Life
The Grammys Gift Bags Have Almost $1,500 Worth Of Wellness Swag — Here Are 6 Cheap Dupes
If you think the fashion on the Grammy red carpet is luxe, just wait until you hear about the gift bags. Given out to presenters and performers, last year's Grammy Awards gift bags were reportedly worth of over $30,000, according to the Daily Mail. And while the full estimates aren't yet in for how much everything in the 2020 Grammy's gift bag, Popsugar estimates that this year's beauty products alone could go for over $10,000. Don't despair at your utter lack of that level of swag, though. The gift bags might have at least $1,500 worth of wellness items, but there are cheaper ways to get the Grammy wellness products of your star-studded dreams.
A sneak peek of these products was sent to Bustle on behalf of Distinctive Assets, a marketing company contracted by the Recording Academy, which puts on the Grammys, to coordinate its gift bags. And the gifts look too cool for school. The wellness gifts in this year's Grammy swag bag are mostly focused on mental health, including subscriptions to various life coaching and licensed therapy services. (Celebs: They're just like us!)
Many of these products can be expensive, but fortunately there are cheaper alternatives to treat both your health and your bank account. Want to get your hands on some meditation-focused smart tech from the Grammys bag? Or have you been looking for a safe way to find quick help when you're having an especially tough day? These six self-care alternatives to the expensive products and services offered in the Grammy's swag bag can set you well on your way to wellness.
1Get Meditating
Muse S, $350, Choose Muse
Presenters and performers at the 2020 Grammys will get their hands on a meditation headband from Muse. Designed to detect your heart rate, breathing, brain activity, and body movements, the latest version of this high-tech meditation headband, the Muse S, would run you about $349.99.
If that's just a hair out of your price range, a membership to the guided meditation and mindfulness app Headspace might be an option. Headspace offers a membership for $12.99 a month or $69.99 a year, during which time you'll be able to access an entire library of themed mindfulness courses, a new meditation on the daily, and calming exercises to help you wind down before bed. It might not be a brain wave-tracking headband, but it'll still help settle your headspace quite well.
2Find Your Sober Community
The Grammy's bag include tickets to a Daybreaker sober dance party, which take place at (you guessed it) daybreak all around the world and cost around $40 per person. If you're looking for a sober community for both socializing and support, but don't live in one of the cities that has Daybreaker parties, can't afford tickets, or don't want to party at dawn, then the Sober Grid app might be for you. This free app facilitates online sober community connections and peer support, and it might be just what you need to find your people online and IRL.
3Stay Hydrated
HFactor Hydrogen Infused Water, $30, Amazon | Tree Tribe Stainless Steel Water Bottle, $28, Amazon
Keeping hydrated improves your focus and mood, and drinking from a sustainably-sourced, reusable bottle is great for the Earth, too. The famous swag bag will include HFactor hydrogen-infused water (12, 20-ounce pouches will run you nearly $40), but you'll be fine with just regular old water — water with extra hydrogen molecules might be popular, but scientists haven't really found reason to believe that hydrogen water is any better than the old fashioned stuff. Instead, you can keep yourself plenty hydrated with an eco-friendly, stainless steel water bottle from Tree Tribe. The bottle will be $28 up front, but the company will plant a tree for each bottle you buy, and you kind of can't get better than that.
4Train Your Brain
The Grammys swag bag will include a year-long subscription to LiveItUp, a life coaching subscription service, so that performers and presenters can get a taste of just how helpful life coaching can be. LiveItUp's subscription service costs $99 a year, but that's not all the life coaching available in the swag bag. The bag also includes a month of free life coaching from Namasme for a loved one of the recipient. The Namasme site, focused on life coaching to create "a better, kinder future," makes sure potential clients know that the process "isn't cheap or easy."
But if you can't or don't want to shell out for a life coach, there's always Remente, which is a life-assessment, brain-training wellness app. With a premium subscription available for $8.99 per month, Remente can help you figure out what your goals are and how to get there. And that's pretty much like a life coach, isn't it?
5Plant Up Your Life
Grammy performers and presenters will also be gifted with a Lettuce Grow self-watering, self-fertilizing farmstand. While the Lettuce Grow stands range from $348 to $649, you can treat yourself to a 12-pack of connected self-watering seed pots from Orta Kitchen Garden for $80. Plants are gifts that keep on giving, too. They provide delectable veggies, beautiful aesthetics, and someone to talk to and boost your mental health — because yes, hanging out with your plants is excellent for your overall wellness. Everybody wins.
6Therapy: There's An App For That
TalkSpace is an online therapy service that Grammy attendees will be gifted a subscription to. One live TalkSpace session per week and unlimited messaging (five days a week) with licensed therapist costs $396 monthly. While a lot cheaper and more physically accessible than IRL therapy, this option might still be unaffordable. In that case, you might be drawn to the free app WhatsUp?, which features a tracker for your emotions, the ability to form an in-app wellbeing team, daily motivational advice, and a directory of local and national mental health resources — all for free. Of course, your phone isn't going to replace an actual therapist, so if treatment is something you might need, pursuing therapy (IRL or online) is definitely something to put on your to-do list.
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You don't have to be at the Grammys to score awesome wellness goodies. If you want to improve your overall wellness or you want to supplement your current therapy or medication regimen, there are cheaper ways to do it than building an award-winning music career.
