As Ever: Pretty, Tasteless Nothing
AS EVER:
A BEAUTIFUL
SHELF OF NOTHING.
Jam nobody bought. Honey nobody could find. Tea nobody remembers. Flower sprinkles nobody needed. And a $64 candle named after Meghan's own birthday. We went through the entire shelf. We have notes. They are not kind.
her own birthday
Whole Foods for $7
anything memorable
to things that don't need them
When Meghan Markle launched As Ever in April 2025, we were promised something rare. Sun-warmed fruit. Homemade elegance. The Montecito lifestyle bottled into bite-sized moments of domestic aspiration. The brand description: "a love language." The founder's letter: "an extension of how I love." The candle: named No. 084 after her August 4th birthday — the scent that "warms Meghan's family home." The price: $64. The family home it is warming: a $29 million estate in Montecito.
What followed was a raspberry spread that sold out in under an hour, a wildflower honey described by one critic as "the most expensive honey ever produced by bees," a shortbread cookie mix that tasted like something designed by committee to look like something made by hand, and a website glitch that briefly exposed inventory numbers suggesting approximately $27 million in first-year sales — which is either a commercial vindication or the most revealing accidental disclosure since someone left a trade report on read.
As Ever is not a lifestyle. It is the idea of a lifestyle. The Pinterest board you save at 2am and never actually use. The mood you buy and the problem you do not solve. The same gap between premise and delivery that has followed her public image for six years — now available in raspberry flavour. We went through the whole shelf. We have notes. They are not kind. The jar is lovely. The jar is always lovely.
Every Jar. Every Price. Every Note.
THE COMPLETE SHELF INVENTORY
Eight products. One $64 candle. Zero surprises.Sold out in under an hour. Restocked. Sold out again. Restocked again. The scarcity is either demand or strategy. At some point those two things become indistinguishable and that is, we suspect, the point. The spread tastes like a prettier version of something available at most Whole Foods locations at approximately half the price. The jar is genuinely lovely. The jam is not the jar.
Dry. Crumbly. The texture of something that was conceptualised in a kitchen and finalised in a focus group. Multiple purchasers reported the crumb felt assembled rather than baked. The edible flowers on top do not change what is underneath them. This is also true of the broader brand.
We did not write that line. A critic did, with a phrasing efficiency we will not attempt to improve upon. The honey is reportedly pleasant. The scarcity on first release felt less like intentional luxury rationing and more like supply chain underestimation dressed up in limited-edition language. The distinction matters eventually.
The Hollywood Reporter's line about reading between the $14 tea leaves is the piece of writing about this brand that will outlive most of the products. The teas are fine. Fine is not a love language. Fine is a flavour profile. The distinction, once noticed, cannot be unnoticed.
The brand's most explicit pivot toward the register it has always wanted to occupy. Tasteful label. Reasonable wine for the price point. The least interesting thing about it is the wine itself. The most interesting thing is what adding wine to a jam-and-honey brand says about which direction the anchor is trying to move.
Meghan's Instagram described this as inspiring a family's "new Saturday morning tradition." That is a heavy lift for a crepe mix. Most crepe mixes are flour and nostalgia. This one is flour, nostalgia, and a photograph. The Saturday morning tradition was already available. It did not require Meghan's distribution network.
Pretty to look at. Useless in practice. Convinced they are elevating something. Applied to everything. Tasted by no one. Included in the Sydney retreat gift bag alongside a $4.50 packet of Funday sweets available at most Australian supermarkets. The sprinkles and the discount sweets occupied the same bag. The aesthetic and the substance occupied different universes.
Named 084 because August 4 is Meghan's birthday. The product description states it is "the signature scent that warms Meghan's family home." The family home being warmed: $29 million, Montecito. You are, for $64, purchasing a reproduction of what Meghan's $29 million home smells like, to burn in yours. The candle will last approximately six months. The biographical footnote is included at no extra charge.
THE FULL RECEIPT
Stated purpose vs actual function. The gap is the product.| Product | Price | The Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Raspberry SpreadA love language in jar form | $15 | Proximity to the myth of Meghan's kitchen. The jam itself is available at Whole Foods for $7. |
| Wildflower HoneyArtisanal indulgence | ~$28 | The most expensive honey ever produced by bees. Not our line. A critic's. We stand by it. |
| Tea BlendsSoft living, steeped | $14 | Fine. Fine is not a love language. The Hollywood Reporter said this better. |
| Shortbread MixHomemade warmth | ~$14 | Designed by committee to photograph well. Tasted accordingly. |
| Flower SprinklesElevate everything | ~$21 | In the Sydney retreat gift bag alongside $4.50 Funday sweets. Elevation is relative. |
| Candle No. 084The scent of Meghan's home | $64 | Named after her birthday. Burns down in 6 months. The home it recreates costs $29 million. The candle costs $64. The ratio is its own commentary. |
One By One.
SMALL BATCH NOTES: WHAT THE BRAND ACTUALLY IS
The architecture, not just the fruit.The first product out of the gate was raspberry jam. Not a startling reimagination of jam. Not a flavour revelation. Just jam, with better lighting and more personal mythology attached to it. The jar was lovely. The label was lovely. The opening price point was $15 for a spread that placed itself aspirationally against artisanal competitors while delivering something closer to a premium supermarket offering.
This is not a quality problem, exactly. The products are fine. Some of them are reportedly quite good. The wildflower honey is by multiple accounts genuinely pleasant. The rosé is inoffensive. The issue is not what is inside the jar. The issue is the commercial architecture built around what is inside the jar — the scarcity mechanics, the biographical product naming, the launch infrastructure that required a Netflix partnership and a television series to operate at the scale it launched at.
What happens to the jar when the television series is gone and the streaming backer has departed and the only remaining distribution engine is a direct-to-consumer website and Meghan's Instagram? That is the question the $27 million inventory glitch created but did not answer. It also did not answer why the Instagram looks the way it looks, but that is a separate investigation we have conducted separately.
A Butter Betrayal — The Shortbread
Shortbread should feel like a minor crime against moderation. Rich, slightly sandy, aggressively buttery. It is a simple product. The simplicity is part of the point. The As Ever shortbread mix delivered dry, crumbly disappointment dressed in edible flowers and beige packaging. Multiple purchasers noted the texture was off — less like handmade shortbread and more like something assembled by committee to photograph well at golden hour. The edible flowers remained decorative throughout. This is not a metaphor. This is a texture note. Though it is also, unavoidably, a metaphor.
All Buzz, No Honey — The Wildflower Launch
The wildflower honey was marketed as indulgence, positioned as part of the debut collection, and then failed to materialise at the promised scale. The scarcity of the first release felt less like intentional luxury rationing and more like supply chain underestimation dressed up in limited-edition language. Emma Grede — who knows rather more about building consumer brands than most people in the room — reportedly expressed scepticism about the sellout mechanics in an interview alongside Meghan. The scepticism was diplomatically phrased. The diplomatic phrasing was noted.
Pretty Leaves, No Legacy — The Tea Collection
The Hollywood Reporter's line about reading between the $14 tea leaves will outlive most of the actual teas. It captured something true: the product category and the price point and the brand positioning combined to create a gap between promise and delivery that was small in commercial terms and large in symbolic ones. Tea is an intimate product. It involves ritual, warmth, choosing, steeping, waiting. A tea collection from a brand whose stated mission is "an extension of how I love" creates a specific expectation. Fine is not an extension of how anyone loves. Fine is a flavour profile. The distinction matters.
Flower Sprinkles: Decorative Sadness in a Jar
The edible flower sprinkles are the perfect metaphor for the whole brand and we are going to sit with that. They are visually appealing, photographically excellent, genuinely pretty in the soft-focus way that everything associated with As Ever is genuinely pretty. They add colour. They suggest effort. They were included in the VIP gift bag at the Sydney wellness retreat that cost up to $3,199 AUD per ticket, alongside a $4.50 packet of Funday sweets available at most Australian supermarkets. The juxtaposition was unintentionally revealing. The sprinkles and the discount sweets occupied the same bag. The aesthetic and the substance occupied different universes. This is As Ever in a gift bag.
Candle No. 084: The Biographical Footnote You Burn
The candle costs $64. It is numbered 084. August 4 is Meghan's birthday. The product description notes it is "the signature scent that warms Meghan's family home." The family home is a $29 million estate in Montecito. You are, for $64, purchasing a reproduction of what Meghan's $29 million home smells like, to burn in your home, which does not cost $29 million. This is either the most intimate product launch in celebrity branding history or the clearest possible illustration of what "as an extension of how I love" means when translated into commercial objects. The candle reportedly smells pleasant. The biographical footnote is included at no extra charge. It will burn down in approximately six months. At that point you must decide whether the mythology is worth the repeat purchase. Most people decide no. That is what second-year sales figures reveal.
What The Brand Is Really Selling.
PRODUCT CARDS FOR THE COLLAPSE
What each product reveals. Not about the flavour. About the brand.The shortbread was not the only product whose texture raised questions. The jam's consistency divided opinion between "artisanal small-batch character" and "quality control oversight." At $15 a jar, the latter interpretation is harder to dismiss than the brand would prefer.
Nothing offends. Nothing surprises. Nothing lingers. The products taste exactly like the aesthetic looks — warm, soft, slightly expensive, and entirely non-committal. A flavour profile that photographs beautifully and disappears completely the moment the camera moves on. This is also the brand's biography.
Some early purchasers reported crooked labels and uneven fills. Small things. Not disqualifying on their own. But crooked labels do not whisper heirloom artisanal chic. They whisper early-stage production scaling on a timeline that prioritised the launch over the product. The aesthetic was built on perfection. The execution was built on a deadline.
The saddest thing about As Ever is the ghost of what it could have been. A brand that looked like Meghan, tasted like her kitchen actually smells, felt messy and alive and real. Instead: a brand that photographs beautifully at golden hour and tastes like aspiration by morning. The Tig had that quality. As Ever does not. The distance between them is the whole story.
THE JAR IS LOVELY. THE JAR IS ALWAYS LOVELY. THE JAR IS THE WHOLE POINT. YOU ARE NOT BUYING WHAT IS INSIDE THE JAR. YOU ARE BUYING THE JAR. ONCE YOU UNDERSTAND THIS, EVERYTHING ABOUT AS EVER MAKES PERFECT SENSE.
If There Is One.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE MACHINE LEAVES
The Netflix partnership is over. The Instagram is all that remains. That is the question.The saddest thing about As Ever is not the dry shortbread or the flat tea or the $64 birthday candle. It is the ghost of what it could have been — the brand that existed if Meghan had allowed it to feel human instead of airbrushed. Loud instead of muted. A little messy. A little alive. Something that tasted like an actual kitchen rather than a Pinterest board printed on quality card stock.
The Tig — the lifestyle blog that predated the palace entirely — had that quality. It was warm and specific and occasionally imperfect in the way real enthusiasm is imperfect. As Ever has the same instincts, preserved and protected and managed until they stopped feeling like instincts and started feeling like brand guidelines approved by three people in a room.
The Netflix partnership that launched As Ever is over. The With Love, Meghan discovery engine is gone. The brand is now operating as it was "always intended" — independently, on its own, with Meghan's Instagram and a direct-to-consumer website as its primary commercial infrastructure. Whether the $27 million first-year figure can be replicated without the streaming launch machine is the only commercial question that matters.
The flower sprinkles are still available. The candle still burns down in six months. The tea is still $14. The jam is still $15. The Serena Williams unboxing that went quietly sideways is still archived on the internet. The myth is still being sold, one beautiful jar at a time, to people who want to own a small, affordable piece of something aspirational.
As ever.
"If you sprinkle enough flowers over mediocrity, it still tastes like nothing. Though the jar, it must be said, is beautiful."
You Can Dress Up Mediocrity. For About a Year.
You can stage it, photograph it, name it after your birthday, ship it in embossed keepsake boxes, and export it to willing buyers who want to own a small, affordable piece of the Montecito lifestyle fantasy. And for the first year, while the Netflix show is running and the streaming discovery engine is operational and the press attention is at maximum, this strategy works. The sellouts are real. The $27 million is probably real. The jar is genuinely lovely.
The second year, operating independently, without the machine: that is when the question the jar has always been quietly asking finally requires a public answer. Not "what does this look like?" The brand knows the answer to that. The answer to that is: immaculate. Beautiful. Soft gold lighting, a $14 price tag, edible flowers arranged just so. The question is the other one. "What does this taste like, on its own, without the mythology, without the Netflix launch, without the personal backstory doing the heavy lifting?" The products have not yet demonstrated they have a compelling answer to that question. The second year is when we find out.
Disclaimer: This article is satirical and opinion-based cultural commentary. It reflects public product feedback, documented brand analysis, and the specific sadness of expensive flower sprinkles in a gift bag next to $4.50 Funday sweets. It is not a factual investigation or personal attack. The jam may be perfectly fine. We are reviewing the architecture, not just the fruit. The architecture, however, is also being reviewed.
