Reviews
12 claps received
4.3 average rating
notNeutral
Experience
Everything from notNeutral is so beautifully designed. Their Lino series is sort of the essential third-wave coffee ceramics set. Everything I've had from notNeutral has been durable and the quality is consistent. Their custom printed products hold up really well to wash and wear, too.
Herr's
Experience
I grew up on Herr's potato chips. They were sort of the standard cheap lunch room snack brand for me. Broadly as a brand, they are Just Fine. However, their Cheese Curls go absolutely crazy. After decades of monotonous chip and pretzel production, they let the flavor lab staff go buck wild on these. If you gave a 17th century pilgrim a single Jalapeno Popper flavored cheese curl, they would drop dead. The flavor is that strong. It's like eating a Dorito for the first time. I hope they're just scraping the surface of cheese puff innovation. FFUPS and others should take note. P.S. Their Old Bay chips are an S-Tier chip as well.
Scrub Daddy
Experience
I think it's so cool that a guy invented a highly effective engineered polymer foam scrubber and named it "Scrub Daddy." The basic idea is that the sponge is stiff and abrasive when cold and soft when hot. The basic-er idea is that it's a sponge that looks like a face and is called Scrub Daddy. (Or Scrub Mommy. We have both scrub parents at my house.) I actually never use Scrub Daddy cold. When I wash dishes, I'm committed to maximum heat at all time. In the skin-melting method, the Scrub Daddy is very effective. An extra perk is that it doesn't get gross and stinky like regular sponges. After a while, Scrub Daddy does look worse for the wear and its time to let him retire. Every time I toss a Scrub Daddy in the trash, I do feel a bit sad. He's still smiling, though.
Actual Source
Experience
Actual Source is my gold standard for a product + service design company. They're a functional design studio behind the design of brands like Joggy and Necessaire, plus those A24 coffee table books that feel so ubiquitous now. As a product company, they create and curate a great selection of art and design books. They also make goodies with their own brand on them. Actual Source is sort of instant graphic design street cred.
Boot Boyz Biz
Experience
Boot Boyz Biz does monthly drops (usually the third Thursday at 3PM CT). Everything sells out in a few minutes. There's always a few tees, sweatshirts, and hats, but usually drops will have wild card items like ping pong balls, blankets, chairs, or drinking glasses too. Each item's design is a mash up of ideas and graphics from art/philosophy/pop culture, etc. Every item is accompanied by a graduate level essay detailing where the graphics came from and what they mean. I get such a silly little dopamine rush from their products. If I recognize just a single concept from one of the pieces, it's an instant buy. Aside from looking cool, they've introduced me to a lot of new ideas I might not have known about otherwise. Items are also reasonably priced for being so limited.
Alec's Ice Cream
Experience
Alec's Ice Cream is really really good. I've been a Jeni's ride or die for years now and Alec's blueberry honey lavender flavor had me questioning my allegiances.
Feedback
The brand positions itself on being regenerative organic and using A2 dairy (dairy made by cows with a special gene that makes their milk give less tummy aches??). I think that's very nice, but I'm used to these kinds of claims compensating for the flavor being worse. The flavor is better though! Alec's is an S-tier ice cream. It kind of seems like they're doing so many things well that it might draw attention from the most important thing: that the ice cream absolutely slaps.
Body Restore
Experience
My wife and I got a variety pack of these as a gift and were surprised at how much we enjoyed them. They really do upgrade the shower experience and last a long time. My wife and I can both take showers and have a single puck last the whole time.
Feedback
There is a bag for the set, and individual bags for each shower bomb, which seems like a lot of excess packaging.
YOWIE
Experience
YOWIE has a great collection of brands and products. Shannon, the owner, has incredible taste and I often check YOWIE as a reference for what's up and coming. I love what they're building in Philly.
Ten Thousand
Experience
I'm not sure what put me over the edge, but after enough instagram ads, I caved and bought a pair of Ten Thousand Interval shorts. I'm so glad I did. Everything about them feels really thoughtful and engineered. They're durable, comfortable, and look great.
Jackfir
Experience
I once read an article that said Elizabeth Warren never washes her face and simply uses Pond's Moisturizer every morning and every night. My skincare routine has generally been the same, minus the moisturizer. I got the Jackfir daily moisturizer as a thingdrop and decided to step up my game. While waiting for my shipment to arrive, I began a morning and evening ritual of washing and moisturizing using my wife's glossier products (she'll probably be upset if she finds this out). When the Jackfir moisturizer arrived, I subbed in my new sustainable men's lotion to my self-care ritual. I'm about two weeks in overall, about a week with Jackfir, and I see nearly no discernible difference. I will admit I enjoy the process and like setting all my little products on the counter and working through them one by one. The lotion is lightweight and seems to dry fine without leaving my skin feeling oily or weird. The ingredients list seems nice, but I don't actually know anything and I'm not sure I care about natural ingredients that much. The scent is... not great. I can't put my finger on what it is, but it sort of reminds me of some obscure candy? Maybe those weird orange marshmallow peanuts? It's potent too. I don't really care for any of my daily routine products to have a strong scent. If I want to smell like something, I'll wear cologne. I would not purchase this product again because of the scent, but honestly, $48 is a bit more than I'd spend on a daily moisturizer, since Pond's seems to work just fine for Senator Warren.
Feedback
Tone down the smell.