Much unlike many a magazine editor who recommends you buy all sorts of crap that they most likely got for free, your Jezebel staff doesn’t get jack shit (other than books, unsolicited). And that’s how it should be. But on our own time, in our personal lives, we still buy stuff. So this is Worth It, our daily recommendation of random things that we’ve actually spent our own money on. These are the things we buy regularly or really like, things we’d actually tell our friends about. And now we’re telling you.
Full disclosure: I did not buy the Chico Bag for myself. My mom got it for me. I like to think of myself as an environmentalist, but my mom is a way bigger one. She carries cloth bags everywhere she goes, and sometimes I get embarrassed when we’re shopping and she’s toting around a giant wad of bags with different leafy green logos on them. I worry someone will think we’re stealing, and probably stealing bags, since we obviously like them so much.
However! The Chico Bag is not embarrassing, because it is tiny. That is, it is a normal-sized polyester bag (the website says it holds 25 pounds) that stuffs down into a teeny 3″ x 4″ pouch when you’re not using it. Which means I can carry it around in my purse all the time and no one notices it, not even me. Until I need to go shopping, and voilà! I already have a reusable bag so I don’t need a plastic one. Then all the way home I can feel virtuous, like if my mom could see me she would be proud of me. My other main way of achieving this feeling is going to the dentist, and the Chico Bag is way less painful.
I should note that even if you don’t give a shit about the earth, this bag is pretty useful. Perhaps you have a stack of magazines to take home, or you’re cleaning off your desk, or on your morning commute you pass by a tree veritably drooping with delicious ripe apples, and there’s a sign that says “free apples, pick as many as you want.” Now you can take twice as many as you ordinarily could, because you have a bag in your bag. Or you can just use it to redistribute the weight of all your belongings so that one of your shoulders doesn’t get all achy. Whatever your carrying-stuff needs are, the Chico Bag can help. Unlike the apples on my fantasy tree, it is not free — but at $5.99, it’s pretty close.
Chico Bag, Original, $5.99 at ChicoBag.com
Worth It only features things we paid for ourselves and actually like. Don’t send us stuff.