Cheryl Shops

Mark your calendars, beauty-holics: Sephora's holiday sale is coming! Rouge members get 20% off staring 10/30, VIBs get 15% off starting 11/3, and Insiders get 10% off starting 11/5, all with code HOLIDAYFUN through 11/9. As I've noted before, I work at Sephora's corporate headquarters and am thus an expert on everything we sell. Kidding, I'm not an expert, but I do get the inside scoop, and I am constantly being plied with free stuff, and don't you hate me right now? That said, I do form strong opinions on this stuff, so here are 7 of my favorite products right now—take advantage of the sale and get them at a discount!

Trends come and go, but one of the benefits of being a woman of a certain age is that I now have the confidence and the wisdom to know which trends to try and which ones to skip. I featured chunky Chelsea boots in my fall trend report, and was super eager to try a pair; yes, I wore combat boots back when they were last popular in the '90s, and normally my rule is that if you wore a trend the first time around, you should pass on it the second (or third, or fourth...) time. I decided to give these Chelsea boots a go, because they're a bit more streamlined than lace-up combat boots, plus they seem very practical for the upcoming winter months, and I wanted to style them in a way that was true to my own sense of style—feminine and sophisticated (I hope) versus the more streetwear-influenced, casual way that Gen Z would wear them. To be totally honest, after seeing these photos, I'm not sure that the boots are "me." But they may be "you," so I thought this was a post worth writing anyway. Here's how I styled my chunky Chelsea boots. 

 It is finally looking like leather jacket season in San Francisco (not to be confused with the rest of the year except for September and October, which is also leather jacket season), so in honor of my favorite time of year, I thought I'd bring you another Cheryl's Greatest Hits featuring seven ways to wear one of my favorite wardrobe workhorses, the leather moto jacket. As longtime Cheryl Shops readers know, I bought this Banana Republic moto jacket several years ago when I worked at Gap headquarters, and while I can't always advocate for Banana's clothes, this jacket is one of the best items they make, which explains why they keep bringing it back season after season. They have miraculously not raised the price since I bought mine—it's still $499, although you can usually get it on sale (never pay full price for anything at Banana!)—the leather is buttery soft, and the thing fits like a glove. A good leather jacket is totally worth the investment and you'll have it for years, so without further ado, here are seven ways to wear it. 

Back in my late 20s and early 30s, when I had 7 or 8 weddings per year to attend, I used an Excel spreadsheet to track which dresses I wore to which events. This began in the days before social media, but I basically wanted to make sure I wasn't turning up in the same dress at every event with the each group of people. The alternative, of course, was to buy a new dress for each event, which is cost-prohibitive (and wasteful) and is what drove Jenn Hyman to found Rent the Runway. I thought RTR was an amazing idea and I know a lot of people who love it, but to this day, I've never actually used it, because the items I'd actually want to rent are way too expensive. In other words, I'd rent a designer dress for $50 or $60 (or maybe even a bit more), but not $200. There are other clothing rental companies out there (I reviewed one last year), but so far none that really piqued my interest—until now. Wardrobe is like Airbnb for clothes, shoes, and accessories: you rent items from a user's closet for 4, 10, or 20 days at a time; everything is dry-cleaned and stored in a central warehouse (and if you open a closet with Wardrobe, you can make a little extra money renting out your own clothes); and it all comes clearly labeled and nicely packaged. Most importantly, Wardrobe has everything from Alice and Olivia to Hermès, and the prices are incredibly reasonable. They were kind enough to offer me a credit to try the service for free; here's what I borrowed and my unbiased, honest review of the entire experience.

Whew, it's been a week! Mercury is in retrograde, temperatures here have been in the 80s, and I have work coming out of my ears (which I know I shouldn't complain about). Anyway, happy Friday! Let's ease into the weekend with this month's most-pinned look from my Outfit ideas for ageless style Pinterest board—it's casual, it's timeless, it's seasonless, it's perfect. You probably own all the pieces to re-create this look already, but if not, read on. 

At the end of last year and the beginning of this year—which feels more like 10 years ago at this point—I was working on a sustainability campaign for my day job. Throughout my research, I kept coming across similar statistics about how horrible fast fashion is for the environment; it was enough for me to make sustainability my main 2020 resolution. That resolution had several parts, one of which was "no new stuff." I was doing a pretty good job until COVID came along, and with it some promo codes and sales that I was too weak to resist. I'm not beating myself up about it; I do feel like I'm being much more conscious about what I'm buying—only things I love, of the best quality I can afford. That said, I have been doing quite a bit of secondhand shopping this year, and while 2020 is almost over (THANK GOD), it's a habit I'm going to stick with. Not only is buying secondhand better for the planet, it's way more affordable than buying something new, and it's not hard to find barely (if at all) used items. So while this post is long overdue, I wanted to celebrate my progress with a totally secondhand outfit. Here's how it all came together.

Amazon has finally announced that Prime Day is October 13–14 (technically two days) and while I know it's popular to boycott it, I think Prime Day is kind of fun. I love refreshing the page to see what the hourly deals are, and let's be real, the deals can be pretty amazing. I do realize that Amazon undercuts small businesses, has a rather large monopoly, and probably has more data on me that I care to think about—plus there are some tax implications that need to be addressed on a federal level—but we can also thank Amazon for making user reviews, personalization, and search capabilities so widespread. Online retail wouldn't be what it is today without Amazon. I do try to buy things locally from small businesses as much as possible, but that said, I have found some amazing things on Amazon over the years. So in honor of Prime Day, here are six things that I've bought on Amazon that I love, and that I'd highly recommend. 

A what? A coatigan is a cross between a coat and a cardigan; it's longer than a swacket, or sweater jacket, and has more of a ring to it than "sweater coat." As I noted in my fall trend report, a coatigan is a must-have for fall 2020, so I wanted to show you what I'm wearing with mine ASAP, seeing as how we're already in October. (Seriously, how is it October already?!) I know this won't be the last time you'll see this one, but it's definitely the first, so let's get to it. 

It feels a little weird writing about trends on several levels. For one, I didn't really do my annual spring trend report, because we were newly in lockdown and all anyone could think about was comfort clothing: sweatpants, sweatshirts, slippers, and so on. On a deeper level, I'm realizing there's something about fashion that almost requires you to be seen out in the world; to paraphrase that old philosophical question, if a person wears an outfit and no one sees it, is it still fashion? The good news is that things here in San Francisco are slooooowly starting to reopen: hair salons, gyms, restaurants, and even movie theaters. I'll still be working from home for the rest of the year, if not longer—and if I'm being honest, dressing for the office has a certain agenda—but I at least feel like I'm venturing out into the world again, and thus I can get out of my jeans-and-sweatshirt rut. I've been really inspired by the street-fashion photos from Copenhagen Fashion Week, and while there's definitely a hygge element to fall fashion, I'm really excited about the micro-trends I'm featuring here and to shopping again. Who knows, I might even be compelled to shop in an actual store! Here's what's on my shopping list for fall.