i get a version of this question a lot — "how do you pick what goes on the site?" and the honest answer is: slowly, and with more thought than anyone watching would guess. for every single piece you see here, i probably looked at a hundred or more that didn't make it. this post is about what happens between me and a thousand listings, and why i bother.
the short version: it's not "buy buy buy." it's not a "haul" mentality. it's me, late at night, scrolling through listings with a cup of tea, asking myself "would i actually buy this? would i tell my best friend about it? would i still like it a year from now?" and most of the time the answer is "no, not quite." and then i keep looking.
the numbers, honestly
i don't keep a literal count, but it's a lot. for every piece that ends up on the site, i probably saved and rejected fifty to a hundred others. some days i add one thing after two hours of looking. some days i add nothing and just keep a private folder of things i want to come back to. the folder is bigger than the site.
and yes, this takes time. more time than is probably reasonable for a small curated site. my partner has walked past me scrolling through what looks like the same five listings and gently pointed out that i've been on the same page for forty minutes. (he is correct, often.) the reason i do it is that the difference between a "good find" and a "great find" is the forty minutes. you find one. you skip ninety-nine.
what i'm actually looking for
the bar, in order of importance:
- does it have real reviews with photos? if a product has no photo reviews, or only five-star reviews that all sound the same, i don't trust it. i want to see someone who isn't the seller wearing it, in normal light, ideally in their actual home or on their actual body. photos tell you things the listing never will.
- is it something i would genuinely buy for myself? this is the easiest and the hardest filter. i ask: "would i pay this price for this thing? would i wear it? would i keep it?" if the answer is "i mean, it's fine, but i wouldn't really" — out.
- is it something i would recommend to a friend? a lot of what's out there is fine. it's fine. fine isn't enough to put on the site. i want to be able to send it to my sister or my best friend and feel confident they'd thank me later.
- does it feel like it belongs here — on lily's finds? this is harder to explain. it's a vibe check. the aesthetic is warm, slightly imperfect, a little handmade-looking. if something is too polished, too "brand," too "instagram-perfect," it doesn't fit. you know it when you see it.
the thing about the bar is that any one of those is enough to reject a piece. it doesn't have to fail all four — failing one is plenty. there are a lot of pieces out there that have great reviews and would be perfect for someone, but they aren't quite right for me, and the site is built around my taste, not everyone else's.
yes, i really do look at hundreds of links
i want to say this clearly because it matters to me: this isn't a content farm. i'm not generating fake "top 10" lists by skimming the front page of aliexpress and pasting thumbnails. for each category i genuinely spend hours, often across multiple days, going deep into listings. i sort by review count. i sort by rating. i look at the 4-star reviews specifically because they tell you what people actually thought. i read the questions. i check the photos.
it is, embarrassingly, one of my favorite things to do. some people knit, some people watch reality tv, i scroll through a thousand listings and look for the ones that are quietly really good. it feels like a treasure hunt that never ends. the satisfaction of finding a piece that ticks every box and is under twenty dollars is genuinely — and i can't believe i'm saying this out loud — a small joy.
i don't say this to brag. i say it because i think there's a difference between a curated site and a shopping feed, and the difference is exactly this — somebody cared. somebody really went through the listings and picked. somebody said "this one, not that one." and most of the time, the answer is "neither, keep looking."
on the under-twenty thing
a lot of what makes the cut is in the under-twenty range. i know that might surprise people — "wait, you can find good things that cheap?" — but honestly, yes, you can, especially if you know where to look and you're willing to be patient. a lot of the mood-lifting pieces on the site are small, affordable, and meant to live alongside the bigger purchases, not replace them.
that's why i keep the home-under-20 collection separate — because the under-$20 stuff is its own thing. it's the small upgrades, the fun extras, the pieces that don't break your budget but actually make a room or an outfit feel more like yours. the ear cuff that you forget you're wearing. the small wooden tray that ends up holding your keys and your rings every day. the vase that becomes the home for whatever grocery-store flowers you grabbed on the way home. those pieces matter, and they're often under twenty dollars.
and the thing i love about the under-twenty category is that the stakes are low enough to try things. if a piece doesn't work for you, you didn't spend much, you're not heartbroken, and you learned something about your taste. it's how a lot of the bigger personal-style discoveries actually start — with a $9 thing you bought on a whim and wore for two years straight.
what it isn't
i want to be honest about what this site is not. it's not a "you need this, buy now" site. it's not trying to convince you that you're incomplete without a specific piece. i genuinely don't want you to buy things you don't love just because i linked them. the worst possible outcome is that you bought something because i said it was good, and now it sits in your closet making you feel guilty every time you open the door. i've been there. it's the worst.
what i do want is for you to look at a piece, see the photo, read the description, and either think "yes, i see why she picked that, i love it too" — or "not for me, but i trust her taste." both of those are great outcomes. the only bad outcome is buying something you don't actually like because someone on the internet told you to.
if something here makes you happy, that's the whole point
the best thing about running this site, honestly, is when someone tells me they bought a piece from here and they actually love it. not because i told them to — because it fit their taste and they saw themselves in it. that's the part that makes the hundreds of listings worth scrolling through.
so if something here ends up on your shelf, or in your jewelry box, or on your nightstand — and you look at it and feel even a tiny bit more like yourself — i'm really glad it's there. that's the whole reason i do this. not the clicks. not the commissions. the part where a piece you found here makes your day slightly more yours.
the point of curating isn't to tell people what to buy. it's to show them what one person's taste looks like — and let them keep what resonates.
thanks for being here. see you in the next one.
