I finally finished my bottle of Silkie Rinse, and it was good overall, but very different than other cleansers I’ve used. It definitely cleaned well without stripping the skin. Washing my face took WAY less product than any other cleanser I’ve ever used, so it took forever to get through the bottle. Initially, I liked the control of the squeeze bottle with the nozzle top, but as the bottle ran low I was very irritated that I couldn’t store it upside down to get to the dregs. Ultimately and disappointingly the bottle is still made of plastic. The smell was odd: light and unobtrusive, but also very artificial, like rose-scented injection-molded plastic. If that fits your aesthetic, this is your dream cleanser. For me, it’s good, but not good enough to make me forgive the plastic use and repurchase it.
These bags have been very hit-and-miss for me. They look fantastic and have unique designs with clean lines and minimal branding, which initially attracted me to the brand. However, the performance of their non-leather materials leaves a lot to be desired. I’ve had the handles on two nylon totes start disintegrating after only a few outings, and layers of press-glued material start separating almost out of the box. I have one north-south bag though where the handles are secured by some delicate rivets that regularly holds 30 pounds and still looks brand new somehow. Know how you plan to treat the bag before you purchase and invest wisely, because only some of their products can take the same level of abuse as some classic American bag brands.
The KitchenAid mixer is iconic kitchen perfection. It cannot be beaten.
A fight over who would inherit a Hobart model KitchenAid mixer nearly ended a speaking relationship between siblings a generation ahead of me. I grew up with that mixer, learned to cook on it, and bought the exact same 40-year-old model secondhand for my home when I moved out. I’m confident my descendants will be fighting over it in another 40 years, because it and my parents’ mixer have never had any issues, and have many fine attachments that are also apparently indestructible.
They are heavy and difficult to move, but I’ve never known anyone who had one of their mixers that didn’t have a permanent place of pride on their counter.
I remember when e.l.f. launched, and they’ve come a LONG way since their earliest products. The brand’s trajectory has been pretty consistently upward. That said, this is a very utilitarian brand, sort of the white crew socks of the makeup aisle. Everyone has them and uses them, you can even make looks that highlight them, but they’re not something to get excited about.
This is a great brand for starter products. If you’re just learning how to do makeup or experimenting with a new product or technique, e.l.f. is a one-stop shop for a middle-of-the-pack example of virtually any product. There’s a handful of duds, a handful of gems, but on the whole the group has mediocre performance, formulas, and shade selection, at a price point where you can’t feel bad wasting product on experimentation.
There are two exceptions to this: their skincare and their brushes. The brushes are exceptional and consistently outperform brushes 10x their price in my kit. Their stipple brush and eyeshadow brushes are my favorites I own in those categories, and because they’re so cheap I can actually afford to buy duplicates for my travel kit too. I wish they weren’t made or packaged with so much plastic, but for brushes that deliver consistently over almost a decade I’m willing to forgive the material.
The skincare, on the other hand, is fairly overpriced in my opinion. The formulas are basic, the packaging is plastic-y and uninspired, and even their hydration line was too drying for my extremely tolerant skin. There are much better and cheaper drugstore skincare options out there that are widely available.
I have knee-length hair, and this brush is the detangling queen, the anti-breakage champion, and lasts longer than any other brush I’ve ever owned. My only issue with them is the fact that they’re made of plastic. Besides being bad for the planet, plastic can generate static, so on days when I don’t need as much serious detangling power I do use a non-plastic brush. Still, as plastic brushes go these last a long time, so I still recommend them and rate them quite highly. And they’re becoming more widely available, which is a real plus.
I have knee-length hair, so hair oil is serious business for me, and this is one of the better ones. It’s lightweight, smells great, lasts a long time, and I swear it makes my hair dry faster somehow than when I forget to use it. They also often come in reusable glass packaging, which is a rarity for hair products.
Although I’ve repurchased this several times in the past, I’ve since switched to other hair oils, primarily because of the smell. Although it is nice, it is useless in the formula and does nothing for the hair. There are other oils, even pure argan oils, you can buy for cheaper that don’t have straight-up perfume in them. And if you really need the smell, Moroccan Oil actually sells candles, so you don’t actually need to apply hair product for it.
This brand makes high-quality timeless knitwear. I love traveling with their pieces because they always look good and blend beautifully into my wardrobe. Everything I’ve bought from them has become a staple for me: I particularly love their alpaca wool coat in the winter.
This is my favorite toothpaste tablet. So many tablets taste like straight up baking soda, but these have a gentle flavor while still being scrubby enough to deal with staining from a constant tea drinker. Having toothpaste in a tablet instead of a tube helps eliminate both mess and the guesswork of when a tube is going to run out and if you actually squeezed it all out. The little container they come with is incredibly travel friendly and easy to refill. My only gripe is that the refills don’t come in a giant milk carton size to save on packaging and shipping when reordering, but otherwise this is my forever toothpaste.
I’ve never worn the standard Croc, but I gotta say: their huaraches are one of the most ride-or-die shoes I have ever owned. I bought a pair out of desperation in an airport in 2013, and they only died when I finally wore them clean through the soles in 2018. I immediately went and bought two more pairs. They are waterproof, quick drying, and virtually indestructible. I can walk up to eight miles in them with no foot issues, and I’ve tested literal hiking boots that haven’t made that grade. I hate that they are plastic, but there are some cases where you need a plastic sandal, and better these than some foam flip flop that only lasts one summer. The other major downside is that if you somehow do break a Croc, it’s not reparable, but I don’t know how you would break one of these with normal wear. Consider permanently replacing your flip flops with a pair, but ultimately try to invest in more sustainable shoe options.
I enjoy the novelty of subscription boxes. I think they make great gifts, and this one is especially good for girls and young women who are just dipping their toes into the makeup game. People who have more advanced or mature style I think won’t appreciate this one as much: I had this for a little over a year, and the colors/finishes/perfumes they pick are very neutral crowd pleasers, even in the curated boxes, so they get repetitive after a while. Although beauty samples are fun, they are annoying to store and pretty awful for the environment. I was also irritated whenever Birchbox included one of their in-house products as a sample, which was almost every box. Only one of those ever proved to be memorably useful. I did like the boxes themselves though: they were pretty, good for storage, and sturdier than you’d think. But like the samples inside them, they stacked up after a while.