Photo-Illustration: The Strategist; Photo: Courtesy
If you’re like us, you’ve probably wondered what famous people add to their carts. Not the JAR brooch and Louis XV chair but the hairspray and the electric toothbrush. We asked the musician Rob Thomas about his grown-up peanut butterthe candle he converted his tough-guy friend to, and the bar soap he and his wife can’t get enough of.
I’m a grazer. I like to grab a spoon and just get a little bit of peanut butter. It’s like pouring cereal into your hand. Because of that, I’ve become more aware of the actual taste of it, more than when I’d eat it on a sandwich or mix it with something else. I’ve tried really natural peanut butters, but they taste really gross, bland, and kind of cardboardy. And more main-brand peanut butters taste like salt and sugar. Justin’s is 100 percent natural, and it tastes like a peanut. It’s some grown-man shit. I’m 50 years old, and I feel like I’m having adult peanut butter. Now, it’s one of those things that’s on my road rider. They also make a really good almond butter, if you’re so inclined. I’m not, but you know, shout-out to Justin’s and their fucking fabulous peanut butter.
Like discovering my peanut butter, this felt like a revelation. Before, body wash and soap were just decorative. My wife and I were checking out little specialty shops in Westchester, where we live, and they had these little soaps piled up. I picked it up, smelled it, and I was like, Well, this is heaven. I realized, I like most guys, I’m not really good at myself. I do all the stuff to stay healthy, like to work out, but I don’t really think about things like a nice moisturizer or soap. And so I bought the soap. I took a shower with it, and all day long I was smelling my arm. My wife would come up and smell my neck from her and be like, “Oh my God, you smell great.” And that was it. If your significant other is more attracted to you because of the soap, then you just buy as much of that soap as you can.
I don’t have a big regime. I’ll use Cetaphil to clean my face, maybe a scrub every now and then, and a good moisturizer. I think that keeps my skin pretty okay. I’ve used this shave cream for years and years. At hotels, I’d use their shaving cream, and it’d smell like Ax body spray — just perfumey in a really not good way. I don’t think your shaving cream should give you away before you walk into a room. This doesn’t have any odor, but it does have menthol that seeps into the skin. They say you could use it without water and shave dry. I couldn’t even imagine doing that, but it’s nice to know that I could.
I’m a four, maybe five cups of coffee a day kind of a guy. Sometimes I have more because I like this machine so much that I walk by it and it calls to me. I’m like, Oh why not? I almost only use it to make coffee, but it’s the most perfect cup every time. The funny thing about it is it does everything, right? It froths milk, does lattes and espressos. It’s like I’m using a really expensive Macbook just to play solitaire. It’s more expensive than my television, but I probably drink more coffee than I watch TV. Paul, the guitar player from Matchbox Twenty, was staying over, took a sip of it, and was like, “This is the most amazing cup of coffee I’ve ever had.” So I got him a slightly smaller version of it for his birthday.
Anytime we’d use sprays to clean our devices, there would still be a streakiness to it, and we’d really have to rub each spot. This is a little white tube that you open up, and it has this black material that you roll back and forth across your screen, and it’s instantly spotless. It’s like magic. After using it a few times, just rinse it with cold water, let it dry, and it’s ready to go again. My wife and I now have one in every room of the house. We bought like three or four of them because they’re about the size of lipstick.
This is a real item for certain people out there — if you’re someone who has a lot of speaking engagements, does a lot of interviews, or sings. It’s something my vocal coach turned me onto. I have to have it on the road because I’m talking all day. A lot of people don’t realize that talking is the worst thing you can do for your voice — besides whispering, whispering is even worse than talking. So if you’re talking all day, no matter what, you get a scratchy throat. Vocal Eze immediately makes me feel better. It’s like putting out a fire in my throat. It also tastes really good. My wife will come up, give me a kiss after I’ve used it, and she’s like, “Mmm, you taste herbal.”
When you’re gone for months at a time living on a bus and in and out of hotels, it’s nice to have a little piece of home. Your olfactory senses pull up more memories than almost any other thing you see or hear. I never thought about these kinds of things until I got married and my wife started bringing these candles on the road. Everyone who comes in contact with this candle becomes a devotee — we’ve never converted more people to something than with this candle. Even one of my best friends in the world got hooked. He was a special ops in the military. He’s tattooed up his neck and his head from him, just kind of a badass of a character. And he fucking loves these candles. Every time you go into his room, it just smells like roses.
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