12 Things That Delighted Us Last Week: From Lefty Pens to Teen Hoodies

“I’ve tested every way to make popcorn, and the Whirley Pop is the best,” says chef and author J. Kenji López-Alt, who recommends this device for anyone who’s serious enough about the snack to devote the cabinet space to a single-use item. In addition to minimizing the amount of kernels at the bottom of your bowl, he says, it “pops the fastest out of anything I’ve tested, whether that’s a microwave or an air popper or a skillet or a wok. Because it’s designed to agitate the popcorn and vent steam off at the same time, your popcorn ends up much crispier.”

As our resident Aussie and travel writer, Katherine Gillespie takes the 24-hour (and 11,633 mile) trek back to her hometown of Perth, Western Australia, at least once a year. Accordingly, she’s learned everything she needs to pack and do in order to feel “at least close to human upon arrival.” First and foremost, she enforces separate periods of rest and wakefulness by changing into sleeping clothes and keeping her feet elevated with either her Baggu Carry-On bag full of clothes or this in-flight foot rest that hooks on to the arms of the tray table.

To say that our writer Martha Tuber is a sweatshirt enthusiast would be an understatement. Her collection includes 31 that she keeps on a shelf in her closet, ten on reserve on a higher shelf, and eight that live in her garage for sentimentality’s sake. Top of the list, though, is this one from Jungmaven that she says is “pretty darn close to perfect: raglan sleeves, round neck, a tapered silhouette that sits at the hip bones, and deep ribbing at the cuffs and hem that pinch the sleeves and torso just enough to give the whole thing a near-perfect drape.” If you take good care of it, she says you’ll have it for ages.

“Over the years, the sweatshirt that signifies you ‘won’ the holiday lottery has taken many forms,” says our junior writer Bella Druckman, who chatted with teens from across the country to find out which hoodie they actually want. As it turns out, this year, some of the most popular ones are from small brands like Dandy, which can be identified by its patch-heavy, embroidered, oversize hoodies. “The brand’s September pop-up in New York drew 2,000 teens a day to a waterside lot in Greenpoint where they could shop a limited-edition ‘New York’ hoodie along with the rest of the sweatshirts,” she reports.

Of the responses Tuber got to last month’s post about her favorite pens, the loudest, perhaps, were from the lefties wondering: How about us? And so, she asked some left-handers about what they write with and why. For lefty Ben Tuber, a graphic designer and her brother, the answer is this quick-drying number. “It looks nice, the ink doesn’t run or explode from its chamber (even on airplanes), and it has a helpful rubber grip area so I don’t have to clutch it too hard,” he says.

“I have been waging war against my thick, coarse hair since the age of 12,” writes Strategist contributor Iva Dixit. Over the years, she’s tried a considerable amount of things to tame the frizz, but, she says, “no betrayal has stung as hard as that of the universally beloved, perpetually recommended, and unholy priced Mason Pearson” whose bristles she found too thin. It wasn’t until she learned about this perfectly broken-in hairbrush from a hairstylist that her hair met its match. “When I brushed my hair with it, the bristles slid neatly through my dense head of hair,” she writes, adding, “The little halo of curlicues that somehow always stood at attention near my hairline and the perimeter of my head were neatly subdued.”

Strategist writer Tembe Denton-Hurst loves everything about Dieux’s Instant Angel moisturizer — from the nourishment it gives her skin to how easily it sinks in — except for the price tag. So, when she used her beloved formula to the last drop, she procrastinated restocking until finding this moisturizer from COSRX, which replaced Instant Angel completely. “It isn’t as lush-feeling as the Dieux Instant Angel, but I’d argue it’s equally as nourishing,” she writes. And perhaps most important: “I could buy three of these for the price of one jumbo bottle [of Instant Angel].”

“Whenever I have discoloration, redness from a breakout, or if I need a quick, simple concealer that needs to color-correct to create a more even base, I love using this,” Soko Glam and Then I Met You founder Charlotte Cho told us. As someone who doesn’t require a lot of coverage, she says it’s the perfect hybrid between makeup and skin care. (But she recommends going for actual concealer if you need more coverage.) To put it simply, she says, “I love the texture. I love how light it is. I don’t feel like it clogs my pores.”

“Now is right around the time I’d break out my candle collection, except we recently got an air-quality monitor and it was slightly disconcerting to discover just how much the reading nose-dives when you have a candle burning,” says our writer Kitty Guo. After sniffing around for alternatives, she landed on this Scent Burner set from Ripple that uses water, essential oils, and a tea light to diffuse scents. Sure, she says, “I realize this system also involves an open flame, but a tiny tea light should be fairly innocuous … right?”

This week, our guide to the best socks for women got an overhaul, and we found an assortment of new socks, including some ultrasupportive running socks from Bandit, Taylor Swift–approved socks from Free People, and theseshow-off-worthy ones from Hansel From Basel. They come recommended by art director Krystle Kemp who notes the socks’ design falls “somewhere between subtle and loud, and they strike the perfect balance of eye-catching interest and thoughtful design.”

This week’s installment of “Don’t Dillydally” included yet another buzzy collaboration from Aritzia. So if you weren’t able to get your hands on the last one (the brand’s collaboration with Sperry), perhaps you’ll have better luck with this one with Nike. “The mocha-brown color looks like a vintage football (complimentary), and every pair comes with one of two gold-tone charms,” says senior writer Liza Corsillo.

“I’m a millennial, so I like the old-school smells,” Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi told us. Lately, that’s included Britney Spears’s Fantasy perfume and this one from Victoria’s Secret. “That was my go-to fragrance I used to wear in high school, back in the day,” she says. “I just like something to smell cute for a little bit. I just miss being young, so I’m revisiting things that I used to use when I was young that made me happy.”