Why I really, really don't like shopping

Plus a peek into my little black book of brands I endorse spending your money with

Jun 07, 2023

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Hi! This is Leyla from A Day Well Spent, a newsletter seeking pathways to more purposeful living.

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Foreword: 21st November 2024

I still really, really don’t like shopping.

At around this point every year as we fast approach silly season, I raise my gaze and palms to the sky and give renewed thanks that I’m just not that into Christmas.

This week I felt a pressing need to resurface the below piece I published on A Day Well Spent, right back in its infancy. It was the second column I ever wrote here, going out in the same week this newsletter first went live, back in June 2023.

Which means, hardly anyone has read it.

Please enjoy.

Why I really, really don’t like shopping

I really struggle with shopping. I would go as far as to say I actively intensely dislike the act, the pastime, the prayer to capitalism that is shopping.

I find most mainstream shops to be windowless, airless, joyless cathedrals of commercialism that shout at us to buy stuff we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t even like.

Like a lot of people, I spent my youth inside shopping malls. I worked in them (Zara, S.F. Cody’s Emporium and Footlocker in Bluewater) and I spent my leisure time in them. I’d seek out any reason to visit them - to meet friends, check out the sales, flirt with boys.

These days, I would rather be sat in the dentist’s chair than inside most shops, shopping malls or supermarkets. Luckily for me, my husband quite likes going to the shops. So fear not dear reader, I do still eat.

But on the rare occasion I accidentally find myself inside one of these spaces that are somehow diametrically both full of matter yet void of substance (I probably needed the loo), I am affronted by the wares paraded in front of me.

I end up paralysed, blinking blankly under the terrible lighting at all the colours and reflections and signs and offers and pings and automated check-out voices.

My airways are filled with the unmistakable bouquet of polystyrene packaging, microfibre dust and the odour of apathetic customer service, that unique and suffocating blend of eau de retail space. I find myself gasping for fresh air.

And I can’t get past the fact that pretty much everything glaring back at me has been pillaged from the Earth that sustains us.

There is so much of it. So much excess, so much waste, so much stuff.

Where is it all made? Is there a sweatshop somewhere in the world making every single thing that is sold in a shop? Has the whole planet been turned into one giant tat-making factory?

Let me be clear.

Small independent shops and businesses selling sustainable, natural, locally produced, ethically sourced or handmade products and running their businesses in a different way, I have a great deal of time for.

I love these places and the shopping experience in them is joyous. I am not talking about these places.

The stuff that make up our things

Your average department store / shopping mall / supermarket etc. consists of shelf upon shelf and rail upon rail of natural crude oil, gas and coal reserves that have been manipulated into various forms of plastic, polymers, polyester and plenty more, infiltrating every aspect of our lives.

This stuff is everywhere and in everything. From fuels, toys, cleaners and medicines to electronics, toiletries, sports gear and home furnishings.

It has made it into the depths of our lungs; it is no longer possible to even exist without being violated by plastic. And that’s before we even look at all the toxic chemicals lurking in our personal care products.

And if it isn’t made from petroleum oil, it contains palm oil.

You’ll find this pervasive vegetable oil - that comes from the fruit of oil palm trees - in around 50% of all products on supermarket shelves, from biscuits to shampoo.

The trees of which are grown in vast monocultures at the expense of Southeast Asian rainforests, threatening their biodiversity, their peoples and the planet as a whole.

The same goes for soy, a globally traded commodity that serves as a key source of protein to feed all the intensively farmed animals we insist on eating so frequently.

Then there are all the precious and extremely finite materials used to make our phones and computers, mined in developing countries contributing to further environmental problems and social unrest.

Not to mention cotton being one of the most chemically intensive crops in the world.

And so on and so forth.

The gradual ‘cleaning up’ of my life courtesy of Marie Kondo

Don’t get me wrong, I am far from saintly when it comes to consumption.

I have plenty of plastic, non-organic cotton and precious minerals in my home. Probably a fair amount of hidden palm oil too (although this I find easier to exclude).

We can’t function without many of these things, myself included.

But I am on the slow and very gradual path of treading more lightly on the land. And it really is a journey and a long one, that started for me about five years ago.

For that is when I Marie Kondo’d my life.

If you’re unfamiliar with Marie Kondo’s work, she wrote a book called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying which guides you through the process of permanently clearing the clutter in your home (and therefore, your mind), only keeping things that spark joy (it is great, I highly recommend it).

I read the book and did the work. But once I cleared up all the chaos, I found I was applying the same principles to the things I consumed too.

Ever since, anything new I have brought into my home and into my life - from a piece of furniture to multi-surface cleaner - has not only had to serve its purpose, but also make me feel good about using it too.

It takes a lot for me to part with my money

With all of this in mind, it really takes a lot for me to part with my money - I am not a natural spender. Not because I’m tight, but because I struggle to reconcile the true cost of things.

Not just how much something rings up for when checking out, but also taking into account how it was made and how doing so impacts societies, our health and the environment.

Before I embark on a relationship with a new brand or business to purchase a thing, service or experience, I will spend literal hours researching different options to figure out who is most deserving of my hard earned cash.

It’s not uncommon to find me at my desk post midnight having fallen down a black hole of B Corp certifications and green washing.

I take into account their ethos, sustainability credentials, sourcing of their materials, how they treat their workers, what good they are doing in the world and how much I like their products.

My little black book of brands doing good

My dream one day is to be as self-sufficient as I possibly can and spend most of my waking hours making and creating the stuff I need to live.

In my utopian future I would keep chickens and bees, make my own soaps, whittle wood, dye fabrics, make cheese (I see three small goats), spin my own yarn (from my own sheep, of course), tap trees, make wine and weave baskets.

Until I get to this point (I’m working on it…) I still need to buy stuff, we all do. But it can be hard to drown out all the noise and identify what is good.

And so I thought I’d share an exclusive peek into my little black book of favourite brands based on all this research, ranging from skincare and food retailers, to magazines and kitchen gadgets, to stationery and fashion and a whole lot more.

Once I become a customer, I’m usually one for life. These are the businesses I endorse spending your money with.