What Comedian Alex Edelman Can’t Live Without

I’m almost afraid to give up this secret. It’s something that Autumn Butler, who is our makeup artist onThe Paper, introduced me to. Autumn would shave my face almost every day, and my skin is very sensitive, so it could occasionally break out. She started putting this on me — that was a year ago — and I have not had a single spot. They would shave my face and then put makeup on me for the camera, and I never had any breakouts. That’s a really crazy thing. It’s simple and it stings when you put it on your face. That’s how you know it’s working. It feels like it’s mostly alcohol, but I wouldn’t drink it if I were you. It’s a really incredible little product. And these bottles last for ages. I don’t go anywhere without them. Once a friend of mine was staying in my apartment and saw it and was like, “Oh man, did your makeup artist tell you about it?” It’s a makeup-artist secret.

I need notebooks for writing stuff, and these things are my flavor of the moment. I’m a big Moleskine guy, but these are just really simple ones. I bought them in Japan. They’re super-cheap. They’re really great.

I do pottery. It’s a nice mind-body thing. My friends Florian Gadsby and Elisheva Goldberg got me into pottery a couple of years ago. I try to do all of my classes at BKLYN Clay in Manhattan on the West Side. I just really love it. It’s really, really, really, really nice. I sit down at the wheel and it’s a good bit of: Your brain is working, but your hands are doing more of it. I find it really meditative, and BKLYN Clay is really nice and clean, but the classes usually sell out pretty quickly, so you have to sort of race to get in there. But it’s a nice little community of people who are a good mixture of folks who let you do your business but are happy to help out if you want them to. So I favor that. I think I care more about the act of doing it than even the finished product. I love to get into it. Look, I’m a white guy in my middle 30s; I need something to be interesting, and this is exactly the thing I rely on.

I bought it in Japan at the Samsonite store in Tokyo. I bought a bunch of them and gave them to everyone in my immediate circle. It’s got countless pockets where I put all my notebooks. When I go on the road, sometimes for up to three, four days, I’ll just carry this one backpack. It’s the coolest. It’s waterproof. I take it with me on long hiking trips. You can make it small, you can make it big. It’s got nine pockets, and I think even then I’m under-counting. The back part has room for all my comedy notebooks, the middle part has room for all my clothes, and the bits and doodads all go in the front pocket, which currently has a shaver and things like that in it. When you’re wearing a backpack, you can’t worry about a setup because you’re already “backpack guy,” but this makes you less backpack guy than any of the other backpacks, so it’s worth its weight in gold. It’s a really special thing. It’s a key item in my life.

[Editor’s note: This backpack is currently only available on Samsonite’s Hong Kong site in olive (Edelman’s backpack is black). The site lists all prices in Hong Kong Dollars, so the price shown is an approximate conversion in U.S. dollars.]

I love a versatile thing. I have a bunch of these in black. It’s merino and it’s really soft. It’s neither white nor cotton, but it’s an elevated version of the crisp white T-shirt. I love things that are simple but of quality. This is one of the simplest. I wear black because it obscures all your food mistakes. Good price point. I like other simple solid T-shirts from Buck Mason, Todd Snyder, Alex Mill — lots of men’s names. Brooks “Brothers” implies that they were men. Simple and elevated is where I live. They go with jeans, they go with chinos, they go with a suit. There’s a lot of stuff there.

I love a good work jacket. I’ve got it in olive, I’ve got it in red, I’ve got it in blue. It’s a really useful jacket. I wear these jackets a lot onstage and for press. I tend to wear clothes until they wear out, and this is a pretty durable work jacket. It washes things out pretty easily, but it’s also something I can wear onstage. I hope they keep making more colors, otherwise I’m going to run out. It’s really great.

This is my stage shoe. This is what I wear in the specialJust for Us. I have them in black, white, and gray. They’re expensive shoes, but I’m a little superstitious about them. Sometimes I just wear them onstage. That’s the business expense of them. I think that you should be a bit dressed for your shows. I don’t wear a suit often, although I have enjoyed doing that in the past. But this is, again, a sneaker you can wear with jeans, a sneaker you can wear with a shirt. I favor black jeans from Frame and AllSaints and Brooks Brothers. A pair of black denim from Common Projects — that’s comfortable but a little elevated.

Also, I never remember signing up to advertise for various companies. I like Common Projects because you don’t have a big logo on the side. What is this universally accepted practice of there’s got to be the logo for the thing on that? I don’t want to do that. These, you know it from the gold numbers on the heel, but those kind of look cool. It’s the cleanest white shoe. There are very few lines. It’s really perfect. I’ve worn different ones in the past, but these are really durable. They last years, some of them. I think I did 500 performances ofJust for Us, and every single performance had these Common Projects in it.

The Atlas Obscura app is user created but beautifully curated. One of my favorite things whenever I tour anywhere are weird places and recommendations. I eat my meals sourced solely on recommendations from friends and fans — fans of the places, not fans of me. But sometimes people on social media will send me recommendations. I try to eat wherever I can, but this is a recommendation machine, and it will find you the weirdest places on your road trips or your random things. If I ever have free days in New York or Los Angeles, I pull out the app. I wish I was more of a submitter to the app, but I use apps for everything. I use The Infatuation app for restaurants, I use SeatGuru to figure out where I’m sitting on an airplane. This is one of the things I use the most. I’m a big fan.

So, a couple of years ago, I did the math in terms of money I spent on coffee, and it was not looking good. I got a Breville espresso machine, and it paid for itself in an embarrassing amount of time, a matter of months. And the truth is, coffee beans are not cheap. I like a lot of small-batch coffees from a place in the Berkshires calledNo. Six Depot, and it’s the best espresso I’ve ever had. I would buy these coffee beans in bulk and make No. Six Depots, so it was cheaper than buying coffee and it was cheaper than going to Lenox, Massachusetts, for No. Six Depot coffee. I had this machine when I was living in L.A. during the pandemic, but when I moved back to New York, I didn’t take the Breville with me. I gifted it to somebody. And my roommate, Jake Cohen, wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, had his own Breville and brought it to the apartment we’re both in. I love it. I can’t believe I get to pull shots from it. We’re thinking about experimenting with other espresso machines, but for now, this one works. It’s just the right level between need-to-know-how-to-do-it and can-help-you-out. The steaming of milk is very big.

Hallie Meyer does the best ice cream in the city, for sure. She puts a lot of stuff in her flavors and does scoops and pints. Hallie is really concerned with quality. We’ve done some collaborations before. I like to get the soft-serve sundaes. She is very detail oriented, she’s a craftsperson, and that’s why there are lines a bazillion miles long, even when it’s really cold outside. I like anything with mint in it. I know that makes me very basic, but mint is very good for me.