchasing full-price.

The Aeptom are 100% Viscose derived from FSC-certified Organic Bamboo. They’re cold to the touch almost to the point they feel damp (in a crisp, good way), but are a bit too slippery for my taste. If you like your quilt and sheets to stay aligned and employ any form of a hospital tuck to your bed making, these are unlikely the sheets for you.

From my research I learned that Somma 1867 is a 150-year-old manufacturer based in the Lake Como region of Italy. It originally started out as a wool mill before it started making the most perfect sheets known to womankind. In addition to its consumer site, it has a separate line called “La Suite” where custom products are made for hotels, yachts, spas, etc. My best guess is the sheets I slept on were made bespoke for the Baccarat. Probably the most useful thing I learned is that Somma 1867 markets its cotton percale on being cool, light and breathable, which is exactly what I’m currently missing. What clearly matters more than the brand is the weave.

Still on my list to try (percale obviously):

• Somma 1867 ;(

• Sferra

• Matouk

• Anything I’m missing?

Purple Plus vs. Saatva Classic

We upgraded our Queen Purple Plus to a King Saatva Classic mattress and never looked back. The Purple was great, but as someone who sleeps on both my stomach and side, I realized I prefer a mattress with a little less give. I never think about it anymore, which now that I think about it may be the highest compliment I can give.

Blackout Shades

The automatic ones in our bedroom came with our house and I can’t believe I ever lived my life without them. Six months ago we had them installed in my daughter’s room. They cost ~$5K for two big floor-to-ceiling windows (we live in Miami, in case that’s helpful context). They were another purchase I stopped noticing immediately—well, until one of the new ones started squeaking. We’re invoking warranty rights, so I’ll share the brand once that gets resolved.

Byredo Tree House Room Spray

On days where I’m feeling a bit extra, I’ll give my sheets a spritz of Byredo’s Tree House room spray. The Baccarat Hotel has its signature scent and my bedroom has this one.

The purchases that work disappear. The ones that don’t get a Substack written about them. Somma 1867, if you’re reading this, check your email!

I convinced myself that the problem was one missing piece. First it was a runner. Then a bench. Then art. Then a “live plant that can survive in a windowless room” (tbd if that exists). Then chic, sculptural hooks that don’t look like hooks. Then a mirror. Then the walls. Then I convinced myself I needed a $500 storage basket because that’s what cultured adults do.

And then during a rabbit hole search for “best hallway runners” I had an epiphany. When I go to someone’s house, I’m not inspecting the pile of their rug or mentally grading the smoothness of their walls. I couldn’t tell you what their cabinet hardware looked like, but I could definitely tell you exactly how their home made me feel.

This made me realize that what I wanted wasn’t just a beautiful hallway with a “washable, chic, understated, wool, but maybe not wool, but definitely high traffic, custom-size, that doesn’t break the bank” runner (all search terms I actually used). I wanted to be able to walk through my front door and have my shoulders drop out of my ears.

A single textile, no matter how beautiful, could not give me that.

This meant I was asking myself (and ChatGPT) all the wrong questions. I wasn’t really looking for the “chicest hallway runner under $1,000.” I was trying to understand why walking into my house made me feel so blahhh.

I naturally spend way too much time thinking about the projects I would tackle if money were no object. There’s the kitchen, the bathrooms, the custom millwork. They’re easy to obsess over because they are the projects everyone notices. They’re dramatic, and make for great before-and-afters.

But no one experiences their home by admiring each room in isolation. We instead experience them sequentially and the first 10 seconds I spend in my hallway when I get home set the tone for everything that comes after.

Okay, so does this mean I need not buy anything and that I should be happy with what I have since I’m chasing a feeling and not a magic physical thing that solves all my problems? Absolutely not, but the moment I understood the feeling I was trying to create, every design decision suddenly became much easier.

Here’s what earned a place in my hallway and why.

One quick note: Some links below are affiliate links; I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. I link to things I've bought, things I've rejected, and things I'm still deciding on. I'll always say which.

Walls

Limewash. I want the walls to feel like they’re wrapping around you instead of reflecting overhead light back at you. I limewashed my daughter’s room a couple years ago and was surprised by how much the texture softened the entire space. It made the room feel less like painted drywall and more like a place that had been lived in.

Runner

Going custom. I’m between this custom rug from Ernesta and this one from Nordic Knots. The biggest lesson from this rabbit hole (aside from finding a deeply validating study that suggests women may experience cluttered homes differently than men), was that the length of my runner mattered more than almost anything else. My current Revival runner is too short and too narrow, which makes it feel like it randomly landed there rather than belonging there.

Storage

A basket that earns its keep. My daughter’s shoes aren’t going anywhere and unfortunately neither are my husband’s Lussos. Instead of pretending they don’t exist I’m going to give them a home that contributes to the space, plus as mentioned above I have already convinced myself I need it. I’m leaning towards Ferm Living’s ceramic woven basket because it will function as storage without looking like storage.

Hooks

Hiding what doesn’t need to be seen. My tennis bag now hangs around the corner instead of greeting everyone who walks through the front door. It cost me exactly $0 and made a bigger difference than several things I’d actually spent money on.

What’s next?

I’m intentionally stopping here.

Another version of me would have immediately started shopping for a mirror, art, lighting, etc., but this current version of me wants to live with these changes first. If the hallway feels unfinished (or is still giving me agita) in a few weeks, then I’ll decide what’s missing.

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Recently, I have realized that when it comes to making any decision (big or small), what really gets me going is figuring out what problem I’m actually trying to solve. This has quietly reshaped my thought process and changed how I make almost every decision.

Every time I think I need to buy something, I end up asking a completely different question. The thought usually starts pretty innocently. Something like…

“These sheets are pilling, I need to get new ones”

“Something’s missing, I think the hallway could use a new runner”

“I’m thinking of switching from Delta to American Airlines”

“I’ve been working out a lot more so I should probably get an Oura ring.”

And then before I know it, I am alternating between Pinterest, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, 57 Chrome tabs, a group chat with friends and waking up my husband just as he’s about to fall asleep thinking through tradeoffs, opinions and feelings.

Somewhere along this process, the question almost always changes. It goes from, “Which version of this thing that I have convinced myself I need should I buy?” to “What problem am I truly trying to solve here?” I have realized that those aren’t always the same things.

So “what are the best king size sheets under $250?” quickly becomes, “how to make getting into bed every night feel like a 5-star hotel experience?”

“Where can I store 300 Magna-tiles without my house looking like a daycare?” leads me down a rabbit hole of researching custom millwork, convincing myself I need to replace my stair railing and accidentally developing an entire design philosophy.

I keep having these research sessions (some more intense than others) that make it nearly impossible for me to provide a straightforward, one-word answer.

My friends have started asking me before they buy things because they know I’ve probably already gone down the rabbit hole.

I no longer care about what’s objectively “best.” I care about what’s best for this specific person, in this specific season of life, solving this specific problem. Spoiler alert: those answers don’t always line up.

None of this is to say I’m an expert. (I’m definitely not!) This is just how my brain works and I have already done the work and figured I might as well write it down so the next person doesn’t have to start from scratch. If it prompts any thoughts on why I’m wrong (especially if you have owned something for longer than I have, found something I might have missed or think I have completely misunderstood the problem), I’m all ears.

One thing worth mentioning (that I find interesting) is that I almost never ever start with Google when I need to research something anymore. Most of the time, I use AI to help me compare options, surface brands I may not have considered and pressure-test my thinking. I’ll browse Pinterest for inspo, read reviews, check Reddit if it feels relevant, look at brand sites, poll my really smart and super chic friends, ask my husband and compare different perspectives. AI is part of my process, but it can’t tell me what my taste is and what feels like me. AI can compare products, but it cannot tell me what I’ll love living with.

So that’s how I’m approaching sat with it. It’s my research notebook and a place to share what I’m learning, what changed my mind, where I landed and sometimes why I decide not to buy the thing at all. I’ll write about products, travel, home decor, parenting, tech, work, etc. It’s really about any decision that is worth sitting with for a little longer.

Hopefully you’ll borrow some of my research, tell me when I’m wrong, and/or start asking a few different questions of your own.

Welcome to sat with it.