The people informing me of these flaws also have answers. The only thing is their solutions usually cost $48 plus shipping.

Every so often I ask readers and friends to review the things the internet convinced them to buy. These are not influencers or people pushing products. They're just regular people who got targeted and took the bait.

Today we are talking to Liz, a yoga and Pilates teacher who isn't affiliated with any brands. Here's what she's tried.

MELLO CLIPS ($25 each)

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Recently I’ve been more curious about interesting people wearing clothes than people whose main thing is being interested in clothes. Lately this has looked like musicians at concerts, psychoanalysts deep in their game, writers in memoirs, or strange old women in novels.

Here’s some stuff I’ve done/seen/read lately that falls into that category.

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Meanwhile, the internet keeps trying to convince me that every modern discomfort can be solved with a luxury product.

This week: designer water.

This is not the kind of newsletter where I tell you to buy the thing. It’s the newsletter where I help you develop x-ray vision for the absurdity of all this. Laughing at it is honestly a pretty decent coping mechanism.

Last year I wrote about how to get the free version of things I was being advertised:

I’m doing it again, one item at a time. First up…

LOONEN WATER ($6 per bottle) or THE EARTH (ZERO-ish DOLLARS)

WHY I KEEP SEEING IT: I used to own a Berkey Water System, which apparently sentenced me to a lifetime of podcast ads about what’s new “in the water space.” Hot wellness influencers are calling it the best and purest water on earth. Elle ran a piece on it. I had to investigate.

I am still unlearning a lot of harmful misinformation I picked up from my Catholic school education, including the belief that the founder of water was God. Apparently it is actually a venture capitalist trying to rid the home of microplastics.

That’s basically the origin story of Loonen. Founder Clara Sieg has said she became obsessed with finding the purest possible water while trying to conceive, couldn’t find a brand she trusted, and decided to make her own.

This pricey water ($36 bucks for 6 bottles) hasn’t even been around for a six months. So how did it get so popular so fast?

When you research these things, you have to go where the real answers live. Ditch the polished founder interviews and the PR fluff. You must descend into the deepest and most disturbed crevice of the dark web: LinkedIn.

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A friend said this to me recently while we were talking about watching new television shows. “There’s no middle class on TV.” She can’t handle the designer clothes, the perfectly lit homes, the $3,000 faucets over waterfall kitchen islands. She can’t stomach watching people take vacations at boutique resorts that cost more per night than her monthly rent. Lately, she’s been watching reruns of Roseanne.

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If you missed it, I reviewed the viral Ruti On The Loose Work pants last week. You can read it here:

While researching them and going through reader reviews, one thing kept coming up over and over: there is a very close Old Navy version of them.

I’ve never been totally sold on “dupes.” Not just from some moral high ground, but because most people making that claim haven’t tried both.They are making an assumption based on a fantasy of what the original might be like.

I’m not someone who defaults to cheap fast fashion, but in the context of the Ruti conversation, these came up so often I couldn’t ignore them. I ordered them along with the Ruti and spent time comparing both. Below are side by side photos of me in the pants and my full verdict.

I’ve also included a few reader recommended alternatives and one pair I’d never heard of before finding it myself.

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I heard a ding and immediately lunged for my bag. When I opened my texts, here’s what I saw:

“You have got to be freaking kidding me!” I said. “It’s Ruti.”

My friend stared at me blankly. “Um….and who is Ruti?!”

I explained Ruti is just a clothing brand. Their viral pants have followed me around the internet for months, maybe even years at this point. They are $249 a pair and have a cult following. Ads that don't look like ads have told me they will absolutely change my life. The message is clearly working… they landed in the top 100 most bought products of 2025 on ShopMy.

Of course, I needed to buy these pants. Partly because I love a good pair of pants and was willing to be open minded, but also because I have a bit of a history with very hyped, expensive pants. If you remember my High Sport days, you get it.

So I bought them to review for you. I took photos and asked readers to share their experiences.

I wanted to know if the Ruti On The Loose Pants were worth how unavoidable they felt.

I assumed once I put them on, I’d know everything I needed to know and the chapter would be closed. I thought this would be a simple pant review. It turned into something else entirely.

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I smiled and said “Yup, I have…you’ll have to let me know what you think!” Lately, I'm trying to understand that not every thought needs to come out of my mouth. Especially on someone's birthday, when everyone is in a great mood and someone you love is excited about a new robe.

A couple days later, she texted the group chat.

The group chat was immediately divided. 50% of us had smelly Quince experiences. The others had ordered from them and were perfectly happy. One even sent a picture of her newest Quince sweater to prove it.

So I did exactly what I said I am trying to stop doing. I killed the mood.

I went into how Quince is basically a tech company disguised as a fashion company. I even brought up how Amazon was never really a bookstore (um, yikes). At some point I was referencing this WSJ podcast, this EcoCult investigation into Quince’s greenwashing (cease and desist included), and explaining that “fast fashion” refers to the speed at which a collection is made, not how fast people consume it. Basically, I was a lot and I pushed it too far. I went to bed after apologizing for my Quince shaming.

When I woke up though, I just couldn’t stop thinking about that stink.

My specific stinky Quince experience was with their bedding. I received a large box which looked like it had been dropkicked off a 12 story building and smelled like it had landed in a vat of vomit. I had to get it out of my home because the smell lingered in my hallway for days after. I felt embarrassed taking that stinky box into FedEx when I returned it. Quince sent me another, and the smell was the same. Now I’ve got two FedEx walks of shame under my belt.

I went sniffing around on the Quince website and filtered by lowest reviews. I didn't see much. They have a reputation for negative reviews mysteriously "disappearing." When I googled "my quince order smells,"plenty came up…

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Often, it’s a colorful sock in a debatably ugly rubber clog. The crown jewel: Plasticana Gardana clogs.

These French hemp clogs have been popular among fashion people for quite some time. When I first discovered them, I told myself they would be my “adorable gardening shoe.” This was somewhere between when Bode put them on the runway in 2020 and they became the unofficial uniform of every gorpy Brooklyn dad.

In my mind, I had been a gardener for years. This mostly meant falling asleep to the sound of Monty Don’s voice more times than I can count. Who needs Ambien when you have Gardener’s World? I find the show incredibly relaxing, though there is a whole population of people genuinely outraged because he said begonias are repulsively ugly. It is riveting.

I’ve also been charmed by gardening things for a while. I love seed catalogs. A frie…

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I used to break Federal Trade Commission advertising rules because doing things “right” made less money.

Apparently, I was not an outlier. A 2025 study analyzing over 100 million posts found that 96% of sponsored content on Twitter (X) was not disclosed. A European Commission review found that only 20% of influencers disclosed ads, with nearly half of the disclosures being vague, buried, or easy to miss.

Some people knowingly ignore the FTC disclosure rules, while others seem to have no idea they exist. So let’s start at the beginning: why these rules exist and what they are.

WHY LABEL ADS?

If you are getting something in return for talking about a product, it is advertising. This can include payment, free products, or commission. The Federal Trade Commission calls this a “material connection,” meaning a relationship to a brand that could affect how someone interprets your recommendation and must be disclosed.

The goal is simple: make sure consumers are not misled.

Without disclosure, something tied to money or incentive reads like a personal opinion, even though it is technically considered an endorsement. Consumers need that context to properly evaluate the recommendation.

HOW SHOULD ADS BE DISCLOSED?

If there is a material connection, it should be obvious.

The Federal Trade Commission is clear about this. People should understand the relationship before or at the same time as the content, not after.

That means it should be easy to see and easy to understand. Not at the bottom of a page, not buried in hashtags, not hidden behind a link, and not phrased in a way people have to decode.

If someone has to look for it or think about what it means, it is not clear enough. The FTC calls this “clear and conspicuous,” which in practice means it should be easy to understand and hard to miss.

Here’s what that looks like in practice…

AFFILIATE LINKS

Affiliate links pay a commission when someone buys. Once a commission is involved, the recommendation is considered advertising and should be disclosed.

The Federal Trade Commission is clear that timing matters. If the disclosure comes after the recommendation, it is too late. The reader has already processed it as personal opinion.

A recommendation can be genuine and still require disclosure. That disclosure should come before or alongside the link, so the context is clear as someone reads or views it.

A clear affiliate link disclosure looks like this…

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The first is not realizing how absurd it was to be making a salary of $40,000 a year to run million dollar campaigns. I’d go home and stretch my expired beef jerky packet until the next paycheck. Meanwhile, my boss would get too drunk and accidentally blow $50,000 on a Yahoo! ad over a weekend. Like, why can’t I get a raise again, guys?

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One entry that caught people’s attention was a fashion newsletter writer who reported making around $275,000 a year.

People had a lot of reactions. Some were annoyed. Many were impressed. What struck me most was how confused everyone seemed to be.

How exactly does someone make that much money writing a newsletter?

As someone who spent years working in affiliate marketing and performance media, I can tell you the answer is not particularly mysterious.

There is, more or less, a playbook. It looks something like this.

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When I first walked into this house, I fell completely in love with it. It wasn’t even technically on the market yet, but I knew I had to make an offer immediately.

The other day I was going through old videos and found one from the first time I walked through the house. What I heard in the video was kind of ridiculous.

Paid subscriptions are on sale this week!

Annual Sale Discount ($3.25 per month)

Totally Recommend is 100% reader supported with zero affiliate links or sponsored content.

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It was a wild week, so keeping this quick. Here are a couple things I enjoyed in the last 24 hours and a question for you.

1. The diamond truther. An old video resurfaced from a series of a kid going around school testing his teachers’ diamond rings for authenticity. Is there a setting for “technically lab grown, still $13,200”?

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This time, the results served Jared Leto in a bright green Gucci pilgrim coat from 2017. This got me a wee bit closer to truth.

I keep wondering why these events still puzzle me. It’s not that I don’t understand what Fashion Week is: an industry expo where designers present collections, buyers place orders, and editors generate coverage. It’s a massive marketing content engine. It is a status ritual for influencers and celebrities.

And no, you don’t need to send me the cerulean blue monologue from The Devil Wears Prada.

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If today makes you feel sad or mad, it may comfort you to know that this is arguably the heteronormative male’s least favorite day of the year, which honestly gives it a certain charm. Someone somewhere is screaming about missing dinner reservations or spiraling after discovering a receipt that reveals their diamond necklace came from Costco.1

Fantasy is the lifeblood of Valentine’s Day. There’s a picture of how it should look and how a person should behave. For some people, these expectations seem to signal that instead of chilling the f out, it’s time to start micromanaging a fully formed adult. Haven’t we all known someone dating a person they’re convinced just needs a few adjustments, waiting for a transformation that may or may not ever come?

I say this with authority because I ran a full time fixer-upper program for years.

I dated men who were “almost perfect,” if you …

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But I didn’t get mad because it worked! I slept. I relaxed. I became briefly evangelical and annoying about CBD in a way that now warrants a sincere apology.

When I ran out of that liquid gold, I bought some gummies. I popped what I thought was a CBD gummy, and an hour later I felt afraid of heights while just looking out the window. My heart was racing and I was convinced I was having a heart attack.

So I checked the packaging: THC. Actual weed.

The important context here is that I hadn’t done drugs in a very long time. High school me was a rebel who loved the devil’s herb but…

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It’s just one day. That doesn’t sound very hard. But if there is one thing Americans are bad at, it’s taking time off work. Not buying things might be even harder.

I’ve felt that discomfort all over social media this week. The influencer formula is eerie and familiar by now: a brief acknowledgment of the horrors unfolding in this country, a throat clearing pause about how terrible everything is, and shortly after, a pivot to creatine powders, new shoes, or the top three face creams you’re apparently meant to want this week.

No, this isn’t a call for “better content” from people whose job is to sell an aspirational version of life. That feels beside the point. I was thinking today about why that content used to pull me in so easily. For a long time, it wasn’t just about the products. It was the sense that this other life —one of ease, beauty, and abundance— was a destina…

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In the last few years, though, I’ve heard COS spoken about in the same breath as very expensive designers like The Row, which feels like a far cry from being compared to a giant Japanese retailer best known for selling $3.90 socks.

Then last year, COS ranked third on Lyst’s hottest brands index, grouped with luxury houses like Saint Laurent and Miu Miu. They show at Fashion Week. They’re considered “high street” accessible fashion, even as they also sell coats priced over $1,200.

Naturally, this raises questions.

So let’s run a paternity test on COS for fashion DNA. Maury style, envelope and all.

The verdict is …

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First came the COVID. That sucked. Then, just days after I recovered and briefly believed I was back, I got taken out by whatever unholy flu has been haunting the East Coast. I limped into 2026 with the voice of a Disney villain and the laugh of a lifelong Newport smoker.

I didn’t arrive this year with any resolutions, goals, or a personal vision board. The only theme that’s shown up for me so far this year is limits.

Physically, they were unavoidable. I tried everything from a soup with thirty five cloves of garlic to a fake immunity booster made in Poland. Unfortunately, time and waiting are the only ingredients there isn’t a shortcut for. Sometimes you have to accept your limits and rest. Being sick in bed reminded me that scrolling doesn’t actually count as rest, particularly when it turns into browsing 2026 in/outs lists.

A great number of these lists mentioned that screen time is suddenly the main thing to watch. Apparently, the big “in” this year…

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I wish I could report on the interesting and unique gifts I encountered, from guides like “the definitive gift guide for enthusiasts of North American whale song.” Unfortunately, the internet knows I own too many candles.

Instead, I’ve been pegged as someone determined to be a highly unique cool girl who owns an alarming amount of beige. Her shopping decisions are framed as deeply personal, even though they reliably involve the same rotating cast of candles, lotions, and socks. Think less “what should I get my son’s karate teacher” and more “things I would personally like to own before January.”

After seeing the same items show up again and again, I started wondering: are these actually good gifts, or are these just ads? Is this stuff genuinely beloved,…

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