one thing, worth buying

A JAFAQ recommendation!

Before I made my entire personality about being in debt, I used to give recommendations for a living.

OK, I also did other things during my 7+ year tenure as a fashion & lifestyle editor. But, part of my job was to make lists of products –  in hopes that people would buy them. 

Things… have changed. My goal, as a person on the internet, isn’t to get people to buy things. If anything, I aspire to inspire people (myself included) to buy fewer things. To invest in the things they need instead of stocking up on sale sh*t they don’t. To dodge / fight back against the orchestrated temptation seducing consumers at every turn. 

But, as a person who needs and likes to buy things, who is also a person in debt, I’ve learned to shop for quality over quantity, and I think that’s worth sharing with you.  

So, this week’s JAFAQ kicks off what I hope will become a recurring segment: one thing, that I own and love, that I think is worth spending your money on.

Years ago, a Revlon blow dry brush, a tool that looked like it was plucked directly from under my sink in the Bat Mitzvah years, landed on my desk and at first, I ignored it. It went to the bottom of the growing pile of other tools and products crowding my desk that I had to get to first.

Months later, when I finally tried it for the first time, it instantly took the top spot: I  quickly fell in love. The brush was easy to hold and use, and my hair looked great.

I talked it up quite a bit on Instagram at the time, and even wrote a rave review about it for my old job, but was told writing a piece about just one product went against our editorial standards, so it never saw the light of day. 

A year later, it rightfully blew up. Influencers and major publications started singing its praises, and I watched like a proud parent with only a *touch* of HEY!! I FOUND THIS THING FIRST!!  By then, I’d already gone through two Revlon brushes – one I was sent and another I bought for myself when that one gave out. 

It was a good product, and it deserved to go viral, but somewhere along the way, I found another one that I liked even better: the Amika Hair Blow Dry Brush 2.0 ($100). It replaced the Revlon brush as the top spot in my hair-loving heart and in my hair drying routine. 

Then, I got a pretty bad haircut and the barrel on the Amika brush was too big to use on what was left of my now very short, thinned out hair. So I stopped using it. 

It’s been a… journey to start loving (and growing) my hair again, and it’s finally in a place where I can go back to using my old styling tools and actually feel good about how it looks. 

Part of that journey has included “doing” my hair in the morning. And I’m at the gym most days, where there is no blow dryer to be found.

Recently, Rachel (my partner not just in writing but in working out, too) mentioned that she might want to buy herself a hairstyling tool. And the one she showed me looked a lot like the Amika brush I had collecting dust in my bathroom. So, I offered to let her try mine first. I dusted it off and threw it in my gym bag for the next day.

We took turns using it that morning at the gym, and both left looking and feeling like we’d gotten our hair professionally done. 

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Is $100 too much for a blow dry brush? Maybe. The Revlon version comes in at a cool $40. And it’s a good product, too. but FWIW, I find the bristles on the Amika brush to be much less damaging / gentler on the hair and the end result to be shinier and bouncier. I started to feel, at some point, like the Revlon version was ripping my hair out. The Amika version has more than one heat setting, which also helps prevent damage. 

Plus, in the end, I had to buy another Revlon brush, which, had I purchased the first one, would have brought my total to $80. Not that much less than this one which, years later, I have yet to replace. 

Not to mention, it’s worth it to me because it brings me good hair days, which helps my overall mental health. And those are the only things I want to buy anymore: long lasting, good quality pieces that bring goodness into my life and serve a purpose.

I’ve had this Amika brush for years now, and it still delivers every single time.

It’s an investment in your hair and in yourself. And I think it’s something worth spending your money on. 

Stay tuned for more singular, non-listicle recommendations of only the things I truly love and use. If you like this kind of content, let me know! 

Love, 

Jamie AF 

P.S. These posts are not sponsored, but I think you probably already knew that :)