Clare Davies, Mai Writer & gift giver extraordinaire
Bought: The Ordinary Exfoliating Peeling Solution & Voggenreiter Rhythmic Village Percussion Set
The last thing I bought myself in quarantine was two weeks ago. I purchased an exfoliating peeling solution from “The Ordinary”. Unfortunately, I freaked myself out by reading the only bad review I could find online (detailing an in-depth description of facial chemical burns the user experienced after using said product, accompanied by photographic evidence highlighting her plight) and so I have yet to test it.
Instead I will tell you about a birthday present I bought for my boyfriend at the end of last month. Sean is a musician, and has been taking advantage of working from home and his reduced hours by experimenting with “foley sounds” to add to evolving tracks. With a host of instruments scattered around our small flat, I noticed he had no percussion and got on thomann.de to see what I could surprise him with. I came across this “Voggenreiter Rhythmic Village Percussion-S” set, which includes a drum, a tambourine looking thing and two wooden sticks. I placed my order, which arrived quickly and in a large brown cardboard box. I didn’t bother unpacking the items, and wrapped the box in some llama printed birthday paper so that he wouldn’t see Thomann’s distinctive logo.
The day of Sean’s birthday arrived, and he sat down to open his presents. His eyes widened as he saw the size of the llama embellished rectangle, and he excitedly ripped through the paper to reveal the brown cardboard. He opened the box, and inside — to my surprise — was another, very much smaller, box. My brow furrowed as I noticed “Suitable for 6+!” emblazoned next to a picture of a smiling child holding up one of the components of the set, and it slowly dawned on me that I had accidentally purchased a toy and not a real musical instrument.
Thankfully, my 28 year old boyfriend is delighted with the set. He uses it quite a lot, and has assured me that the present has helped to add some real depth to his music. I love hearing him bashing the wooden sticks into his microphone, and think it’s really cool when he distorts the sounds and plays them loudly through the speaker. What else is really fun is that he has managed to also utilise his birthday balloons. He records himself rubbing them together, and the high-pitched squeaking sound isn’t annoying at all. I don’t regret buying this. I swear I don’t at all.
Julius Rueckert, Mai Social Media guru & clogger
Bought: Clogs
I bought clogs because I decided to spend my self-isolation time with my family in Bavaria. We live in the countryside and have a huge garden. I just needed a pair of shoes that I can quickly get in and out of. I also find them a bit stylish haha
Danny Muster, Mai Fashion Editor & do you advocate
Bought: Vintage pants
The last thing I bought is at least 10 pairs of pants at an amazing vintage shop or rather Sozial Kaufhaus. Discovering this Kaufhaus is like getting guestlist to a club. I’ve been living in Berlin for 17 years now, what a long time…. It took a ride from shop to shop, from disco to disco, after hour to after hour, from concert to concert, to find that feeling I was always searching for. It’s all about you, your loved ones, being yourself and please, don’t waste your time being worried too much! Remember that you are great! Keep everything special just like YOU are & like these pants! 😉 And you will also find your favourite special shop.
Marijana Jocic, Mai Maker of Stuff & milk enthusiast
Bought: AICOOK Milk Frother & Milk Highlighter Stick
Yes, the time has finally come to admit that I am one of *those* people. I have an illy coffee machine and after my manual milk frother broke (ooh la la, I hear you say), I decided to bite the bullet and stop pretending that I don’t care what kind of coffee I drink as long as it’s coffee. The period of my life where I low-key loathed coffee snobs and purposely wanted to disassociate myself from that whole thang is long gone. I’m an oat milk capp (or latte depending on which continent you find yourself) type of gal and I like my milk whipped good (OOH LA LA, LA, I hear you say).
Marijana’s purchase 2.0
The moment when I purchased the Milk Mini Highlighter stick was April 18th, 2020. It was about ten in the evening, I was laying on the couch with my laptop nuzzled on my chest. I had just finished my second gin & tonic, my go-to long drink during quarantine. At that point, I would guesstimate that I was about three hours deep into a YouTube vortex when a girl appeared on my screen. She was a picture-perfect pillar of inner glow and outer shine, the complete opposite of my gin & tonic infused self. It was clear what I was about to do, what remedy I was about to seek and I was ok with it… The Milk Highlighter makeup stick “for natural glow and shine” add to basket… Click. I bought the mini instead of the maxi stick because the price difference was 10€ & I waited. One day a note came. My package hadn’t managed to be delivered to my house and had been left at my local post office. It was at Rathaus Neukölln Arcaden. It’s just my luck, I guess, that my default local post office happens to be in a mall. But apparently even being in the depths of a pandemic couldn’t have prepared me for how obscenely long the queue of others also waiting to pick up their promise packages was going to be. It was at that moment that my little bundle of light instantly became a consumerist piece of poop. I walked away feeling happy to have been spared of stuff I didn’t really need, and even happier that it wasn’t my Latte Larry’s cap that I was leaving behind.
