Once in a while, a new website is launched that almost immediately becomes a staple on your bookmark bar. Germ, Refinery29, and now Preserve.us. Blake Lively, alum of Gossip Girl and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, has created a lifestyle company called Preserve, part e-commerce (highlighting handmade products from all over the country), part magazine (currently on its summer issue), and part philanthropic endeavor (currently partnering with Covenant House).
Many voices throughout the blogosphere have acted pretty negatively towards Blake’s entry into the market. Jezebel called her lifestyle brand “dumb” but praised it for uniting the internet against it, Thought Catalog praises Preserve for not being as pretentious as Gwenth Paltrow’s Goop while still being pretty pretentious, and The Guardian says it all in the headline, calling it a “pandering mess of e-commerce.”
Though I’d like to be able to agree with publications I like, I can’t deny that I kind of love Preserve.us. I’m not particularly a Blake Lively fan, and I don’t have strong feelings about her either way, but truly, I feel like we could be friends just based on choices in her shop. To give some background, I’m a huge Etsy fan. I’ve bought more things on Etsy than any normal person should, and I only hope that my relationship with Etsy grows. I have less and less time to find things on Etsy to buy, and Blake Lively has stepped in to make some amazing suggestions (though most items will stay at just that, suggestions, because a $50 cutting board will always be too much for me).
Though this item will very soon be ordered by me (and perhaps reviewed here on Germ).
Preserve.us may not be your cup of tea. You may think that Blake’s entry into the lifestyle world is a bit ridiculous, or you may just scratch your head at the idea of a lifestyle brand; but, my friends, I encourage you to check out Preserve and make an opinion of your own… at least to buy that gorgeous looking jar of fudge.