The person keeping the list

You have bought the same thing three times.

The cheap one that leaked. The mid one that was heavier than it looked. Then, eventually, the one you should have bought first. I did that in nearly every category on this site before I started writing any of it down.

Michal, who chooses everything in the shop: a woman in a white corduroy shirt against a warm ochre wall, looking straight at the camera

How it started

The list began as notes on my phone

I'm Michal. I didn't come from retail and I have no background in buying. What I had was an expensive habit: buy the cheap version, replace it six months later with the mid version, then finally buy the one I should have started with. Four water bottles. Three totes. Something like eleven hand creams, which I am still not proud of.

So I started writing things down — not reviews, just the one detail that actually decided it. Lid seals with a quarter turn, you can hear it shut. Absorbs before you touch a keyboard. Lies flat on page one. They were notes to stop me buying the same mistake twice, and they turned out to be more useful than anything I could find online, because they were about week six rather than day one.

Friends asked for the list. Then their friends asked. By last spring it was a spreadsheet with three hundred rows and sixteen highlighted in yellow, being screenshotted around Tel Aviv, and keeping it on my phone had started to feel silly. So it became this. The note on every product page is that same list, barely edited.

The arithmetic

A season of this, in four numbers

0

things tried this season

0

kept right now

0

months of use, on average, before anything goes up

0

brands that paid to be here

The two hundred and ninety-six that didn't make it appear nowhere on this site. There is no “also considered” page, because a list that keeps everything is just a catalogue.

The standard

Four gates. Nothing skips one.

This is the whole method. It is not sophisticated — it is just slower than everyone else's, and slow is the only part that works.

  1. 01

    I buy it myself, at the price you'd pay

    No seeding programme, no affiliate links, no gifted box waiting at the post office. Brands find out they're on the list the same way you do. It is the largest line in my budget every season, and it is the only reason I'm allowed to be rude about things.

  2. 02

    A full season of ordinary use

    Three months minimum, and not careful months. The flask lives in a gym bag and a hot car. The robe gets washed weekly. The tote gets overpacked and put down on the floor of a train.

    Almost everything that fails, fails between week four and week seven — the lid starts weeping, the cream separates in the tube, the strap hardware goes dull. A weekend with a ring light will never find that.

  3. 03

    It has to beat the one I already own

    “Is it nice” isn't a bar; nearly everything is nice. The bar is whether I threw out the old one and then didn't go looking for it. If the old one is still in a drawer as a backup, the new one hasn't earned a number — it's just another option, and options are the thing I'm trying to take off your plate.

  4. 04

    Something leaves for anything to arrive

    Sixteen is a fixed number, not a goal. When a better version of a thing turns up, the old one comes off the site the same week — I don't keep both and hand you the decision. The index numbers get reissued when that happens: No. 07 has belonged to three different bags since I started.

    Which means the honest part of this page is the next one.

Removed this year

What left the shop

Three things came off the list this year. Two of them I had recommended to people I actually know, which is exactly why they're written up here instead of quietly deleted.

  • Held No. 01

    Halden Wide-Mouth Bottle

    Replaced · February

    The first bottle I owned that didn't eventually crack, and it held its number for a year and a half. Then the Meridian turned up with an extra day of ice and no wet ring left on the desk. Two bottles doing one job is one bottle too many, so Halden came down the same week Meridian went up, and No. 01 went with it.

  • Held No. 15

    Petra & Pine Everyday Cleanser

    Reformulated · September

    I tested the fragrance-free version for four months and put it up happily. The bottle that shipped in September had a “natural botanical blend” in it, and my face knew before I read the back of the box. Same name, same bottle, different product, and no email from anyone about it. The slot then sat empty for six weeks, because filling it quickly would have been the whole problem in miniature.

  • Held No. 07

    Wren & Tallow Canvas Weekender

    Quality slipped · May

    The first three I bought had solid brass hardware and a leather base. The one that arrived in April had plated zinc, a coated-canvas base, and a zip that caught on the second use. I asked twice and got a paragraph about supply chains. I'm not willing to sell you the old bag's reputation, so the number moved to a tote instead.

If something you bought here later comes off the list, you get one email telling you what replaced it and why. That is the entire policy.

Where to go from here

Sixteen things. Maybe two of them are yours.

If you've read this far you probably want the list rather than more about me. It's one page, it takes four minutes, and everything on it carries the note I wrote for myself before I ever wrote one for you.

See the sixteen Send Michal a note

A concept demo — nothing here actually ships, and no payment is taken.