What’s New: 9 Things the Editors Are Excited About

In late July, Soma, the start-up responsible for this now-somewhat-iconic Brita alternative, launched an equally handsome new product, the Brew Bottle, that I’m eager to try. It won a Best New Product award at 2018’s Coffee Expo, which gives it some bona fides, and appears incredibly easy to use, which is appealing to me as I’m somewhat of a dummy when it comes to anything pour-over related; you literally just dump in some ground beans, twist the stainless-steel filter depending on whether you want hot or cold brew, pour in your water, and voila. You have some coffee to go. (For cold brew, it needs to be in the fridge overnight, but still.) I also think that the price is in that sweet spot of not too expensive/not too cheap that’ll make it a very popular holiday gift.

This candle came across my desk and smells so unusual — warm, sweet, woody — that even though I don’t burn it, people who come by to chat ask what that scent is. A mystery, I guess?

I am currently feeling terrazzo and appreciate the look (and price) of this clear phone case from the Wing’s new line of fun merch.

This jewelry line has been around for a few years. The pieces are made in London and all inspired by lines or happenings from Dante’s Divine Comedy. I’m not that poetic — I didn’t follow the brand much until the latest line of zodiac necklaces came out. I’m a Sagittarius (hence the necklace pictured here, although what I like about these is how not in-your-face the iconography is) and have been yo-yoing on getting one for a while. It’s perfect “demi-fine” jewelry.

A few years ago I was at this swanky work dinner where the restaurant gave all the guests one handmade ceramic bowl as a gift. And then everyone got drunk and didn’t seem to know what to do with a single lonely bowl, so I ended up taking home a set. They can’t be replaced, so I’ve been dreading the day that I break one. It finally happened a couple weeks ago, and I’ve been channeling my grief into admiring the cereal bowls that East Fork makes. We’ve mentioned this company here and there before, and I think everyone now knows how much I like them, but this time I’m specifically calling out the “Utah” glaze color that debuted this spring. It makes me weak in the knees.

I’ve always been a light sleeper, but in the last year it feels as if things have gotten out of control. When I used a sleep mask for the first time on an overnight flight a year ago, it instantly became part of my routine. When my neck started feeling out of whack around that time, I rotated through all my pillows before finally buying a kind-of-expensive TempurPedic. And when I moved into a new apartment last fall, I bought a Strat-recommended air purifier that gives off a satisfying drone-y white noise.

At home, the combination of these three helps me fall asleep pretty fast, but away from home, I miss the noise-canceling-ness of the air purifier. I’ve tried sleeping with headphones, playing loops of white noise. I’ve tried the old-school foamy earplugs. Neither of those stay put in my ears. So when I heard about these Bose noise-canceling sleep-bud things from a fellow writer who swears by them, I needed to learn more. The $250 price tag is kind of insane, but I’m too convinced at this point.

I’ve been thinking a lot about canned drinks the last couple of months, from canned wines and seltzer to Four Loko (R.I.P., original formula). It should come as little shock that some of these canned beverages are terrible — but others seem pretty good. I’m most curious about this Ugly seltzer, especially since I’ve seen it popping up in bodegas around the city. The branding is surprisingly cool, and you can set up a recurring subscription so that boxes of peach, lime, or cherry seltzer ship straight to your home. And for a serious seltzer drinker like me (who is currently chugging a liter of orange Schweppes, straight from the bottle), that seems like a great idea.

This week, I stopped by a Peach & Lily preview to check out some of their new launches, where I came across these concentrated “lazy day” moisture pads. As a self-professed lazy skin-care person, they really fulfilled an unspoken need. They’re supposed to act as somewhat of a super-booster for hydration, presumably on nights when you don’t even have ten minutes to spare on a sheet mask, and they’re packed with ceramides, hyaluronic acid, and antioxidants: the good stuff. Very interested in doubling down on these before central-heating season kicks in.

I first heard about these next-generation pimple patches designed for acne cysts in an email from Soko Glam last month. Instead of your standard hydrocolloid patches (like the Cosrx ones) designed to keep a popped pimple covered while it heals, these promise to actually treat deep, cystic acne by infusing skin with acne-fighting ingredients via tiny microneedles. At $18 for six patches they’re also much more expensive than Cosrx’s set of 24, so I didn’t order them right away and kind of forgot all about them. But when Strat beauty writer Rio Viera-Newton included them in her updated list of must-have skin-care products, they immediately jumped back on my radar. Now I can’t wait to give them a shot.