Rachel Dunkel

Rachel Dunkel writes commerce pieces that turn product roundups into practical guides for everyday living, with a particular focus on kitchen, cooking, travel and lifestyle gear that readers will actually use.

Kitchen and cooking products that make home meals easier

At BuzzFeed, she builds food-adjacent shopping stories around specific use cases, like finally putting a new grill to work with curated tools and accessories that make outdoor cooking feel approachable rather than intimidating. Her lists often spotlight kitchen items that streamline prep and add a bit of fun, from a beechwood gnocchi board for homemade pasta to barware and mixers designed to elevate cocktails at home. She writes in a straightforward, service-driven style, explaining how each item fits into cooking or entertaining routines so readers can see where it would slot into their own kitchens.

Across these pieces, she leans on years of testing and recommending products for BuzzFeed’s shopping team, positioning herself not just as a curator but as someone who has hands-on experience with the tools she features. Roundups of “things to try” often weave together ingredients, drink mixers and small kitchen upgrades, showing that she treats food as part of a broader at-home experience rather than a standalone beat. When she highlights under-$25 finds, she regularly includes clever cooking gadgets alongside beauty or home items, reflecting an interest in budget-conscious ways to improve everyday meals without overhauling the whole kitchen.

Travel and outdoor gear lists for stress-free trips

Travel is a recurring thread in her BuzzFeed archive, where she assembles lists of products that reduce friction on the road and make packing more efficient. She has written about travel accessories from Amazon that readers have loved, paying attention to what has already resonated with her audience and surfacing luggage organizers, comfort items and portable tech that have proven popular. In pieces focused on taking the stress out of travel, she frames each product around specific pain points—staying organized, dealing with long flights, or keeping essentials accessible—so the list reads as a set of solutions rather than a simple catalog.

Her outdoor coverage extends that practical angle to camping and hiking, including roundups of camping products and guides to major retail promotions on gear. For example, she has covered large seasonal sales on outdoor equipment, detailing percentage discounts and calling out notable brands and categories so readers can quickly identify whether a promotion matches their needs. The combination of camping lists and sale-focused writing shows that she is comfortable situating products within both aspirational outdoor experiences and the concrete realities of budget and timing.

Beauty, fashion and under-$25 lifestyle finds

Beyond food and travel, Rachel regularly writes shopping stories that span beauty, fashion and general lifestyle upgrades, often anchored by a playful concept or theme. Her beauty coverage includes “holy grail” product lists that position certain items as long-term staples, signaling that she is interested in performance and reliability as much as trendiness. Fashion stories focus on specific brands or occasions—such as must-have items to gift yourself from Madewell—where she walks readers through why particular pieces feel worth the splurge.

She often spotlights budget-friendly discoveries, assembling under-$25 items that mix skincare tools, clever organizers and small kitchen gadgets into a single, accessible lineup. Reader response matters in her work: she has dedicated pieces to products her audience is loving right now, using purchase and engagement patterns as a guide to which items deserve renewed attention. Subscription and book-related gifts also appear in her lists, including features on book-of-the-month style services that position reading as part of a broader lifestyle of treating yourself and loved ones. Across these topics, she keeps the tone light but specific, grounding recommendations in the concrete benefits of each item.

Commerce writing experience across digital outlets

Rachel brings more than seven years of product testing and recommendation experience to her role as a former editor and contributor on BuzzFeed’s shopping team, where she continues to publish staff and contributor pieces. Her professional bios describe her as a freelance writer and editor with several years of experience covering shopping, commerce and trends, emphasizing that product-focused service journalism is her core specialty. In addition to her work at BuzzFeed, she writes commerce content for a major business publication, producing vetted shopping guides that align consumer needs with quality and value.

She also creates shopping content across home, kitchen, beauty and hobby categories for digital lifestyle media, extending the same approach she uses on BuzzFeed—tested products, clear explanations, and themed lists—to other outlets. Earlier and parallel work includes coverage of feature and television scripts, novels and graphic novels, indicating that she has spent time writing about storytelling media as well as tangible products. That background in narrative-focused topics comes through in her commerce writing, where she often structures lists with a beginning, middle and end and uses small storytelling hooks—like a seasonal moment, a promotion, or a specific problem—to keep readers engaged.

Across platforms, Rachel’s distinguishing trait is consistency: she sticks to service-first, product-tested shopping content while moving fluidly between kitchen tools, travel accessories, beauty staples, fashion pieces and outdoor gear. For any consumer-focused story, she tends to build a clear thematic frame, choose items that solve specific problems or elevate routine experiences, and explain their utility in concise, accessible prose.