I’ve always loved leisurely browsing the aisles of a nice, brightly lit grocery store. One thing I hate about living in NYC is the grocery shopping experience. When I’m shopping in a nice grocery store, I feel on edge because it’s usually pretty crowded—either because of the sheer number of people, the limited square footage, or some combination thereof. In some stores, I also feel like I’m dodging store employees as they restock the shelves, and fellow shoppers who want…

I don’t really like to return things—probably the result of a mixture of laziness and fear of being shamed at the store. My dad, on the other hand, has no qualms about standing in line at Costco to return a bunch of things every week. He has also mastered the art of reattaching price tags to clothing items with Scotch tape. I’d rather live with a disappointing product than bring it back to the store to ask for a refund, unless the product was inaccurately advertised, defective, or…

On a recent trip to Sephora, I picked up a small travel size of IT Cosmetics CC+ cream (yes, I’m a sucker for browsing through those little product bins while waiting in line). This product bills itself as “Your Skin But Better” (and it even trademarked that phrase). After taking a quick scan through the massive ingredient list, I saw that it contained physical sunscreen ingredients (a mix of zinc oxide and titanium dioxide), so it offered full protection against the full…