The Everyday Edit: August 2026

August was apparently not a month for life-changing discoveries.

I didn’t find a miracle serum. I didn’t buy a kitchen gadget I now can’t live without. There was no new snack I immediately started forcing everyone around me to try. And since the whole point of The Everyday Edit is to share things I genuinely love, I’m not going to manufacture three favourites just because the calendar says it’s time for another one.

But August wasn’t completely uneventful.

I cooked. I tinkered. I went down several internet rabbit holes of varying degrees of usefulness. I learned some things. I rediscovered an old favourite. And somewhere around the middle of the month, despite being very firmly Team Summer, I started thinking about suede and sweaters.

So this month’s Edit is a little different. Less things I bought and loved, more things that occupied my time, attention and apparently quite a lot of my browser history.

Here’s what made the cut.

1. A User-Friendly AI Resource I’m Using Regularly

I know. AI again. 🙄

I am fully aware that some of you are fascinated by AI, and most of you would rather I return to discussing chia pudding. I respect both positions.

But AI is here to stay, and I think there will come a point when most of us will want (or need) to know how to use it reasonably well. And if you’re currently at the stage of opening ChatGPT, typing something into the little box and just hoping for the best, I found a resource that makes getting better at it considerably less intimidating.

It’s called AI With Mariah, from Mariah Brunner, and I’ve spent quite a bit of time poking around her free AI Guides library this month.

Browse AI With Mariah’s free Guides library

There is a lot in there. Mariah currently has more than 300 bite-sized guides covering everything from basic prompts and setup to skills, workflows, agents and more advanced AI territory. Happily, you can filter everything by the AI platform you use (eg. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini), and by topic, which makes the whole thing much easier to navigate. Learn AI With Mariah

Do I need all 300+ guides? Good grief, no!

Some are far too advanced for what I need. Some are very industry-specific. But there are some real gems.

Sometimes I don’t even use an entire guide. I’ll read through one of her prompts and spot a particular instruction or way of phrasing something and think, Ohhhh….that’s clever. Then I’ll borrow the idea and incorporate it into one of my prompts.

Two guides I found particularly useful this month were Make AI Get to the Point and The Anatomy of a Perfect Prompt.

The first should surprise absolutely no one who uses AI regularly. My AI has a tendency to blather on sometimes. Gee. I wonder where it gets that from. 🤔

Mariah’s guide includes skills designed to make AI considerably more concise. I created a skill based on it, that I now use whenever I want information quickly and do not require a dissertation on the history of the subject first. Her Perfect Prompt guide, meanwhile, breaks a prompt into five useful pieces: role, context, example, rules and format, which gave me some good ideas for tightening up my own prompts. Learn AI With Mariah

And yes, I just casually said I created a skill. If you have no idea what that means, don’t worry. A year ago, I wouldn’t have either.

Skills are essentially reusable sets of instructions you can give your AI so you don’t have to keep explaining how you want it to behave or perform a particular task. They sound much more intimidating than they actually are. Once you get the hang of them, though, they’re incredibly useful.

Would a plain-English post about AI skills be helpful? Let me know in the comments. I’m happy to write one if people are interested. Honestly, whether you want it or not, you’ll probably get a full blog post about AI skills in the future; I’m a geek at heart so it’s inevitable.

If you’re newer to AI, I’d start with these in Mariah’s library:

• The 5-Step ChatGPT Setup if you use ChatGPT
• New to Claude? Do These 5 Things First (and Part 2) if you use Claude
• The Anatomy of a Perfect Prompt
• The AI Safety Playbook

You absolutely do not need to become an AI expert. But learning how to make the thing do what you actually want it to do? Worth it.

2. The Moisturizer I Apparently Forgot Was Fantastic

You know when you rediscover something you used to love and immediately wonder why you ever stopped using it?

Meet my old friend, Embryolisse Lait-Crème Concentré.

I’ve been going a little hard on the skincare actives lately. And it shows.

At the moment, I have what I would affectionately describe as a mild case of lizard skin. Dry, irritated, slightly angry and decidedly less “glowing from within” than the skincare industry promised me.

So I went rummaging through my bathroom cabinet looking for something thicker, soothing and decidedly inactive, and there she was.

Embryolisse.

Ohhhh. Why did I stop using you?

Actually, I know why. Summer.

My skin is naturally more hydrated in warmer weather, so I tend to switch to lighter, more gel-like moisturizers. Somewhere along the way, the Embryolisse got pushed to the back of the cabinet and forgotten. Big mistake.

This stuff is rich and creamy without feeling like I’ve iced my face with buttercream. My skin feels soothed, softer and plumper when I use it, which is precisely what I needed after getting a little too enthusiastic with the actives. Most importantly, she smoothed out the lizard skin.

There’s a reason this particular cream has developed such a following among makeup artists! If you’ve never tried it, winter is coming; which means dry-skin season isn’t far behind. I’d start with a small tube and see what you think. In Canada, you can find Embryolisse Lait-Crème Concentré on Amazon here, or at Shoppers Drug Mart.

I’ve tried a few other things from the brand over the years and they were fine, I didn’t repurchase them though. But this is the one I come back to.

3. Can We Talk About Fall Clothes Yet?

I love summer.

I love being warm. I love the sun on my face. I love linen. I love flip-flops. I am in absolutely no hurry for November to come around and remind me that I live in Canada.

And yet…

There is something about those first few weeks of early fall that I absolutely love.

The mornings start out just cool enough that you need another layer. Out come the cardigans, wraps and – one of my oddly specific wardrobe obsessions – the short-sleeve sweatshirt.

I LOVE a short-sleeve sweatshirt! They’re warm, but not too warm. There are no sleeves getting in my way or requiring constant pushing-up. They’re surprisingly hard to find, so when I discover a good one, I covet it like some people covet handbags, and will absolutely buy it in multiple colours.

But I digress.

Early fall dressing is my sweet spot because by midday it can still be properly warm. Which means linen pants are still completely acceptable, flip-flops haven’t been banished yet, and you can throw on a chunky sweater with a T-shirt underneath and call the whole thing an outfit.

Note: the T-shirt underneath is of the utmost importance! Those of us experiencing the joys of menopausal temperature regulation know that layers are less of a fashion choice and more of an emergency preparedness strategy.

But again… I digress.

This year, there is one thing I cannot stop looking at: Chocolate brown suede.

Give me all of it! Bags. Shoes. Jackets. Deep, rich, dark brown suede suddenly looks incredibly good to me, and I have been eyeing both the Birkenstock Amsterdam and Naples clogs in dark brown.

Do I need them? No. That is not the question.

The question is: does anyone here own either pair, and should I buy them?

If you’ve tried the Amsterdam or Naples, leave me a comment because I want to know if they’re comfortable, if you actually reach for them, and whether they’re worth it. I will add an additional piece of context, just to further complicate the conversation. As many of you know, I am headed off to London later in the month on my seemingly annual girl’s trip with my BFF. Anyone who’s been to London knows that there is typically A LOT of walking involved. I was leaning towards a Birkenstock for precisely that reason; they are pretty much a guaranteed level of comfort, straight out of the box. Additionally, both styles are slip-on and therefore backless, which means no heel blisters.

Seriously. Help a girl out. I need the 411 on these two styles asap!

And if you’re starting to mentally move into fall clothes too, I’ve already done some of the homework for us. I recently rounded up the Fall 2026 Fashion Trends I think are actually worth paying attention to; including all that gorgeous chocolate brown, suede, plaid, updated denim and a few other things that can slide quite happily into the wardrobe you already own. Because I’m much more interested in adding one or two great things than replacing an entire closet every season. Read my Fall 2026 Fashion Trends guide here → Fall 2026 Fashion Trends: Shop Your Closet First.

And That Was August

So no, August didn’t deliver three spectacular new products that changed my life. And maybe that’s actually a good thing.

One of the reasons I started The Everyday Edit was to have somewhere to share the things I genuinely think are worth telling you about. If I have to scour the internet looking for something to recommend simply because I need a third item, it rather defeats the purpose.

This month I found a genuinely useful resource, rediscovered something I’d forgotten I loved, and spent an unreasonable amount of time contemplating brown suede footwear.

That feels like a fairly accurate representation of my August.

And now I’m curious about yours. Did you discover (or rediscover) anything genuinely good this month? And, more urgently, does anyone own those Birkenstocks?

Tell me in the comments. I clearly need help making decisions.

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