11 Things That Delighted Us Last Week: From Hair Perfume to Jelly Flip-Flops

After losing a pair of sunglasses on a Euro trip, Strategist contributor Katie Stone set out to find a new pair that were stylish and well-fitting but also sturdy (and inexpensive) enough that she could just toss them in her tote. After trying pairs from Quince, Mango, Free People, Urban Outfitters, and Anthropologie, Stone turned to Uniqlo where she found this pair that made her objectively cool college-age brother tell her that she “had a real look going on.”

[Editor’s note: The black sunglasses are currently out of stock, but you can sign up to be notified for when they come back. The style is currently available in a cool clear-gray frame as well.]

If you’ve been wondering what the deal is with hair perfume, our writer Rachael Griffiths has answers. It turns out that hair perfumes largely differ from regular perfumes in their ingredients lists. “Perfumes designed for the skin usually rely on alcohol (ethanol, most commonly) to carry the scent of the fragrance,” Griffiths writes. Since alcohol is generally a drying ingredient, “concentrations of it found in typical perfumes make them unsuitable for spritzing all over the hair.” A hair perfume forgoes alcohol for more nourishing ingredients, like argan oil, which can be found in this honey-scented Gisou perfume that was mentioned by nearly every hair expert Griffiths interviewed.

If the Strategist team had a uniform, Alex Mill’s stripey, colorful pieces would certainly be part of it — so it’s no surprise that the brand’s new kids’ collection set our Slack channel abuzz. “So far, [the kids’ line] consists of mini versions of the brand’s iconic jumpsuit and work jacket available in olive, army green, and navy,” says writer Arielle Avila in the newest edition of “Don’t Dillydally.”

As a frequent concertgoer, Strategist sleep writer Amelia Jerden realized it was time to invest in an affordable pair of concert earplugs that would protect her ears from hearing damage while still allowing her to enjoy the show — and so, she went on a “Strategist Hunt.” After trying six pairs, she landed on these silicone, cone-shaped earplugs from Earpeace that have three different sets of noise filters and two earplug sizes. Plus, she says, “They didn’t put much pressure on my ears, even after an extended period of time.”

As a lifelong piano player, actress Ashley Park says that even when she’s filming overseas, she has a keyboard with her. While she’s branched out from classical music since going to school for musical theater, she counts this book of Chopin’s sheet music among the items that she can’t live without. “I’m obviously way more out of practice now, but playing the piano is always a necessity for me,” she says.

“The Vermont Country Store is a general store in Weston, Vermont, that sounds pretty much exactly like its name — quaint, old timey, and very New England,” writes Strategist contributor Erika Veurink. The store’s catalogue is full of high-quality and often delightfully practical items — like this garden colander — that can be shipped right to your door. Veurink notes that these gardening baskets make for worthy totes to carry “from bar to late-night dinner reservation on the hottest days in Manhattan,” but adds that they also “make for an excellent transportation device from garden to sink to table, if that’s more your speed.”

“The truth is virtually any bag will work as a diaper bag,” says Strategist senior writer and mom Liza Corsillo. “Just pick a bag you already like carrying and add zip pouches, a portable changing mat, and one or two small cooler bags for bottles and snacks.” After trying a multitude of actual diaper bags, she found that this non-diaper diaper bag from LeSportSac did the job best. Along with having two bottle-shaped outer pockets and four inner mesh pockets, the bag is “very stylish and streamlined, so I feel put together even if I am not,” she writes.

While Strategist writer Katherine Gillespie says she’s never scaled a rock face in her life, she bought this rock-climbing-inspired phone bag from Topologie during a trip to Japan last year. Ten months later, the bag has become her “default phone-passport-boarding-pass bag,” and something she plans to use “long after the climbercore boom goes bust.” With four compartments that she uses to separate her currencies and other travel essentials, the bag “creates a system that’s way more effective than what I was doing before, which was stuffing everything into the black hole that is Baggu’s cross-body nylon crescent bag,” Gillespie says.

Strategist writer Ambar Pardilla updated our big guide to sandals with a fresh batch of recommendations from dozens of tasteful people. The Love Listnewsletter editor Jess Graves told us about her hand-stitched leather and jelly pair from Ancient Greek Sandals, which she says look similar to The Row’s jelly flip-flop but for a fraction of the cost. Pardilla then found these Gap jelly flip-flops that are a fraction of that fraction of the cost, and at $30, “a pretty convincing dupe.”

“These beautiful beaded phone wristlets from Ossa have started to follow me everywhere,” newsletter editor Ashley Wolfgang told us while giving us a peek into her “Strategist Brain.” She’s considering getting one for her wedding weekend: “[I] can’t decide between either pearl/gold (sadly sold out), chunky multi-pearl, this pearl one with green beads, or a longer, shoulder-length one,” she says.

In the three-and-a-half months that she’s been living in New York, actor Liza Koshy has learned that supportive shoes — those that don’t squeeze or feel too heavy on her feet — are a necessity. For now, her sneakers of choice are these grippy ones from Adidas that she owns in two colors: cream and cheetah print. (“Because cheetah print is neutral,” she says.)