I am 68 and the first thing I have ever written a letter about is a makeup bag shaped like a little camper van
I am 68 and the first thing I have ever written a letter about is a makeup bag shaped like a little camper van
Six things the Sunrover makeup bag gets right that makeup bags always get wrong, from a woman who does not review makeup bags.
Pat Holloway · Customer · Leeds · 5 min read
Let me be plain about who is talking. I am Pat, I am 68, I live in Leeds with my husband Brian, and in fifty years of handbags I have never once had a single thought about a makeup bag worth writing down. Makeup bags were the black zip pouches at the bottom of the handbag, invisible until you needed them and invisible while you were looking for them too. So this is not a review. It is a woman who thought a makeup bag could not possibly matter, saying she was wrong.
The bag I am writing about is called the Sunrover, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly making the ordinary things a bit lovelier for a few years now. It is a quilted makeup bag shaped like a little retro camper van. Bright orange, stitched windows along the top, a big golden sun and little flowers on the side, wheels and headlamps and all of it, with a zip running the length of the roof. It comes from a whole collection of these little vans, in florals and sunflowers and daisies and mountains and rainbows, and in three sizes.
I first saw one at the Tuesday bingo at the community centre. The woman at the next table opened her handbag for her mints, and out came this little orange van. Glasses, lipstick, the mints, half her handbag by the look of it, all standing neatly on the table next to her dabber. I spent the whole of the next game looking at it instead of my numbers, and in the interval I asked her about it, plainly. When the boutique later asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
Here is what fifty years of makeup bags taught me. They come in two piles. The boring pile, black and beige zip pouches that vanish into your handbag and slump into a heap the moment you fill them. And the silly pile, novelty things bought for a laugh that hold three cotton buds and break at the zip by spring. I had done my years in the boring pile, and I had settled, the way you settle for anything you have stopped noticing.
A makeup bag that works but bores you to tears, or one that charms you and holds nothing. Those were the options, and I had stopped arguing with them.
The Sunrover is the first one I have owned that is neither, and having carried mine every day since it arrived, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The day it came. I ordered it expecting a bit of nonsense with wheels on. I was wrong about that too.
It makes you smile every time you open your bag
Start with the reason everyone asks about it, because everyone does ask. It is a proper little camper van, done properly. The quilted stitching goes round every window, the sun has its rays picked out, there is a peace sign on the front and daisies scattered down the side, and the wheels sit on the bottom edge as if it might drive off the dressing table. It should be silly. Somehow it is not. It is the sort of small, deliberate cheerfulness that catches you at the till, in the caravan, at the bingo table, on an ordinary grey Tuesday. The woman who showed me hers said everyone asks. She was right. They do.
The sun on the side, stitching and all. The reason every conversation about this bag starts.
I have had more comments on this little van than on any handbag I have ever owned. It comes out and somebody smiles, every time.
Margaret H., Hebden BridgeIt holds more than it has any right to
The shape is the clever part. It is boxy, like the van it is pretending to be, so it stands up on its own and everything inside stands up with it. Lipsticks upright, glasses flat along the top, the little odds and ends down the side where the wheels are. My old pouches held plenty in theory and delivered a jumbled heap in practice. This one keeps its shape whether it is half full or packed, and things come out of it in the same state they went in. On the dressing table it simply sits there, tidy, looking pleased with itself.
On my dressing table, where the black pouch used to hide. This one you can find.
It swallowed everything from my old pouch with room to spare, and it all stays standing instead of sliding into a heap.
Jean W., Boston SpaThe zip runs the whole length of the roof
Small thing, until you have lived with the other kind. The zip goes along the full length of the roof, so the bag opens wide like a proper case rather than through a mean little slot. You can see everything at once, get your hand in without knocking half of it over, and when it is zipped, it is properly shut. Nothing worms its way out into the bottom of the handbag. In fifty years I have fished more lipsticks out of handbag linings than I care to count, and since this van arrived I have fished out none.
It opens right up so you can see the lot at a glance, and once it is zipped nothing escapes. My handbag has never been tidier.
Dorothy F., KippaxIt travels properly
We have a caravan, Brian and I, and the Sunrover has already done a weekend away. It packed flat into the case without complaint, sat on the little shelf all weekend looking thoroughly at home, and came back with everything still in its place. The boutique sells it as travel friendly and for once the label is honest. It is the right sort of shape for packing, it does not mind being wedged, and there is something quietly funny about a little camper van coming on holiday in a caravan. It got a comment from the woman two pitches down within the hour.
Packed for the caravan. The little van travels better than most of the family.
It has done every trip since it arrived. Packs flat, keeps everything together, and comes out of the case looking cheerful.
Sylvia M., CollinghamThere are three sizes, and each one has a job
It comes in a small, about fifteen centimetres, which is the handbag one. A medium, about twenty centimetres, which lives on the dressing table. And a large, about twenty five centimetres, which is roomy enough that it has taken over as the washbag entirely. For years I forced one sagging pouch to do every one of those jobs and it did none of them well. Buy the size for the job you actually have, is what I would say now. Or do what I did, start with one and discover the others follow.
I bought the small for my handbag and went back for the large within the fortnight. The big one is the best washbag I have ever had.
Pauline T., HemsworthThere is a whole fleet of them
Mine is the sunshine one, orange with the sun and the daisies, and I would argue it is the pick of the fleet. But there is a whole collection of these little vans, florals, sunflowers, daisies, mountains, rainbows, even a Christmas one, all the same little van in a different mood. Which makes it the easiest present I have found in years, because there is a print for every woman you know and none of them will already have it. The sunflower one is on its way to my sister June as I write this, because I know better than to let her see mine first.
Bought one for myself and three as presents, all different prints. Every single one went down a storm.
Barbara L., AddinghamThe Sunrover, against the makeup bags you have been buying
You can pick up a zip pouch for a few pounds anywhere, and I have spent fifty years doing exactly that. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Black pouches that vanish in your handbag
Slump into a jumbled heap when filled
Mean little openings you dig through blind
One sagging bag forced to do every job
Nothing anybody has ever smiled at
A little quilted camper van you can spot at once
A boxy shape that stands up and keeps order
A full-length roof zip that opens wide and shuts properly
Three sizes, handbag, dressing table and washbag
The most asked-about thing at the bingo
About the price
The Sunrover is £24.95 for the small, £27.95 for the medium and £29.95 for the large, down from £50.00, £56.00 and £60.00.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that this is the sale run before the first autumn stock, and once a print sells through, that is that. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that half price is usually where I start asking what is wrong with a thing, and after a month of daily carrying, a caravan weekend and one very thorough inspection by the bingo table, I have not found it.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them across the collection, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real women rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
On the bathroom shelf, on washbag duty. The most cheerful thing in the room, including Brian.
If your own makeup bag is a black pouch you have not properly looked at in years, this is the little van I would stand on your kitchen table myself, while your print is still there. Stop dithering and go and look at the fleet.
Pat
THE SUNROVER CAMPER BAG
- A quilted little camper van, stitched sun, daisies and all
- Boxy shape that stands up and keeps everything in order
- Full-length roof zip, opens wide, shuts properly
- Packs flat for trips, caravans and weekends away
- Three sizes, small, medium and large
- A whole collection of prints, one for every woman you know
- Free UK delivery
Sale on now. The first autumn stock is already going.