Wow. It’s been a month of seemingly pretty random online and in-person shopping, but for God These things have sparked the collective imagination of my Instagram followers. From a pressure-relieving seat pad to a face contour applicator that creates instant cheekbones, here are the items that have people going crazy.
I mean, we should obviously start with the sexiest item: This “prolonged sitting” gel seat cushion has a special honeycomb design that helps distribute the load and relieve pressure on your lower back, hips, sciatic nerve, and crucially, your ol’ fanjita, your undercarriage. Yes, folks, I bought a seat cushion specifically to keep my three cents from going numb when I type at my desk for long periods of time.
I can hear them all now, shouting: “You shouldn’t be sitting for so long anyway!” “My Apple Watch makes me get up and do jumping jacks every twenty minutes!” “GET A STANDING DESK!!!”
Don’t worry. If I want to sit at my desk and type until I lose all feeling in my butt, I’ll do it. And the new gel seat cushion allows me to hold on even longer than before. What a bonus!
All joking aside, the cushion is actually great if you have back pain and find all office chairs uncomfortable. It doesn’t give you a soft, spongy feeling, like you’re sinking into a couch, but it just… supports you. In a very forgiving way. It also allows air to circulate between your bum and the chair, which is helpful, and you can pick up the cushion by its special handle (just a regular handle, but I’m in QVC mode) and carry it around to use in the car or at The Globe theatre. (If you know, you know.)
I bought mine on Amazon here* – cost £24.99
* indicates an affiliate advertising link. This means that a small percentage is earned from each purchase made through the link.
Look, I know this is subjective, but I’ve tried a batch earplugs (I can almost safely say that’s the majority of the ones on the market) and these are the ones that are still in my ear in the morning.
Most of the others I pull out, glassy-eyed, around 3 a.m. because they’re so big they’re about to poke through the wall of my ear canal, or they stick out too far and prevent me from sleeping on my side, or they’re too stiff and burn my ears.
Before this particular type of earplug, the best ones I had found were the Alpine Sleep Soft (YeahI tried Loop (and all the others that come up frequently as suggestions) because the soft silicone earplugs were easy to put in and take out (no rolling or twisting required), were small enough for my delicate ear canals (I’m pretty sure most earplugs are made to fit giants), and formed a brilliant noise seal that eliminated snoring but still allowed high-pitched noises to penetrate.
(Alarms, foxes mating, owls screeching.)
After trying almost every type of earplug except the custom ones where you have to make an ear mold of your ear canal (I’m not one to commit too much), the Alpine Sleep Soft were the best. But then… so – Alpine SleepDeep is here!
They’re oval and seem to fit a little more snugly inside (you give them a good extra push with your fingernail and they stick in place like you’ve stepped into some sort of airlock on a satellite from outer space) and they also come in two sizes, which is key. I recommend the small size, unless you have a very large head or large ear canals.
As I said, these are the only earplugs I can put in at night and wake up with in them in the morning. I think they are phenomenal.
I bought mine here* – I bought the mixed pack with both sizes, but if you just want the “small” one, go for the version labeled (confusingly) as “50-pack.” That appears to be the small size on its own.
A bit of a cheating post, because I talked about this amazing tank top last week, but it’s still one of the most popular recommendations of the month. This is a soft, beautifully cut tank top that doesn’t require underwear underneath because it has built-in underwear. I’m a sucker.
Can Read the full review of this top hereor buy the Uniqlo ribbed bra, for £19.90 here*
Some of the contouring treatments done on the Internet are an extreme sport, with people modifying their entire bone structure and magically reshaping their nose through clever optical illusions. I can assure you that this looks impressive in the movie, but totally crazy when viewed up close in real life, so don’t feel like you’re missing out if you haven’t already covered your entire face in streaks and squiggles of dark brown paint and buffed it to a dodgy finish.
What I can suggest, if you want the aforementioned “supermodel cheekbone chisel,” is to quickly swipe the Elf Beauty Wand applicator in Contour (I use the medium/tan shade) directly underneath your actual cheekbones and then quickly dust with a fluffy brush to blend. The sponge applicator seems to apply the color in a more forgiving way than a stick (less waxy, easier to blend) and the shades are well thought out, not orangey, and stay put until you wash your face.
It’s a great way to get started with sculpting if you don’t want to invest in an expensive contour product and I love that the plastic tube packaging is pleasantly lightweight, perfect for my on-the-go makeup bag.
I bought mine at Boots and it’s also available online. here* – It costs £9 and is as good as the more expensive products that compete with it.
I’ll bore you with a story: I have some really gorgeous Tiffany earrings. They were given to me years ago. Ten years? In all that time I have tried, unsuccessfully, to wear these diamond earrings for more than a few days at a time. The screw thread seems to tear the inside of my piercing holes when I try to insert the posts and I end up with sore, swollen lobes every time I put them in and they take days to go back down.
I made the executive decision to sell the earrings and buy some “new” ones (actually second hand, new to me but not to the world) and this time I chose the standard “push-back” backs. All good, and my ears are very grateful for them., Smooth poles simply slide in, But I have to say that the lady at the jewelry store scared me of losing my earrings. I was totally in favor of the safety screws.
I did some serious research, which took about eight minutes on the train home from London, and found a possible solution: Lox locking ring closures.
These clever clasps allow the earring post to go into it, but then lock into place so you can’t slide it out, even if you apply Hulk Hogan-style levels of force. There’s no way to budge it. Wonderful! To undo it, you simply squeeze the prongs together (a little fiddly, but nothing too frustrating) and they slide right out.
So far, so good. I’ve been testing the rears, taking them on and off hundreds of times, and I haven’t noticed the LOX power draining yet.
It’s almost a tenner for two sets of lockable lids, making these possibly the most expensive small items on the market today if you don’t factor in MI5-level hidden spy cameras and nano-robots and the like, but by their very nature they should be hard to lose and so you’d hopefully only have to buy them once for each pair of fancy earrings…
I bought my LOX on Amazon here* – £9.99
I didn’t want to self-promote (or I did, but I thought I’d leave it until the end), but my most purchased recommendation this month has actually been my new book, How not to be a supermodelI can’t tell you how many messages I get every day from people who have finished reading the book and feel the need to immediately tell me how much they loved it. Or from people who just started reading it and can’t put it down. Or who can’t stop laughing out loud in public.
Dozens and dozens of brilliant, touching posts and mini-reviews, often with whole passages quoted. It’s so nice to hear people devour it and then lose the book to their friends and family because they’ve talked so much about it!
If you haven’t read it yet (or listened to it – the audiobook is available on Audible, Spotify and all the usual places), you can find it at your local bookstore or order it online. here*I can promise you that if you like even a little bit of what you read here on Substack, then you will like it. love Bible.
