10 Things That Delighted Us Last Week: From Gap Maxi Dresses to Expanding Floss

As the daughter of aBeach Dad, Strategist writer Dominique Pariso knows a thing or two abouthunkering down at the beach— notably, the best way to schlep there in the first place. Though she’s not a beach-cart person, she gifted her dad this foldable model last year. “The bigger the wheels, the better the cart will handle over sand,” she says.

Another Strategist beachgoer, writerKatherine Gillespie, likes to start her workday with an efficient ocean swim. To shake the “sticky, salty feeling between the toes” that follows on the subway home, she’s interested in trying this sand-removing tool that’s infused with aloe and vitamin C. According to Strategist contributor Kira Garcia, who wroteour guide to packing for summer camp, it can remove dirt, too.

This week’s dispatch from the Strategist Slack channel covered what to do — and not to do — whenpacking your sweaters away for the summer. Before storing our sweaters with cedar chips, lavender sachets, or wax tablets from Santa Maria Novella, we’re all faced with the perennial question,To wash, or not to wash?Strategist senior editor Winnie Yang puts it simply: “I useSoak, and I wash a sweater only if I wore it on a trip or a lot during the season.” Then she’ll lay it flat to dry on this OXO rack (her tried-and-true tool for the past decade).

“I’m truly a guy’s guy, so getting me to do things for my skin and lips that I should be doing consistently doesn’t come naturally to me,” chef and restaurateurBobby Flaytold us. Still, once he learned about this olive-oil-based lip balm, he added it to the list of things he can’t live without. “It’s easy. I use it every day,” he says.

“Every time I visit an Airbnb, I am reminded of just how many different ways there are to make a shower caddy that fails to accomplish the seemingly basic task of holding bottles of shampoo and conditioner,” says Strategist senior writer Michael Zhao. If you don’t have built-in shower storage, he recommends investing in the only caddy he has come across that can complete said simple task:a Simplehuman shower caddy. “Through 11 years of continuous use, spanning three apartments and five roommates, there is still not a single spot of rust or corrosion,” he reports.

If you, like Strategist contributor Leah Finnegan, have the kind of leg hair that’s best described as dark, coarse, and abundant, it might be time to invest in an Intense Pulsed Light device that uses light to target the melanin in the hair follicle. She chose thehair-removal system from Braunand says, “After one — one! — session, my belligerent leg hair started to retreat. I’m now five weekly sessions into the recommended 12, and my leg hair, when it grows back, is softer and finer.”

When Cotopaxi offered Gillespie a chance to try itsbrand-new Allpa 50, she was “privately a little confused and even concerned about the new design, which significantly deviates from what came before” (which wasa pack we liked so muchwe’ve written about itmany times). But after testing the new version, which is equipped with three internal zipper pockets and a removable 8-liter sling bag that can be used for additional storage, she changed her mind. With compartments deep enough to fit a sleeping bag and a design that lends itself to easy stuffing and zipping, the bag will be joining Gillespie on a few trips this summer.

If 2020 was the year ofniacinamideand 2018 was the year ofhyaluronic acid, 2025 would bethe year of peptides. Typically added to formulas to relax facial muscles, stimulate collagen production, deliver ingredients to the skin, or stop the body from losing collagen, peptides “are molecules that tell your cells to do stuff,” says cosmetic chemist Julian Sass. If you’re looking for results over marketing and vibes, he recommends looking for brands that show off their clinical data, such as Allies of Skin. (This formula in particular uses seven different peptides to firm skin.)

Actor and comedianEgo Nwodimconsiders herself an avid flosser (meaning she flosses multiple times a day). “I was a big Reach-floss person for a long time. Then I gotSNL,and now I can afford Burst floss,” she says. The floss is one of the items she can’t live without because “it expands, so it really gets all the gunk out from the middle of your teeth.”

With the season for summer dresses officially here, Strategist writer Ambar Pardilla asked more than two dozen people with particular, exacting, exceptional taste about thebest summer dresses under $150. Her survey turned up a number of minis and maxis, from Quince and Uniqlo to Old Navy and Gap. This linen-blend ensemble fromGap,a brand we’ve noticed everyone seems to be wearing this summer,came recommended by the founder ofPrix Fixe, Oset Babür-Winter, who calls it reminiscent of Staud. Co-signer and editor atProduce PartiesAisha Joshiadds, “I know I can have it on for a huge dinner and not feel like I’m going to explode out of it.”