Things I Bought that I Did NOT Love

Dear Readers,

While I have MANY tried-and-true products, there are other things I’m always looking for a BETTER version of. Oftentimes this is because I’m an extremely greasy person who came of age in the late 1980s/early 1990s and did not know they airbrushed girls to look so matte in magazines and will always be chasing that paper-matte finish. THE DREAM! Also I like you (probably) am not immune from Instagram ads or friend recommendations or other Substacks. Sometimes I just get A WILD FEELING and buy something for no good reason!

A lot of these things are great. Some, however, I did not love. Here they are!

This Boy Smells exploratory set. I used to love their candles, though I haven’t bought any since their big rebranding so who knows. I thought it was just, like, a packaging rebrand, I didn’t know they were trying to go more mainstream and YOUNGER for the Sephora set, which is apparently their new M.O. Since I always loved almost all of their candles (OR AT LEAST LIKED WHAT THEY WERE GOING FOR) I thought I would like-to-love most of these. Truly I hated a large chunk of them. One smelled like if a peach Jolly Rancher got drunk and slapped someone you loved very much. Actually, I am not joking, AT LEAST TWO smelled like this.

Ironically, I did love Vanilla Era enough TO USE IT UP AND THEN BUY IT??? This was a weird experience.

This setting spray from One Size. This is the most chemical-smelling thing I’ve ever sprayed onto my face, and I am someone who not infrequently uses hairspray, texture spray, and body deodorant on my face to do something about the greasiness during the summer especially, OK?? I am NOT A SNOB ABOUT CHEMICALS. This stuff is NEXT LEVEL. It felt like walking by a factory before there were ANY laws about what they could do and like a small child was the one doing the dirtiest work. Also its setting powers were just like OK compared to the promise of that toxic scent. I would breathe in a fair amount of toxic chems if my face looked flawless but this was just mid.

This Necessaire deodorant (Hinoki scent). To be fair, I think I messed up and did NOT get the scent recommended by some article? I was supposed to get the Eucalyptus scent. I don’t even HATE this one, it just smells very specifically like — do you know when you go to a health food store and quickly you catch a whiff of something and think, oh, they must make smoothies here? I have never been able to put my finger on what that scent is — probably some pulsated green of some sort — but I don’t like it in a store and I definitely DO NOT LIKE IT in my armpits.

I am also fairly cheap though and will keep using this until it’s gone because, to be clear, I don’t HATE IT and it’s kind of a novelty constantly feeling like I’m at Lassens. I made a colleague smell me and she said she loved it because it reminded her of being at Whole Foods, so, I guess that is something.

This Mrs. Meyer’s lavender hand soap. I love lavender. I love other scents of this brand of hand soap. THIS SCENT WOULD CLING TO ME LIKE THE GHOST OF YOUR NEEDIEST PROBLEMATIC FRIENDSHIP. If I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, when I was back in bed I couldn’t sleep from the aroma wafting from my hands. NO! It didn’t even smell like pure lavender! It was like terrible lavender perfume. NO NO NO! I am NOT so cheap that I didn’t THROW THIS AWAY MOSTLY STILL FULL!!!! By which I mean I THREW THIS AWAY! If you like it, I’m sorry, but I WILL NOT BE STALKED by this scent IN MY OWN BED.

Lush’s Squeeze the Day shower gel. FYI this is fine. It’s FINE! But I love Lush products partially because they are SO pungent. My whole bathroom smells great because of all the Lush stuff in my shower. So since I love lemon and because this is like NEON YELLOW I expected to be OVERWHELMED with the POWERFUL LEMON SCENT of this, and yet it’s just… lemon. It’s fine. I’ll stick with my Sleepy and Good Karma, thank you very much.

xoxoAmy

Have YOU read In Her Spotlight yet? Here are some good reasons to, if you have yet not:

• The joy and transformative power of theatre!

• The love of dogs!

• The love of hot women in suits!

• The love of self-acceptance!

Read one, read them all! When in doubt, buy in bulk!

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This ended up being a lot more about SMELLS than I planned tbh. Maybe this is a good place to tell you I am indeed a SUPER SMELLER so stuff really affects me that does not always affect other people. It is gift and a curse.