I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to my belongings. Even when I was younger I would take the upmost care of my things - my toys - and cherish them like nothing else. I think it's okay to have an attachment to 'stuff', despite all the counter-culture and backlash society has cultivated over time towards it. It's okay to be grateful for what you have, to consider your purchases and to then appreciate them throughout their lifetime. Like this manifesto on stuff, I've always taken pride in carefully cultivating the objects I possess. This is not only in their obvious utility but also how they reflect (deliberately or not) my feelings about consumption in general. On a basic level, I think this is quality first. I can very rarely bring myself to buy items that are secondhand or based on the latest trend, purely because I envision items lasting my entire lifetime when I buy them. This is particularly of note with non-consumable items like clothes. I want to be able to weave my own narrative and experiences into them, and then hopefully, pass then onto my daughter for her to do the same; and to see the twenty-year cycle of fashion do its justice.
I'm also really interested in the concepts surrounding consumption, but to avoid a theoretical tangent I'll simply say that I'm mindful of the ethical and social implications of my choices. This is mostly with food and beauty items, and is perhaps a heightened repercussion of working at an international beauty brand for two years. I'm more than happy to say that it's not an entirely altruistic choice at the same time, too; the choices I make are also concerned with making sure what I consume and use contribute to my well-being at the same time. Listed here are the beauty items I use on a daily basis: the ones that I can't live without, the ones that I've carefully picked out from the others for various reasons and after endless trials, and because of this, I will use them for my foreseeable future. Call them staples, I call them collectables.
1. Coconut Body Butter, The Body Shop: One of my favourites since I was fifteen, this smells like a lot of past summers and now, more so, of a lot of memories. This butter has an amazing texture mostly thanks to the heavy concentration of Shea and Cocoa Butters (Community Fair Trade from Ghana) and the moisture barrier it creates lasts forever....so does the tub!
2. Vitamin E Eye Cream, The Body Shop: Don't look at me like that, you're definitely never too young for an eye cream. This is also my saviour when I've been staring into a computer for nine hours on end and my eyes are about to fall out of my head.
3. Coco Mademoiselle EDP, Chanel: As stupid as it sounds, I'd never experienced a fragrance that made me feel confident before this one (holla at me, ladies). The expense of the bottle outweighs the feeling; as well as it lasting forever and being the comfortable shelter of a lot of recent memories, I think this is the closest I've ever come to having a signature scent.
4. Lash Power Mascara (01: Black Onyx), Clinique: I really admire Clinique as a company; dermatologically-tested, fragrance-free, aesthetically sleek and trustworthy. Their mascara formulations are brilliant regardless which one you use, but I like this one particularly because IT LASTS. No more panda eyes because your full cheeks cause your mascara to smudge when you smile (...what), they're instead perfect all day. Even better is that it washes off in really gentle chunks which means you don't get dark smudges everywhere (towels included) or have that gross goop of black in the corner of your eyes later on!
5. Reverence Aromatique Hand Wash, Aesop: It has small chunks of pumice in it to exfoliate your hands. Enough said. And I'm not talking about the smell because you already know how good Aesop smells.
6. Blushwear Cream Stick (05: Shy Blush), Clinique: I've tried a lot of cream blushes and this one lasts the longest, looks natural, and you can wear it without anything underneath. Easy peasy.