If you want to expedite a friendship, SuChin Pak and Kulap Vilaysack recommend laying bare your credit card statements.
On their new podcast, “Add to Cart,” Pak, a former MTV News reporter, and Vilaysack, who previously co-hosted the “Who Charted?” podcast, dissect their recent purchases, which run the gamut. Online shopping is “one of the only safe activities to do in quar,” Vilaysack says by phone, using her shorthand for “quarantine.” “And we’re all about safety,” Pak adds. “That’s how we justify all the shopping.”
They aren’t alone in their mind-set. Since the start of the pandemic, online sales have increased to 16.1 percent of all U.S. sales, up from 11.8 percent in the first three months of the year, according to research from J.P. Morgan. Household cleaners and disinfectants, vitamins, coffee and hair dye are pandemic bestsellers, the data shows. Pak and Vilaysack admit to panic-buying those items early on, too, but on “Add to Cart,” which drops new episodes every Tuesday, they prefer to focus on their nonessential pandemic buys.
In the first episode, which came out in mid-November, the women chat about their latest purchases: matching Mickey Mouse Christmas onesies, a swan-shaped kegel exerciser, a hand grip strengthening device and Poise bladder leakage pads. (“Listen, it’s vagina-centered storytelling,” Vilaysack says of the podcast.)
The hope is that by talking about what they buy — and what they buy into — they’ll come to better understand themselves. “We dive into the emotion and the psychology behind these purchases,” Vilaysack says. Pak agrees that there is “no end to the psychology of what we buy.” Or what they don’t, which is why each episode includes a “remove from cart” segment, where they talk about the items and ideologies they’re leaving behind — and why.
Advertisement
The humorous take on consumerism has also unwittingly become an intimacy experiment for the women who met nearly two years ago while organizing for Time’s Up, a foundation working to end sex discrimination in entertainment and other industries. Pak admits that she “wouldn’t do this with most of my closest friends,” because sharing your order history means “you can’t hide.”
The idea for the podcast came just before the pandemic, right before California shut down. Pak and Vilaysack decided, over what would become their last meal together in a restaurant, that the show would delve into retail therapy. Quarantine has made the podcast far more therapeutic than they initially imagined. Pak says she is “not generally a self-reflective person,” but spending a few hours a week dissecting her latest purchases has shown her “just how weird I am and where my hang-ups are.”
Through the podcast, the women also discovered the ways in which growing up first-generation American has influenced how they shop. Both Pak, who is South Korean, and Vilaysack, who is Laotian, say that after growing up with little money, they find themselves having to justify every purchase, whether it be a $2.95 soda or a $3,995 electric bike. After being in podcasting for a decade, a profession that forces you to get personal, Vilaysack was surprised by how vulnerable she felt talking about how she spends money. After recording an episode, she sometimes worries that listeners will get the wrong idea about her, she says. “Like, will they wonder, ‘Is this a podcast about Kulap piling a bunch of money and then setting it on fire?’ ”
Advertisement
The Lily spoke with the co-hosts about what they’ve added to their carts — and one thing they’ve each removed — during quarantine, plus their holiday shopping plans. Their picks include a hula-dancing Santa Claus, a portable infrared sauna and a toothbrush that Pak believes will change her life.
“It’s like an Asian auntie trait,” she says. “We are born to recommend the best things.”
Favorite pandemic beauty purchase
Vilaysack’s pick: The environmentally friendly hair-care line Hairstory ($34 to $76, depending on product). “The shampoo doesn’t suds up. It’s more like a conditioner,” she says of the brand. She suggests buying the company’s scalp massaging brush, too. “Here’s the thing about me: I’m going to always say get accessories,” she says, but swears the brush has helped exfoliate her dry scalp.
Advertisement
Pak’s pick: The Honest Company’s Reusable Magic Silicone Sheet Mask ($14.99). You apply your own moisturizers and serums to your face, and the mask “just seals everything in,” she says. The best part? “You wash it, dry it and use it again and again.”
Share this articleShareBest bargain buy
Vilaysack and Pak’s pick: Neewer Pro 18-inch Ring Light Kit (on sale for $95.99, regularly $139.99). For those whose days include nonstop Zoom meetings, Vilaysack suggests investing in this lighting kit that includes two color filters. She’s partial to the orange one, which “gives a more palatable warm vibe,” unlike the standard white light, which too often “makes you look like a silent movie star.” Although the light can be safely stored away in the kit’s carrying case, she says it also works well as a regular lamp. Pak can attest: “I use mine as a lamp more than anything.”
Quarantine splurge
Vilaysack’s pick: Vintage Cafe electric bike ($3,995). She calls the purchase, recommended by her friend and fellow podcaster Paul Scheer, “excessive and frivolous,” but hopes it will force her to safely leave her house more often. “There are actual cobwebs on the passenger seat mirror of my car,” she says.
Advertisement
Pak’s pick: SaunaSpace infrared sauna ($5,499.99 to $5,999.99, depending on color). For years, Pak had thought about buying an in-home sauna; it wasn’t until the pandemic, when she could no longer visit a Korean spa, that she took the plunge. But not without doing a ton of research first. This one, she says, checked all the boxes when it came to safety concerns. Even better: It’s portable. “It’s like a cloth tent,” she says. “You can pack it away.” She plans to take it with her, even in the very worst of times — like, for instance, a zombie apocalypse. “It’ll be strapped to my back and I’ll be asking, ‘Anyone have a generator?’ ” she jokes.
Remove from cart: What they left behind
Vilaysack’s pick: Dyeing her hair blonde. “It was a fun thing to do,” she says, but all the work that went into it just doesn’t seem worth it now. “To spend that much time getting it bleached and then doing all the things to maintain it, like the purple shampoos. I can’t do it going forward,” she says. “I won’t.”
Advertisement
Pak’s pick: Packing her two children’s schedules full of extracurriculars. “I felt like, as a parent, I had to pack all these activities into their days and weekends,” she says of days spent running from soccer practice to art programs to Korean language classes. But hours of boredom have allowed her 8-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter to spend time playing together, something they barely did before. “I saw him carrying her stuffed animal in a makeshift BabyBjörn,” she says. It made her realize that without quarantine, that bonding moment would probably never have happened. “I didn’t even know that that was missing from their lives,” she says. “It’s been a real eye-opener.”
Holiday shopping list
Vilaysack’s pick: Early Christmas decorating. In September, Vilaysack started putting up all the holiday trimmings, knowing she would need a little extra cheer this year. The inside of her home is a winter wonderland; even her bedroom features a 10-foot tree. “My husband doesn’t understand my lifestyle, but he’s accepting of it,” she says. Her outside decor is less subtle: Santa Claus porch light covers ($34.99 for two), an inflatable hula Santa ($69.98) and a giant glittery gold outdoor ornament. “It’s bigger than a basketball,” she says. Pak has started calling her the “mistress of Christmas.”
Pak’s pick: Oral-B Pro Health toothbrushes ($13.99 for a pack of six). “They are so plastic and so ugly,” she says of the toothbrushes that were recommended by her husband’s dentist. But the Oral-B’s “silicone side bristles that massage the gumline” won her over. Now, she says, “everyone’s getting one of these” in their Christmas stocking.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLSmusOeqWahlJq7tbXTsmawoJGpeqW7jKisq2Wilrulu8xmp5qmlJq6qq%2BMqayrm5iWwKa%2FjKyYsmWRl7y2wIyuqmaZXaOyuHnPqJucmaOpeqW1xqxkoqZf