About The Life Picks

Hi, I’m Junjie Li. I run The Life Picks.

I started this site after a run of bad purchases: a “family-size” air fryer that cooked dinner in two shifts, a carry-on that didn’t fit the overhead bin on the one airline I fly most, a pair of noise-cancelling headphones that were great on planes and useless in an open office. In every case the information I needed existed — it was just buried under a hundred specs that didn’t matter and a thousand reviews that cancelled each other out.

So The Life Picks does one thing: for everyday gear, it tells you the two or three things that actually decide the purchase, and then which product to buy for your situation — a couple in an apartment, a family of five, someone who travels every week.

What we cover

Five areas, all things most people buy at some point: home and kitchen, style and beauty basics, everyday tech, health and wellness gear, and outdoor and travel.

How the guides are made

The full process is on the How we choose page. The short version: decide what matters for the category first, shortlist from manufacturer specs, read long-term owner reviews for repeated problems, cross-check with professional testers, then pick for specific situations rather than declaring one “best”.

We don’t run a lab, and we say so. When a guide says a feature “tends to” do something, that’s the language of research, not of a bench test.

How we make money

Some links on this site are affiliate links. If you click one and buy something, the retailer may pay us a small commission. It costs you nothing extra and it doesn’t decide what we recommend — some picks pay us nothing at all. Brands can’t pay to appear in a guide and we don’t take sponsored placements. Full affiliate disclosure here.

Get in touch

Spotted an error, have a question, or think a guide is missing something? Email [email protected]. Corrections get fixed fast and noted in the guide.