If you’re like us, you’ve probably wondered what everyday stuff famous people add to their carts — like hair spray or an electric toothbrush. We asked New York City Councilmember Chi Ossé about the brow pencil, hot sauce, and portable lamp he can’t live without.
Last year, I had these Doc Martens that I would wear often to work. I still do pull them out occasionally, but even though they gave me an inch in height, they were just a bit heavy on the feet. This year, I started wearing Salomons. I’ve been wearing these nearly every single day. I’m on my second pair. I have them in a white and a black. I know I work in politics, but dress shoes sometimes just don’t look good on me, and a black sneaker can be accompanied by a suit. I’m on the move a lot: I bike everywhere, I take the subway often. When I’m doing that seven days a week, which is how taxing this job can be at times, I find them to be the perfect sneaker.
I used to love reading a lot when I was young, but as I transitioned into the digital age with social media and phones, I kind of stopped reading for some time. I would say maybe four years. And last year, my friend Jackson Howard, who’s a senior editor at FSG, recommended this book to me called Memorial by Brian Washington. Memorial was fully the book that got me back into reading. Family Meal is the book that I’m reading right now. These are really real stories, queer story lines, and they’re entertaining. It helps me sleep at night. It helps me relax. It’s nice to be brought back down to the pages of a book.
Listen, I think eyebrows are the perfect face shapers. I have been sculpting — I don’t know if sculpting is the right word, but framing — my eyebrows for I want to say the last six years. My eyebrows are not super-thin. I don’t even want to say they’re patchy. They just need a little filling in. A lot more shape, some more color.
This pencil is really easy. It’s on the cheaper side, too. You can get it at a CVS or a Walgreens. It doesn’t make you feel like you’re even wearing makeup at all. It just adds a bit of symmetry. I think that people with eyebrows that fit their face naturally appear to be more trustworthy — maybe that’s something that I learned prior to coming into politics. Your eyebrows can’t lie. They can if you let them. But there are tools like this Revlon eyebrow pencil that will make them tell the truth. You don’t need a fancy eyebrow pencil. When it comes to an eyebrow pencil: No frills, please.
I love all hot sauces, basically. I don’t think there’s been a hot sauce that I haven’t liked. But sometimes I want one with a little more flavor. I think Shaquanda does a good job of that. Shaquanda is the drag queen who makes the hot sauce, and she’s a friend of mine as well. Andre is the man behind Shaquanda, and he’s born, raised, and based in Bed-Stuy. The fact that this is a local hot-sauce brand and queer owned is really cool.
I truly do love the Hot Pepper Sauce. It has an umami flavor that’s different from some other hot sauces. There’s ginger. I know that there’s a little bit of mustard in it. It goes with everything from eggs to pizza to soups. It’s different while packing a punch when it comes to heat. It’s so much more flavorful than the traditional vinegary hot sauces.
I try to eat kimchee every single morning. It’s really freaking good with eggs. There’s actually great health benefits to it. I don’t even know if it’s clinical, but I really try to take care of my gut health. I have long work days sometimes, and I would prefer for my long work day to not include a stomachache. Not only do I enjoy the taste of kimchee, but I swear it makes me feel better throughout the day.
This is the one that’s really reliably carried by FreshDirect, so it’s easier to order it online. I know there might be better kimchees out there — I hope any kimchee fans who are reading this don’t hate me for it — but I do like this one. It does the job. I don’t know if I have the time to make kimchee myself. It’s labor-intensive. You know how there’s some things that you feel like you should be making, like guacamole or hummus? I’m totally fine with ordering kimchee.
I feel like I’m going to sound gross in this interview, but I sweat a lot. It’s hard to find a good leave-in conditioner, especially since I wear a helmet while biking around. I’ve been growing my hair out for the past year. I think this is the longest my hair has ever been in my life. The Curly Pudding is the perfect leave-in conditioner for me. Calling something “pudding” is a marketing tactic maybe just for me. My mom put me onto it. It makes my hair look curly, and it makes it look hydrated. It smells a little lavendery. There’s shea butter in it. It’s made for people with hair like mine, and it really does the trick.
I was trying to find a portable lamp at Ikea and I couldn’t. I was Christmas shopping last December at the MoMA Design Store, and I was like, I need these fucking lamps. I got one in the dusty red and another in the sky blue. I have a lot of bright colors in my apartment: oranges, blues, and yellows. There’s something scholastically, aesthetically pleasing about them. They’re perfect if you want to take a shower without the lights on. They’re perfect if you need a bedside table lamp. They’re really easy to charge. They have long-lasting light power. There are three different settings on them that you get to tap on. They’re lightweight. You feel like a Victorian child with a candle moving from one place to another with this lamp.
This bag is the perfect bag for me to put my phone, my wallet, my keys, and receipts. Sometimes I don’t want to be carrying a bunch of shit in my pockets. I’ve had this bag for a little bit. It does not tear and rip. It’s durable. It’s just a nice thing to accompany me on my little side quests. It’s a great on-the-go bag. I like wearing the crossbody, you know what I mean? Like a strap, diagonally on your torso, is a good accessory. I’ll say, though, it’s a smaller bag. So if you need a backpack, rock your backpack. I personally don’t rock a backpack unless I’m going to the gym. This is more if you have a bunch of pocket-size items that you don’t want to carry in your pockets. Or if you don’t have pockets.
I know tennis is in right now because of Challengers. I’ve been playing tennis for a while, and it’s really nice to condition it with lessons. I do private tennis classes every week with this wonderful tennis coach. Her name is Coach Frances. This is her company. She’s really good at what she does. The lessons are affordable, and they’re all in Brooklyn. She does private lessons at Linden Park. It’s a great way for me to get out some stress and frustration. Hitting a ball is good for health. I mean, everyone should be able to hit a nonliving thing in a sport-like type of way as a means of therapy. It’s just a nice release.
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