Day: January 16, 2019

January 16, 2019 at 12:47PM by CWC Raise your hand if this applies to you: You’re an over-achiever, you love being right (and doing things right on the first try), your G-cal is highly organized, you’re always early, you regularly stay late at work to re-read a draft for the 20th time, and if you could be any fictional character, it would be Hermione Granger…or Blair Waldorf. Sound familiar? Yeah…you’re a textbook perfectionist. For some people, perfectionist tendencies can work, says Erica Hamilton, Ph.D, a psychologist at Octave, a mental health studio in New York City. They’re able to still achieve their goals and actually feel motivated by that little voice in their head pushing them to be the very best. “But for many, it becomes quite paralyzing,” she says. People hold themselves back from pursuing their goals out of fear of coming up short, she says, or obsess over small details and mistakes. “In a lot of ways, perfectionism is something people use to protect themselves,” says Dr. Hamilton. “There’s this mindset of, ‘If I’m perfect, I can’t be rejected and good things will happen. And I will be accepted and loved.’ It’s one of the ways people try to control their anxiety of things that are outside their control.” But again, that can come with more costs than benefits. If you’ve been living with the perfectionist mindset your entire life, it might feel totally baked in your personality. But you may be overlooking two skills that could help

Read More

January 16, 2019 at 12:46PM by CWC I was preparing to get in the shower this morning and finally shampoo my hair but… then I saw that it looked totally fine. My mouth actually fell open—I haven’t washed my hair since Sunday, and yet there’s no grease in sight and my hair—dare I say it—even looks quite good. I’m shook. In the past, I have been an everyday shampooer. And then I started doing every other day. Now, this? It’s as if I’ve somehow manipulated my hair to correspond with my hair-washing laziness. Once I began telling my friends and colleagues about this phenomenon, I learned that it’s not just me. Hair training is actually a thing. “Yes, you can absolutely train your hair to reduce the oily texture,” says Maria Ruiz, stylist at New York’s Eddie Arthur Salon. Say whaaa? “This is coming from someone who has very oily hair.” So there’s hope for even the greasiest-prone strands. All you have to do is, well, train it. Teach your hair to require less washes and it will obey you if you’re diligent. “To start training your hair, you must cut down on washing your hair as often as you may do now,” she explains. “Constantly washing your hair stimulates the sebaceous glands, which creates even more oil. So I suggest washing your hair every other day at the most—washing your hair two to three times a week is ideal.” It sounds outrageous if you’re a religious shampooer, but it’s totally

Read More

January 15, 2019 at 11:30AM by CWC The hashtag #skincarediet is going viral on Instagram and YouTube, with users touting their great results from using fewer skin-care products (gasp). Minimalist beauty enthusiasts are claiming that using too many products can actually make your skin thinner and more sensitive. And so people are paring back, seemingly from a lazy girl’s cry for a routine that delivers the same results but with less of a time investment (cleverly dubbed “skip-care”). Skip-care, explains Byrdie, is all about streamlining your routine and removing steps without sacrificing any of the ingredients or properties that are imperative to your hydrated and supple skin goals. “Skip-care is a skincare method that allows you to identify the essential ingredients for your skin and avoid the use of unnecessary products for a simpler, yet proper, skincare routine,” a member of the Amore Pacific team told Byrdie. AKA: It’s about asking your products to do more so you can do less. Ahhhh, the lazy girl’s dream! Like skip-care, #skincarediet is all about simplifying your routine. To do this, beauty brands, especially those in the K-beauty space, are consolidating offerings: For example, they’re offering an essence (step 7) that is also a moisturizer (step 8), or a moisturizer that also has your vitamin C serum in it. This is a burgeoning part of the market but eventually, your 10-step skincare routine could be distilled down to much fewer products for the same glow-inducing results. Another method is by forgoing certain steps altogether. Not

Read More

January 16, 2019 at 11:39AM by CWC There are a million reasons why making it to the gym can often feel impossible (I’m too tired! It’s too cold! All of my leggings are dirty!), but 2019 is the year that “I’m too busy” is hereby banished from the list of excuses to not workout. While carving out a dedicated treadmill hour between meetings and meal prep and all other adulting is a heavy ask, making time for 10-minute micro-workouts is arguably something everyone can manage—even if you can’t make it to an actual gym to get it done. To make it even easier, fitness pro Jillian Michaels is here to help. Her 10-minute, full-body workouts—care of the My Fitness by Jillian Michaels app—require nothing more than a set of barbells and a few free minutes during lunch. The routine includes 24 different moves, like squat thrusts, plyo pops, and double crunches, each of which is performed for a 25-second interval. Because you’re changing things up so frequently, your heart will be pumping hard, and you’re pretty much guaranteed not to get bored. According to Michaels, one of the best ways to stick with your New Year’s fitness resolutions is to figure out the logistics in order to keep them consistent. “It requires looking at your life, your schedule, and working your fitness goal into those logistics. The most important thing, though, is making time for your workouts, so you have to schedule them,” she says. Make them a priority, and stick them on your calendar the

Read More

January 16, 2019 at 11:01AM by CWC It was only recently that I began hoarding each and every beauty product that claims to “brighten” my skin (thanks to a long bout with acne that left my complexion marked with scars). I thought I had it all covered: retinol to increase cell turnover, various acids to exfoliate, and plenty of vitamin C serum. But then I heard about another skin-brightening superstar during a facial treatment I had: mandelic acid. Basically, it’s an under-the-radar alpha hydroxy acid (AHA). “Mandelic acid is an AHA derived from bitter almonds,” says celebrity facialist Shani Darden. What makes it special, however, is that it’s unlike other AHAs (like glycolic and lactic acid, for instance) because it’s easier on the complexion. “It has a larger molecule than some other AHAs which is what makes it gentler and less likely to cause any sort of post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation,” she says. Founder of San Francisco’s Spa Radiance, facialist guru Angelina Umansky, has been using mandelic acid for almost 20 years. “Mandelic acid is very brightening and also gives the skin strength,” she tells me. “I use it on all skin types except those with rosacea during my facials, and I always put a few drops in whenever I cleanse my clients’ skin or before dermabrasion. It’s one of my favorite products in treatments for anti-aging or hyperpigmentation.” Mandelic acid works its wonders by exfoliation (of course). “Similar to other AHAs, mandelic acid functions as an exfoliator that dissolves skin cells

Read More

January 16, 2019 at 09:00AM by CWC Now that it’s January, I’d like to take a moment to bow our heads and say RIP to the Holiday Baking show. Because since we’re all friends here, I’ll tell you a little something about me you wouldn’t otherwise have known: I rely on The Food Network to get through my treadmill workouts. As if the audio workouts I queue up to guide my indoor runs aren’t stimulating enough to my senses all on their own, I turn on Guy’s Grocery Games—captions and all. Should Cake Wars grace the airwaves, I take mental bets on whose third tier will tumble before I even make it to my muscle burnout. Really, it’s not the food that I’m attracted to, but the mindless marshmallow fluff that keeps me from thinking about the miles as they inch upwards on my screen. I’m sure that House Hunters would do just as well. I’m sure I could keep pace while watching Keeping up with the Kardashians, but I have an endorphin-fueled relationship with New York’s channel 50, and I’m not afraid to admit it. Since it seemed low-key concerning to me, I decided to ask a psychologist whether or not I needed to hit the power button and shut down my reliance on high-stakes grocery cart races to get me through a sweat sesh. “When we’re physically training, we really don’t have the mental resources to be dedicating to really in-depth thinking,” says Matt Johnson, PhD, a psychologist and neuromarketing expert in San

Read More