#1.MY HOLY GRAIL SALT

The holy grail series for my favorite in basic life categories. Think towels, hand soap, salt, cups, pens, notebook — etc! Moving my tiktok series to substack!

Apr 21, 2024

Wirecutter might harness the power and budget of the NY Times to survey people’s favorite water bottles but they might not let you know about a random green bottle of salt hidden in most mom & pop stores that was originally made by a Swiss herbalist has been someone’s (meaning me!) favorite thing to put on food for 28 years?

Literally put this in the chicken chili my mom brought over for a Sunday lunch as a family today

I started sharing on tikok because I was exhausted by influencer’s recommendations. People sharing what they “liked” or were paid to say they like without the daily life trials and research backed decisions I craved.

I really don’t purchase anything without going down a rabbit hole of tabs to learn about when something was made, where it was made (maybe white labeled), the history of the brand, what it retails for second hand, and I consume whatever reviews I can about it. It’s a bit of a death-spiral of research where I’ll even make notion databases for all purchases, desires, wishlists, and cool brands to remember. I’m ADHD okay so lets let the hyper-focus benefit the collective if it can!

But I am trying to figure out what my favorites are in the basic life categories so that I can just stop the hunt. Like what I have been sharing on tiktok - think towels, hand soap, salt, cups, pens, notebook — etc! Not sponsored posts and lived in reviews.

It’s all so I can save the rest of my brain power for life, creativity, personal style, design, and living!

So I’ve decided to organize, categorize, and my “holy grails” - my favorite things I’ve either been using for long period of my life or decisions on products that I have discovered that I am locking in as a decision to stop the hunt.

I’ll also be sharing the categories I have not settled on. For example, I’m working on trying to nail down my holy grail while t-shirt (which I’ve been doing a notion doc to track. So please help a decision fatigue girlie out and comment your favorite t-shirt!

Now to Holy Grail #1. Salt - Herbamare

My 89 year old grandmother’s also favorite seasoning. She’s got pretty severe allergies to most things like citric acid and preservatives but she always uses herbamare.

It’s funny how certain things in life become staples. Maybe your grandmother used it (like mine did today), maybe it was a necessary thing to get you through dorm living in college, or maybe it just changed a part of your health and life so much that you can’t imagine looking back.

Or maybe whenever you look at that thing it reminds you are transported to a a specific memory, a time, people, and place.

HERBAMARE

Herbamare is a really strong memory association for me. It’s a love I’ve had since I was 4 years old when my two best friends mother put some on her brown rice homemade mac & cheese. They were originally from Swaziland and super healthy - no fruit roll ups or other early 90s processed goo. They introduced me to so many cool foods and always had rooibos tea in the afternoon, which always felt very grown up to me. Because of them, I always associated Herbamare with them and with South Africa.

I grew up with them in North Carolina for a few years. We were even homeschooled for a year together. They were so gentle compared to my friends from my few years a public school. We have our classes in the morning and then in the afternoon we’d build fairy houses in tree trunks, watch My Neighbor Totoro on repeat, and make up elaborate worlds with costumes. To me they feel like the essence of childhood.

So what is in it?

Found in your local mom & pop health food store or now whole foods - Herbamare is a sea salt mixture with 12 different organic herbs and vegetables mixed in.

It is not a South African thing, but actually a Swiss product that was developed by A.Vogel, a Swiss company that has been around since 1923. It was started by a famous Swiss herbalist named Alfred Vogel wrote a famous herbalist book titled “The Nature Doctor: A Manual of Traditional and Complementary Medicine.”

What does it taste like?

Inside its got sea salt, rosemary, leek, cress, kelp, onion, marjoram, basil, chives, thyme, garlic, parsley, cellery, and lovage. But it’s not incredibly salty, it has this ability to almost bring out the flavor of what you’ve made even more. It’s basically the flavor enhancer you never knew you needed.

For me, it’s the only salt I’ve used for the last 28 years since I had it. They recently made a spicy version has a tiny little kick, but again it’s more of an enhancer less of a salter-er.

I love it on boiled eggs, vegetables, popcorn (omg its so good on popcorn, any place that a savory dish calls for salt its herbamare for me.

Why start the holy grail series with this one?

For me, this is a kind of recommendation I wanted. Something that someone loved for a long time, affordable, healthy, and in this case is made by a company I am happy to support. It’s true that we can’t always get that so when we can with our favorite things - I think it’s a real win for conscious consumerism.

Also this was my first recommendation on the internet - made casually as I was steaming kale in my kitchen. It’s the salt that launched the thousand ships and I realized that people were equally interested in the everyday little things.

Since I made that first video, have you tried it?

And I’d really love for this to be a collective process - so what categories are you looking for your faves in?

Soon I’m going to share soon my holy grail: cups, pen, notebook, cashmere, denim brand, and more. I’m on the current hunt for face moisturizer, hand soap, toothbrush, toilet paper (honestly that doesn’t scare me if guests come over for my septic system), toothpaste, affordable earrings I can lose, belt brand, socks, etc..

xx Bailey