Brooklyn Benjestorf

My lil pup feels so secure with this bed. They designed this thing with a bit of magic—it's made to resemble the sensation of cozying up to Mama dog, so it's soothing for wound up pups and I'm here to tell you, it works. We popped it into our puppy's crate and now he curls up and goes to sleep right away instead of crying. Bonus - it's the first bed we've gotten that he hasn't tried to destroy.

Our puppy loves this ramp! We have a mini dachshund so protecting his spine from falls and frequent jumping is really important. I originally discovered this ramp through a targeted ad and when I started comparing it against others, it just seemed so perfect. It assembles and collapses super easily so can be slid underneath the couch for storage and is made of attractive and durable material with great grip for the pupperino. Even my cat likes it for a scratcher.

I'm not sure who loves this subscription box more - me or my dog. They partner with such amazing brands to create the most adorable toys eg. Home Alone, Scooby Doo, etc. and are really high quality. The people there are low-key genius - the stuffy toys are literally stuffed with another toy so when doggo rips through it, there's a bonus toy to destroy! Our pup has been a little meh on the treats and (because they're so durable) now has way more toys than we know what to do with so I wouldn't subscribe longer than 6 months, but in the meantime Bark Box day has been one of the best days of the month at our house.

I tried so many different brands of foaming soaps before absolutely falling in love with this one. The scents are positively to die for, and not only hits you with a sweet blast of deliciousness while you're washing your hands, but the smell lingers for a bit so you're left smelling like Blueberry Crumble or Raspberry Lemonade, or whatever flavor you've chosen. The soaps contain essential oils which have been invaluable during this time while we're all obsessively washing our hands. Plus, Bath & Body Works has a fantastic bundling option on their website, so you can get 6 soaps for $26 which works out to about the same price of the regular bottles at the grocery store.

I love these candles so much. They're by far some of the most potent smelling candles I've ever purchased without being overly perfumed or too powerful. The scents are all well balanced, unique and complex. And I love love love the branding. Each candle is named after a women in pop culture history—from Sabrina the Teenage Witch (Mystics Collection) to Stevie Nicks (70s Icons Collection) to Audrey Hepburn (Starlets Collection)—with the scents invoking the essence of that icon. My favorite is the "Dolly" candle which is scented with Peach and Lily. They all make my house smell so magical and they look beautiful. I have multiple collections proudly displayed in various room of my home. Another thing I love about these candles is that the brand is value aligned for me. The founders are a queer married couple and the ingredients/materials are all ethically sourced. They're still a quite small business and are doing a great job with fulfillment for their size. I've shipped a candle out directly to a friend last minute as a gift and it arrived within one week. Fantastic product!

I love this curling iron so much! I'm a mess when it comes to styling my hair and curling irons have especially presented a problem for my butterfingers. This thing is about 90% dummy proof and does all the work for you. You just place a one-inch piece of hair in the winder and squeeze a button and BOOM - your hair gets smoothly fed into the curler with a TIMER that beeps when it's time to release. I literally drink my coffee and check my email with my free hand while the thing is working it's magic. So much less stress and so far, no burns.

This has become my very favorite brand for eyeshadows (as well as blush!) because not only are they priced comparably to drugstore brands, but their pigments are out of this world. Fallout from the shadow is very minimal, making it easy to work with even very bright colors and they offer an incredible variety in shades/color stories. My favorites are currently "Blush Crush" and "Strawberry Shake."

I swear by this mascara! I've tried about a zillion different types of mascara in my life trying to find the right one—something that's got a little lift and thickening qualities so I can rock a minimal number of products while still looking fresh and alert, while also never flaking because I have big, sensitive eyes that are magnets for tiny particles. This is the one! It's on the pricey end of mascaras but believe me when I say it's worth it. It's long lasting, brings enough drama that I don't need to wear any other eye makeup, and even has a waterproof formula that I like to pick up in the summer.

Our puppy absolutely loves these - like will chew on it for hours on end loves these. They look like little burritos and are totally safe and humane.

I love these because they do everything a poop bag is supposed to do AND they're compostable. Love that.

This pet hair brush has been a total game changer for my cat and has worked well for my long-haired puppy as well. It gets under that top layer of fur and into the undercoat, thinning out that thick uncomfortable layer closest to the skin, and leaving a soft and silky coat that's much more manageable.

We live in a third floor apartment, so potty training our puppy has been a little daunting. I learned about these terf mats from a YouTube video and am so pleased with the results. Because the pads are made from a material that more closely resembles grass than a traditional puppy pad, we haven't had accidents on rugs. Plus, because you wash these rather than dispose of them, they're better for the environment than puppy pads (always love that!).

This is my favorite clarifying mask when I'm in need of a little self care. The charcoal is incredibly detoxifying and leaves my skin feeling squeaky clean and so smooth. I always follow up with their Thirstymud mask afterward to rehydrate my skin as the charcoal can be a little drying, but together they make for a complete and easy home spa treatment.

This is probably my favorite skincare product in my arsenal. The thick, hydrating cream leave my skin feeling silky soft and it smells (sweet honeyed coconut) just about good enough to eat. I always use it after doing any kind of skin clarifying treatment for added hydration and also anytime my skin is just feeling parched, especially in the winter months.

This tinted brow grooming pomade is genius. It's by far the simplest way I've found to quickly darken and style my brows, and often I'll just throw a bit of this on with a little mascara and my face instantly looks more alive. I highly recommend it anyone who wants to look polished with minimal effort.

I just got this handy little organizer and I'm so happy (happi?) with it. My wide brimmed hats were all floating around my bedroom and I had no idea where to store them without risking damage to the brims. I only really wear them a few times a year, mostly on vacation, so they were collecting dust as they were shuffled around the room. I order this hat box and boom, problem solved. Big enough to fit my wide brims, tall enough to stack a few inside, and zips up for safe keeping. Bonus - it doubles as a travel box so I can just toss this sucker in my suitcase when the time is right.

I love to use this face oil right before bed as part of my night time skincare routine. When I wake up in the morning, my skin feels so supple and soft, plus it has acne busting properties so if you have any skin problems when you go to sleep, it can help to minimize them by the time you wake up. It's on the spendy side, but it lasts a super long time so I think it's totally worth it. Really anything from Herbivore is amazing, plus they're woman owned and local to Seattle.

Our puppy loves this stuff! We moved on to this puppy formula (recommended by one of the sales associates at Mud Bay) after the bag we got from the breeder ran out. It's got freeze dried raw pieces in it for high nutritional value and sometimes the pup "picks all the marshmallows out" because they're the best bits, but but it's lower cost than the all-freeze dried raw brands running us about $22/month.

This brand is one of the undisputed best for teething puppies and super chewers. They have been a god-send for my pup while his grown up teeth come in, and I love that not only can you purchase specially designed treats to fit into their toys to add a puzzle element, but they also have tons of stuffing recipes right on their website. Long live Kong!

I love this product so much. Even if I'm too lazy to put anything else on my face before bed, I'm always sure to use this lip mask because, as someone with dry lips, the protective hyaluronic acid moisture seal it creates is absolutely essential to waking up with soft lips. It's really helped with preventing any cracking while I sleep and while it doesn't have much flavor, the new Gummi Bear scent is delicious.

This is the only subscription box that I currently have and I love it. Designed to arrive just before each new moon, every box contains either a small plant or a candle, a little crystal, and 3+ self care products such as clay masks, keratin spray for your hair, or last month I received a Tibetan singing bowl. When you sign up, they send you a journal so that each week as the moon hits its lunar phase, you can document your thoughts and feelings around the lunar cycle—setting intentions on the new moon, making a plan at the first quarter, releasing that which doesn't serve you at the full moon, and celebrating your accomplishments at the 3/4 moon. It's something simple and centering I can do for myself on a weekly basis, and having a subscription box show up each month is like getting a present from myself in the mail.

I got hooked on Switch early in quarantine when Animal Crossing came out. I played my boyfriends as I didn't have one of my own, and he got me the teal Switch Lite for my birthday. I have never been much into video games and what I love most about this system is that it's very novice friendly and is such a great stress buster. It gets me off my phone and disconnected from any opportunity for doom scrolling. All of my favorite games from the original Nintendo system are supported so I can play Mario 3 and Dr. Mario, etc. and I've gotten really into the Lego games (I beat Jurassic Park a few weeks ago and picked up the Incredibles on Black Friday) and Pikmin. Basically I can't recommend this amazing little distraction enough.

Both our puppy and our cat goes absolutely bonkers for the freeze dried chicken and salmon from this brand. More than a few seems to do a number on their tummies, but for a treat they will do literal flips for—go for the freeze dried raw.

These have been a favorite for our teething pup. We got a three pack for puppies after seeing them recommended in a training video, and love that the pack came with a semi-soft version, a treat version, and a harder version so the puppy could "graduate" to tougher versions of the product as he got older and his needs changed. He still loves his soft chew at 5 months and it's held up through the teething process.

I am obsessed with this app. I love to cook, and have mastered the formula for how many meals we need to make each week so that I don't over stock on perishables, and this app has helped me streamline this entire process so easily. In the cook section, I can import recipes from Pinterest, it cuts out the recipe bloggers life stories and just gets right to the recipe. You can also input recipes by hand, effectively digitizing your recipe book. Under the Plan feature, I plug in my recipes for the week under each day and meal and then VOILA! The Shop feature adds all of those ingredients to a shopping list I can take to the store. With a very satisfying tap of a button, ingredients disappear from the list, so I can clean the list up before shopping and only get what I need. I love this thing so much!

I love this litter because it gives me incredible peace of mind. The crystals contain a color changing technology that indicates any health problems your cat may be suffering from, so you can address issues early. Cats are notorious for hiding illness, basically crawling into dark corners to suffer in silence. With this litter I feel confident that my kitty is healthy and that if any problems were to arise, we would catch them early. It's also had the added benefit of being more smell absorbent than other litters we've used. We live in a small open floor plan apartment and keep the litter box in a closet in the bedroom because that's pretty much the only place there's room for it. And yet, somehow, our home has ZERO bad kitty smell. I love it.

This was my first "grown up" mattress purchase. I actually had some money to spend, did a ton of research, and ended up with my dream mattress. It's extremely comfortable—I pretty much melt into it every night. It has temperature regulating technology, which is very important to my partner and I because he's a very hot sleeper. And as someone who has a lot of hip pain, this has been a really great change because their grid design alleviates pressure from my hips. I love my bed!

We picked these up after a recommendation from a friend and love them. They come in a two pack, so I have one and my partner has the other. Perfect size for a handful of training treats to take on the go, easily clip onto a belt or coat pocket for easy access, and the magnetic closure keeps the treats fresh.

My mom sent this to me as a gift to ease my menstrual cramps and it works like a dream. Unlike my old pad which felt like thick crunchy plastic wrapped in a thin medical smok, this one is soft and cushy. Super ease to use with the touch of a button, it warms to the perfect temp without any risk for burns. I also used it recently when I threw my neck out and it eased the tension within minutes.

We LOVE our Buffy Breeze. My partner is a very hot sleeper so we really needed something that provided me with the comforting weight of a regular comforter without overheating my partner, and this comforter has done it! They say it has something to do with it being made of 100% eucalyptus fibers but I call it straight up wizardry. It's somehow cozy and cooling at the same time. 10/10 highly recommend.

EBTB is one of the best seasonings I've ever discovered. I love it on avocado toast, boiled eggs, and used in combo with a little panko to bread chicken. Really it can be used for anything and everything.

My stylist, Brandon, is an amazing colorist!

Lovely and unique stick and poke line work.

I've been getting my waxes done here for years and can not recommend them enough. Clean and comfortable studio environment. Very professional, keeping me at ease even during the most awkward of waxes.

This was my first threading experience and they did such an amazing job. Very clean and precise with minimal discomfort.

Stunning wedding and engagement photography. Jacquelyn is brilliant at connecting with her clients and delivering polished photos that feel warm and serene.

I love Knack for gifting! All of the products they have available are so chic and quality. I got my mom a box for Mother's Day and she absolutely loved it.

The most incredible selection of films in the city. Obscure, independent films, VHS tapes from your childhood you thought you'd never see again, foreign films you could never find on Netflix—they have it all. My partner and I like to rent old kaiju films from them.

Beautiful houseplants and super helpful staff.

I love Stitches Seattle so much! They're very close to my home, and in an area that is a little starved for craft stores. I buy all of my yarn for crochet project from them and they have a small but mighty selection. I've also recently been picking up kits for embroidery, cross stitching, and macrame projects and I love that they have kits to give a sampling of the hobbies so I don't have to invest in a bunch of products to test the waters. The staff is super friendly, knowledgable and helpful. I've not yet taken one of their many classes, but would love to do so in the near future.

I just started seeing Sunny for eyelash extensions and she is so wonderful. I have sensitive eyes and the process was totally painless, plus her table was super comfortable. She has incredible attention to detail and gave every single lash a little love.

Biola's Slow Jams and Trap Vinyasa classes are fun, refreshing, accessible, and restorative.

This dog park is so cute! Nestled right into SLU near REI, this astroturf dog park is great for downtown dwellers who want to socialize their dogs. Everyone we've met there is so friendly and the park is well maintained.

Troy and Kelsey from Lanika recently inspected a home we are considering buying and we thought they did an incredible job. Not only were they detail oriented and incredibly thorough, but they quickly put everything in layman's terms and helped us feel prepared to ask the right questions we need to get answered before making an informed decision on the purchase. They were friendly and really understanding of where we were at as first time home buyers and just generally put as at ease through one of the biggest decisions we've ever made.

I love this neighborhood book store so much. They have amazingly knowledgable, friendly, and helpful staff and their selection of books is amazing. I love the big open air design of the shop and (pre-COVID) would sometimes stop by just to peruse the stacks and hang out. With social distancing restrictions I've been pre-ordering online and make a point to place an order every month or so (even when I have plenty of unread books on my shelf) because I never ever want to see this place close down.