I never want people to buy things they don’t need, and seriously, who has the money for those shenanigans anyway? Cost of living crises, amiright?
I’ve recently joined Substack, and I had someone ask me about shopping recommendations because they liked a lot of the stuff I recommended. I’ve dropped the ball on blogging (I blame the pandemic and babies), so I’ll kick it old-school and do a five-things post now and then. Enjoy!
Here are 5 things I bought & liked.
Arnica Cream
I have deep-set eyes and dark bags under them. It’s just genetic, and there’s not much I can do about it except drink a lot of water and ignore my children. I listened to a podcast recently and heard a tip for using arnica cream or gel to reduce under-eye darkness. Arnica minimises the appearance of bruising, so the same principles should apply to my under-eye bags. I’ve been gently dabbing it under my eyes before bed, and no word of a lie: it’s making a difference. You have to be careful (it bloody hurts if you get it IN your eye), and it doesn’t play well with make-up, so I never use it in the morning. It’s tingly and refreshing. I like it.
Radical Yes shoes
I’m a hard convert. I have a pair of leather merino boots and a pair of pink trainers I wear constantly. I’ve got my eye on these Neptune Sandals, but I live in a small town, and three of my friends already have them (Hey Lin, Lisa and Robyn!). It might be a bit much for all of us to wear them. If you’re on the fence about Radical Yes shoes, get off the fence and go buy some. You won’t regret it.
Oxo Vegetable Chopper
This was my favourite purchase in 2022. I use it several times a week. We decided not to cheap out and went with the higher quality OXO one and it’s the best. I love a chopped salad but I don’t love chopping salad. I use it for cucumber and tomatoes for salad, onion for general cooking, and beans for stir fry. It’s such a tremendous time-saver. Especially for things like soup where you’re finely dicing carrots, onions, and celery. Shaves at least 15 minutes off dinner prep each night.
Valley Eyewear Sunglasses
I bought these for a particular reason, so hear me out. I love aviators, but they typically have flimsy arms made of thin wire. They also have nose pads attached with fine wire. I use my sunglasses as a headband. If my sunnies aren’t on my face, they’re on my head. With traditional aviators, I end up bending the arms on my big boof head, and the nose pads bent when my hair gets wrapped around them. I wanted the aviator shape but with a rigid frame. These fit the bill perfectly. I got the mocha frames with dark lenses because I don’t want people to know I’m looking at them. This brand is also not owned by Luxottica, which is rare. Luxottica owns about 90% of the sunglass market, and that kind of monopoly is gross, so I try not to support them when I can help it. This
Yogurt Covered Rice Cakes
We’ve only recently discovered them, and they are our new favourite. We originally bought them for the kids, but they don’t like them (because they’re fools!) so now we just buy them for us – there are few different varieties out there we generally get ours at Aldi but you can these ones at Woolies. They also have chocolate ones, which are just as delicious as they sound. There’s a TikTok trend of chocolate-covered rice cake recipes going around, but you can just buy them. Much less messy.
What have you bought recently that you’ve loved?
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