12 Things That Delighted Us Last Week: From Travel Dysons to Spring Jackets

As much as our resident Dysonologist Dominique Pariso loves her Supersonic (she named it our Best in Class hair dryer, after all), she would never try to shove it into her carry-on. But now that Dyson has released a travel version that’s a third of the original’s size, she can finally shove a Dyson into even her smallest travel bag, the Longchamp weekender. “Despite its diminutive size, this dryer is still powerful,” she says. “It still managed to completely dry my hair in a little over ten minutes, nearly as fast as the regular-size Supersonic.”

“It’s not that I didn’t want to get my ears pierced. It’s that my lobes are dead set on rejecting any earring that tries it,” writes Strategist contributor MacKinley Lutes-Adlhoch. Still, she didn’t want to give up earrings altogether, so she went on a hunt for a clip-on pair that’s secure, comfortable, and realistic. After testing pairs that were too painful or too loose, she landed on this set from Ivy & Miles that stays on and is painless. “And at only $25, I won’t have a meltdown when I inevitably lose one to the earring/sock/bobby-pin thief,” she says.

“As someone with fine hair but a lot of it, I consider myself a connoisseur when it comes to thickening and volumizing shampoos,” says beauty writer Krista Bennett DeMaio. In her experience, volumizing shampoos fall into one of two categories: “Either they cleanse so well that your hair feels light, airy, and full of bounce, or they coat each strand to plump things up and create the illusion of density.” This Vegamour shampoo, though, falls into both since it contains gentle cleansers and lightweight, plant-based ingredients “to subtly support volume while keeping hair soft and touchable,” she says. It recently earned a spot in our guide to shampoos for fine hair.

This week’s installment of “Don’t Dillydally” includes a new category for Warby Parker: sports sunglasses. “The line features high-performance frames made from lightweight, durable nylon with polarized lenses that reduce glare and enhance contrast and clarity,” reports writer Kitty Guo.

“If you’ve ever wondered what a store run by the artist Maira Kalman would look like, here’s your chance to find out,” says senior writer Lauren Ro. Ahead of the artist’s pop-up opening in Chatham in May, Ro sat down with her to hear about everything shoppers will be able to purchase, including the blue stationery Kalman uses to write letters. “I write illustrated letters to my granddaughters every week. I’ve been doing that for ten years, so they have an incredible cache,” she told us.

“Whether my kids like it or not, I always have music playing,” Jeremiah Brent told us. It seems his daughter is following in his footsteps because she asked for a record player for her birthday this year. “She’s listening to everything you think she would: Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Chappell Roan. All the ladies are in the house; it’s really cute,” he says. “I love listening to her put that record on every morning.”

“Most days, I’m working from home, then hitting dance class, so I’m especially on the lookout for pants that can seamlessly transition between both,” says Guo in her latest “Strategist Brain.” Along with some spirited dance pants from Zumba, she’s been eyeing pixelated-pattern jersey shorts that are similar to those from status track-pant brand Relax Lacrosse. “Everything from the brand is hand-printed and made to order by founder Marie Jankowski, so they’ll take a little longer to get to you, but it’s worth it to support independent makers and artists,” she says.

“When I call myself a self-proclaimed bonnet expert, I truly mean it,” says Strategist contributor Erin Stovall. “I have fine coils that are extremely fragile and breakage prone, so my idea of a night terror is waking up with uncovered hair and broken strands on my pillowcase.” Her solution came in the form of this satin bonnet that actually stays on all night thanks to its plastic cord lock. And while she used to be a silk-only snob, she says, “I haven’t noticed a difference between the two materials when it comes to reducing friction and frizz.”

Strategist writer Tembe Denton-Hurst has a love-hate relationship with mineral sunscreen: While she appreciates its hyperpigmentation-fading capabilities, she says “most mineral sunscreens leave my skin with a ghoulish, purply hue or a chalky, ashy finish.” That is, until she discovered the OneSkin Body sunscreen, the only mineral sunscreen she’s found that actually rubs all the way in and disappears. Plus the ingredients are clean: “There’s just zinc oxide along with a host of other skin-care ingredients.”

“You wouldn’t catch me in cotton socks ever because I think cotton socks absorb moisture. Even if you wash them and dry them, I think there’s, like, components of that moisture that stay in there,” Rostam Batmanglij told us. Instead, he wears these ankle socks from Smartwool because “when it’s dry, it really is dry.”

If you’re searching for a spring-specific jacket to wear through June, look no further than senior writer Ambar Pardilla’s spring-jacket poll, which includes two from Levi’s. Along with the brand’s denim trucker jacket, there’s a rather feminine quilted liner that comes recommended by Brianna Schubert, an editor and writer of The Mood Board newsletter. “You know, just one of those days when everything feels sunny and perfect? It was the exact weather for a jacket like this,” she says.

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