Add to Cart #3

Another round up of my favourite purchases over the past month - freestyle categories! No flow! Just Joy! Let’s go!

I am always fearful of an eczema ambush. A bit of stress, some extreme weather, too much dust and POW! Eczema all over my eyelids and around my mouth. Nothing make me feel worse about the way I look whilst also being extremely uncomfortable, and it can take a good couple of weeks to clear.

Of course the thing to do is to use a cortisone steroid cream, but this involves a trip to the doctor and a very boring conversation about obvious things like not using dishsoap to wash your skin and sometimes an offer of a giant tub of horrible aqueous cream that you promise to use just so you can get out of there.

Two things I can tell you about eczema that are lesser known: the cortisone cream starts degrading as soon as it is opened, and has a much less pronounced effect after a few weeks. This means you really do have to go to the bastard GP every time.

The other thing I can tell you is that if you are stuck in the itch/scratch cycle, a full set of acrylic nails are extremely effective at blunting your nails - think of them as glamorous oven glove alternatives. My poor old nails can’t go through acrylics again though, and I’ve gone right off having my nails done for now, it’s so much waiting around.

During a recent flare up, I saw this stuff advertised on Instagram, which is obviously a giant red flag, but I looked the company up on TrustPilot and it seemed OK. The ingredients are simple: coconut oil, squalane, tea tree, chamomile. It’s a decent price (£23) for 50ml, so I ordered one and I have to say I’m impressed! Look, it’s not going to immediately clear a massive painful flare up, but it does feel really calming. It’s more of a light facial oil in texture than a serum, and I have been using it regularly in the morning under sunscreen and in the evening under lardy moisturiser. To my delight, my skin is noticeably happier, and it has a really lovely herbal chamomile smell.

I have always liked the idea of refillable (from Wild or Fussy or whoever) but up until recently you could only buy it in stick form, and only as a deodorant (as opposed to a proper antiperspirant). I HATE the feeling of stick deodorant, it just feels so grim to me, like scraping a warm waxy candle under your arms. I am very strictly a roll-on girl. I have also never tried a natural deodorant that didn’t leave me wet and honking after lunch, and it’s not something I’ve been interested enough to persist in exploring. Well reader, as you can imagine, my interest was PIQUED when I saw that Wild were doing a new roll on with an aluminium case and lots of different antiperspirant stinks to lock and load it with. When I saw you could have your initials engraved on it, I was sold.

I have now got through four of the little roll on flavours (so far my fave has been Sandalwood and Cedar, but they are all pleasant). The case is neat and still looks new, and I have been dry and unripe, even during that little heatwave we had.

My love for a brown eyeshadow is well documented. Like breton top disease, I can’t seem to stop buying them. And I almost didn’t bother mentioning this one, because I don’t want to send you to sleep, but I have been wearing it pretty much every day since I got it and reaching for it over all my favourites. The texture is just right: matte without being draggy on the skin at all. It has great staying power, and the slanted tip is really useful for a bit of undereye lining in a way that I prefer to the dome shape of the Bobbi Brown or Laura Mercier shadow sticks. The worst thing about it is the shade name for the warm fawny mid brown: Nut All Men. OH RIHANNA!

I have a lot of cookbooks. Like, a lot a lot. Most cookbooks have a theme, don’t they? All Mexican, or all made in a pressure cooker, or all gluten free or whatever. I am cynical about cookbooks that are just sort of general cooking. I mean, I know my way around a kitchen! What could you possibly have to say to me, AN EXPERT, about cooking and eating that hasn’t already been said a hundred different ways? The only two books that I can think of to have done this well on a completely general theme are Nigella’s seminal How to Eat and more recently, Bee Wilson’s The Secret of Cooking. Well, Ella’s Kitchen Book is on that podium now. It’s sensational. It has given me new ideas (tortelloni soup!), easy short cuts (no chop prawn curry!) and new techniques (meatballs made with raw rice as the carb!). And it’s not just readable, it’s actively witty! Even the list of kitchen equipment (usually eye crossingly dull) is charming. So, yes, get it - I will be cooking from it often. Tonight I am making some rice with squash cubes and raisins to go with the lamb I had no other clever plans for. Ella Risbridger is of course also on Substack - do have a look.

Little tiny pastry cutters in their own little tiny tin! An extremely pleasing charity shop find, I have used them to make shortcrust shapes on a chicken pie. Of course, after having just declared what an excellent cook I am, the pie looks like afterbirth- but it tasted very very nice and my kiddos loved doing the pastry shapes. It felt like a scene from ‘With Love, Megan’ but with less Loro Piana and sinking anxiety.

One thing about me is that I am incapable of doing housework cheerfully. I have only one approach to cleaning and that is ‘frantic martyr’. I can’t relate to people who say it is ‘like therapy’ or that they find it soothing - I feel nothing but rage and resentment towards every skid mark leaving, mess making bastard in my household. This telescopic scrubber has made much lighter work of one of my least favourite jobs: bathtub and shower tile cleaning. It’s so civilised! The fact that I now don’t have to get onto my knees next to the bath and reach into it with the side of the tub digging into my chest has made me 50% less enraged at the task. A winner.

Specifically this Acelie Bronze gingham 100% linen bed sheet set. Look, I’ve been fucking about on the Piglet in Bed website for months now - how many times have I hovered over the ‘buy now’ button, but not been able to bring myself to spend £300 on sheets? SO many. Like, who am I? Elton John??? This bedlinen is a very direct dupe of PIB gingham bedding and I ordered it with quite low expectations given just how much cheaper it was. Guys, it’s a triumph. The weight, the stitching, the button closure - not least the brown mustard colour which looks excellent. I am delighted and you will be too if you follow suit.

That’s it from my cart this time! I love hearing about what you’ve bought - please comment! It makes me so happy!

The plan next week is a new feature where I attempt to solve your personal shopping white whales - do please stick a request in the So Good chat. I’ve got loads of good asks already, but I am always hungry for more.

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Claire x