British woman showed off her US shopping haul and Americans are obsessed with her finds

The markets in America and the UK each have their hallmark products, making them a distinct identity worldwide. The differences in price, quality and more were highlighted in a video shared by a UK resident, Mollie Layton, who visited America in the autumn of 2024. Layton—who goes by @mollielayton on TikTok—returned home with Target shopping bags loaded with an assortment of everyday items. In a video titled “American Haul,” she unpacked these bags and shared the items she purchased during her trip.

“I'm gonna show you everything that I bought back from America from my recent trip. How I fit this all in my suitcase, I genuinely don't know how. Look how big this bag is,” Layton said while holding a gigantic shopping bag with Target’s signature red bull’s eye logo. The first item that popped out of her bag was two packs of “Tide pens.” While explaining their details, Layton said, “They're just like an on-the-go stain remover pen, and I just think they're genius. I don't know why we don't have something like this in the UK.”

Next up, she flashed a scent bottle that “smells like I've come out of the bath,” as well as two pastel blue bottles that she said were the “moisturizers that went viral on TikTok.” She revealed that a person had spent “£26 ($32) on Amazon to get this in the UK,” but it cost her just “$8 in Target.” These moisturizers came in the scent “vanilla cashmere,” which she said, “smells like vanilla cupcake all the time.” 

Apart from these cosmetic items, Layton bought three little decorative plush pumpkins from CVS for $3 each. “F*****g cute,” she described them. She also bought a cute little pillow for $5, which she said would cost “at least £10 ($10)” in the UK. “It’s gonna sit on my bed this season,” she said, hugging the soft cushion. Then she got lots of deodorants including “a double pack of Mitchum deodorants, a Secret 72H gel deodorant she saw on TikTok and a Dove deodorant she previously purchased on her last trip to the US.

Her shopping bag also had some “hygiene bits” like Crest whitening toothpaste and Listerine strips. Another item in the video haul was “Trader Joe's pumpkin spice and Snickerdoodle cookie mix.” From the same store, she also got a jar of “spicy honey sauce,” “pumpkin pie spice,” “bagel seasoning,” "crunchy chili onion sprinkle seasoning blend," “hand sanitizer spray,” a “tote bag” and a tin of pumpkin pie purée. She said that she already used cookies and a pumpkin pie, and “they were so good.”

Some bottles of “Chick-fil-A sauce” in different flavors also made it to her bag, and so did a mini blue bottle of “Hidden Valley Ranch.” “I'm so excited to have that with some chicken,” she exclaimed. The next item was a big glass bottle of “Taco Bell sauce.” A fan of this sauce, she said, “I love the hot sauce from Taco Bell. It's not even that spicy, but it is so good and I put it on everything. I've already used this and I had it on my burgers the other night and it was so good.” A bottle of Alfred vanilla syrup came to her like “a little bit of a rip-off.”

“Alfred's is a coffee shop in America if you don't know, but it's a delicious coffee shop. And I saw this and it just said World's famous vanilla syrup. And I thought that's really luring me. I'm gonna buy it. And it was $12 for this,” she shared. A cute pumpkin candle came for $5. The last item in the haul was a bottle of ZzzQuil. “It's like a melatonin drink that just helps you sleep. I only take this for emergencies,” she explained.

About 3.4 million people watched her video and found the haul entertaining, with over 3000 of them jumping to the comments section to share their experiences and recommendations. Americans, in particular, were fascinated. “As an American, I’m so deeply intrigued by your choices,” commented @jessicawood1842. @kayeljayyy exclaimed, “As an American, I’ve never seen a US haul before, but this is fascinating and I hope the algorithm shares more with me moving forward.” Many Americans reflected how they were least aware of how cheap these products were in their own country. “Me [an] American who has never been to Trader Joe’s,” said @spooky.steph.02. @aaliyah_alonso added, “It just hit me that the UK doesn’t have any Target.”

You can follow Mollie Layton (@mollielayton) on TikTok for more travel, food, shopping hauls and mental health videos.