Chic Bathroom Accessories From the Pharmacy

A minimalist bathroom tableau for tired eyes. Toothbrush, Hello Products, soap: Yardley London, marble cup: Homesense.

I will die on this hill. The most important part of a hotel room is not the firmness of the mattress, the strength of the wifi signal or the number of electrical outlets. It’s the quality of the bathroom amenities. I want weighty, hard-milled soaps from beloved or cool new brands, rich bath gels and velvety body creams. Fiddling with a strange hot water dial is difficult enough, but to be stuck using public restroom-grade soaps and thin lotions make the whole affair feel like a women’s prison episode of Charlie’s Angels.

A hard no: bright colours disturb a serene bathroom.

The black toothbrush and soap, above, give my humble bathroom some much-needed ‘fancy hotel room’ energy. The black soap hints at luxurious impracticality (will it stain my towel? No. It will not) while the black toothbrush is a minimal chic alternative to all the kiddie toy-coloured ones on offer nowadays, (right). Bathrooms should be serene, not searing your eyeballs right before bed.

Low key luxe: Stockholm’s Ett Hem hotel bathrooms are stocked with Marvis toothpaste and black Fueguia soap..

My new beloved black toothbrush didn’t come from some ‘curated’ (translation: overpriced) boutique. It’s from Hello, a line of dental care products that launched in Canada last year, bringing newness to the sleepiest aisle in the drugstore.

Hello toothpastes contain real peppermint and breath-freshening tea tree oil, their whitening toothpaste is peroxide-free and there’s even travel-friendly toothpaste tablets (right).

But it was the black toothbrush, $5.99, drug and grocery stores, with its plant-based handle and sustainable, charcoal-infused bristles that made my bathroom look a little newer and cooler. And as if that weren’t enough, Hello tubes, caps, mouthwash bottles and brushes are now easily recycled through a free mail-back program with TerraCycle.

The beautiful, hard-milled charcoal soap in the photo is courtesy of venerable soap maker Yardley London, who have expanded well beyond their classic rose and lavender bars (which are great for scenting your lingerie and sock drawers and you should definitely get some just for that purpose). Their black charcoal soap purifies skin and wakes you up with the scent of spearmint. There’s also a new hemp seed oil bar scented with herbs and rose that makes your bathroom smell like a spa.

And a final shoutout to Homesense. Remember when lockdown ended and there were long lineups outside every last Homesense store? All the online shopping in the world cannot replace walking those aisles in peace. And it was in the Homesense bathroom accessories section that I found the above marble cup for $9.99. Bless.

Hey, Small Spender: Monday Haircare

Finding stylishly packaged beauty products at the grocery store (and at a low price) is such a double win. Especially when you are spending a mortgage payment to get everything else on your list.

I swear that some personal care brands take a perverse delight in punishing us with ugly packaging and cheap fragrance when we choose their less expensive items, so all hail Monday Haircare for setting that business model on fire. Monday’s shampoos and conditioners are loaded with coconut oil, Shea butter and panthenol (vitamin b) for $7.47 for 350 ml. at Walmart. (Coming soon to Shoppers Drug Mart as well.)

Monday was created by former PR exec, New Zealand-based Jaimee Lupton, who clearly understands what people want from beauty products: the contents, the photo-friendly, Insta-bait bottles and how much (or how little) they want to pay. She uses the expression “extortionate pricing” when discussing beauty products in general, and honestly, she’s not wrong.

Monday has four shampoo and conditioner duos (all SLS-, paraben- and cruelty-free): Gentle, Moisture, Smooth and Volume, each with the same creamy, clean-soap scent. And while it may not replace your fanciest luxe haircare (you will have to pry the Leonor Greyl from my cold, dead hands) Monday is definitely something you‘ll be happy to see in your shower (and will look at home in your guest bath instead of some joyless, ugly “value” brand.)

Hey, Small Spender: The Best Hair De-frizzer Is Only $10

Typology Jojoba Oil is beautiful, versatile and cheap.

One ingredient found in most hair-smoothing lotions is jojoba oil. The oil that most closely resembles your scalp’s own sebum, it does an aces job of naturally smoothing down the outer layer of your hair to create shine. When we’re older, our oil production decreases just as our hair is getting thinner and drier and more in need of this life-giving, shine-enhancing oil. And if you have curly hair, all those bends and turns make it even harder for the natural oils to make their way down to your (oh look, now they’re frizzy) ends.

A few drops (two? three?) of jojoba oil warmed in your hands and raked through your hair (paying special attention to ends) creates an instant and surprising amount of natural shine, and handily subdues flyaways, for a more elegant, less crazy cat lady look. As someone with frizz-prone grey, I fear that my default setting is now crazy cat lady.

A 60 ml (two ounce) bottle of jojoba oil is roughly $10 at the health food store and lasts forever. But if you’re like me and ugly packaging upsets your fragile equilibrium, this three ounce, minimalist beauty from France’s Typology brand is worth the 9.90 euro price.

Jojoba oil is also a stellar cuticle protector during these unprecedented ‘gel sanitizer is ruinous to our hands’ times. A couple of drops onto your fingertips after hand washing and before hand lotion will keep your cuticles from cracking.

And as someone who hits the self-tanner bottle pretty hard in the winter, I put jojoba oil on my fingers before ‘tanning’ (that makes me sound so Jersey Shore) to prevent the tint grabbing onto any dry skin and turning my fingertips yellowish-brown, making me look like a two-pack-a day smoker. (And that alone is totally worth 10 euros.)