December 10, 2019 at 06:12PM by CWC Rocking a fresh manicure can make you feel like you have your life together in more ways than one. However, if your go-to hue of polish is disguising dry fingernails, dermatologists recommend rubbing ’em with one drugstore ingredient to restore your finger health. In a recent post published by the American Academy of Dermatologist, experts on your body’s largest organ (which your nails are part of) recommended moisturizing your nails in between gel manicures with a $3 tub of petroleum jelly. “Between polishes, apply a moisturizing product, such as petroleum jelly, to your nails and cuticles several times daily. This will minimize brittleness and help prevent your nails from chipping,” reads the article. “Try not to wear nail polish for one to two weeks or longer. This will allow your nails time to repair.” Really, it’s no surprise that the AAD loves petroleum jelly—so many derms name it as their desert island product. “Petroleum jelly is very occlusive, meaning it works to keep moisture from leaving your skin by blocking exposure of the skin to air because dryness in the air can really pull moisture from your skin,” says dermatologist Sandra Lee, MD, aka “Dr. Pimple Popper” and the founder of SLMD Skincare. Best of all, once you’ve treated all 10 dry fingernails, you can apply the gooey skin-care product to any other dry patches on your winter-struck body. I’m talking elbows, lips, knuckles—the list goes on. This dermatologist uses Vaseline as a makeup remover:
Month: December 2019
The dragon walk is so hard you’ll be breathing fire by the time you’re done
December 10, 2019 at 05:32PM by CWC It’s safe to say any exercise with “dragon” in its name is going to be ridiculously hard. Take the dragon flag, for instance—a Martial arts-inspired move where you literally turn your body into a human flag on a flag pole. And the dragon walk is no exception. “It’s an excellent core exercise, but it incorporates so many muscle groups that it feels like you’re working the entire body,” says Tee Major, trainer and author of Urban Calisthenics. “I like to start with this exercise because it takes the most energy, by far, than any other exercises you’re going to have in your workout.” Once you’re done with the dragon walk, you might just be breathing fire. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9QMwxysHoo] How to perform the dragon walk Start in a push-up position. Go down into a push-up, and on your way back up, raise your left arm and right leg into the air, keeping your hips square to the floor. As you move your left hand forward and position it onto the floor, bring your right leg to your side at a 90-degree angle and complete a staggered push-up. Push youself back up, this time repeating the process on the opposite side with your right arm and left leg in the air. After you get used to the movement, speed it up so you’re walking forward like a macho, badass dragon. Next, here’s how to do a perfect push-up: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V8nXGIyPOU] Keep working out like an
“As a young queer woman, ‘The L Word’ taught me the importance of a chosen family”
December 10, 2019 at 02:00PM by CWC I was 18 years old, three months removed from having had my first kiss (with another girl), and two weeks into my first year at a college the first time I turned on The L Word. The drama series focusing on lesbian culture in Los Angeles, which ran on Showtime from 2004 to 2009, grabbed my attention with its sex scenes depicting relationships I’d never seen onscreen before. But the reason I continued watching? The queer friendships. I grew up in a town where very few gay people (who publicly identify as such, anyway) live. There were no gay bars. I had no (out) gay relatives. There were only two out students in my high school, and they hated each other. And the gay and lesbian characters I saw in media exclusively hung out with other straight folks (think: Grey’s Anatomy, The OC, Pretty Little Liars). So, prior to watching The L Word, I didn’t know that adult queer people may well also have a network of adult queer friends. I was completely unaware that queer communities existed offline. The L Word marked the first time I saw a group of queer people lunching, brunching, gossiping, dancing with, and supporting each other. I credit the show alone with teaching me the importance of a chosen family—because that’s really what these characters were to one another. Specifically, a queer chosen family. And for me, a lonely, closeted college student, that demonstration of friendship-turned-family was life-changing. I’ve since
Blue Zones thinking is coming for our workouts
December 10, 2019 at 10:30AM by CWC This one goes out to anyone who’s ever been told to schedule their workout like an “important business meeting,” only to fold under the pressure of a last-minute deadline or the prospect of 15 extra minutes with the snooze button. As our calendars come to look more and more like unbeatable games of Tetris, our workouts need to become less square. Which is why, in 2020, you can expect a more flexible approach to fitness to gain steam: A proliferation of shorter workouts from new and beloved fitness brands will make it easier to fit sweat sessions into jam-packed schedules, coupled with an increase in adoption of a “Blue Zones” approach to exercise—wherein we take a cue from some of the longest-living people in the world and work more activity into our daily habits—will have us raising our heart rate without hitting pause on our days. Flexible fitness for the win. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only about a quarter of Americans are getting enough exercise, and one poll commissioned by the fitness app Freeletics named “not having time” as the number one excuse. One way an increasing amount of people are fitting workouts into their days? They’re making them shorter. Between January and September this year, YouTube views for 10-minute workout videos topped 150 million—that’s more than the views for 40-, 50-, and 60-minute workouts combined. Streaming platforms like Peloton, Aaptiv, Mirror, and Sweat with Kayla are also
The future of beauty is sustainable—and consumers won’t have it any other way
December 10, 2019 at 10:00AM by CWC The personal care industry produces about 120 billion packages every year, a staggering number that has consumers demanding change. According to 2019 Nielsen data, 73 percent of consumers say they want to reduce their impact on the environment, and 38 percent prefer buying beauty products that are sustainable. “Sustainability is really top of mind for people,” says Annie Jackson, co-founder of Credo Beauty. “People are looking for more sustainable manufacturers, sustainable packaging, and they want to understand the materials brands are using.” Beauty brands have gotten hip to the fact that if they’re going to thrive in the next decade, they’re going to need to put sustainability first—and that these changes need to go deeper than the packaging. But cleaning up their act will start with the packaging, and on this front, we’re going to see brands get more creative than ever in 2020. By 2025, Unilever plans to make all of its plastic packaging fully reusable, recyclable, or compostable. Dove, a drugstore staple and one of Unilever’s top brands, has already switched to fully recycled plastic bottles, and plans on being completely plastic-free by the end of 2020, with reusable, refillable, and stainless steel deodorant sticks in the pipeline. Another huge player, Procter & Gamble, is also prioritizing sustainability–Herbal Essences now produces 25 percent of its shampoo and conditioner bottles with ocean plastic, which they’ve collected and recycled from littered coasts. And then there’s Seed Phytonutrients, a personal care brand under the
Lymphatic health is the next frontier in wellness
December 10, 2019 at 09:30AM by CWC Hate to break it to you, but your body leaks. Fluid seeps out of your cells and tissues into the spaces between, where it can build up and cause swelling. It’s the job of your lymphatic system to collect all of this excess liquid, filter out nasties like cellular waste, bacteria, and pathogens, and return it to your bloodstream. In the past few years, we’ve seen a rising awareness of just how important this system is for reducing inflammation, staving off disease, and promoting good digestion (the wellness trifecta, if you will), and accordingly, there’s been an uptick in services and treatments meant to promote lymphatic health. In 2020, these spa offerings and workout classes will hit the mainstream, and “lymphatic health” will become the wellness buzzword on everyone’s lips. Because the lymphatic system doesn’t have a central pump (the way your circulatory system has your heart), it relies on you to keep things moving. Sometimes, this takes the form of “someone manually squeezing the tissues,” says Jonathan Leary, DC, founder and CEO of Remedy Place, a wellness club that opened in Los Angeles in November. Manual lymphatic drainage (or lymphatic drainage massage) has become a popular offering at Remedy Place and is at the core of a crop of bodywork studios that have opened in the past few years, including HigherDOSE in New York (which will open a west coast outpost in 2020), Ricari Studios and Upgrade Labs in LA, and Shape
Welcome to the pleasure revolution
December 10, 2019 at 09:00AM by CWC “The sexual conversation is expanding. The weirder your fantasies, the more open you are about it, the cooler you are,” said Phoebe Waller-Bridge during her Saturday Night Live monologue in October—and she has evidence to back up her claim. Waller-Bridge’s unapologetically sexually driven and feminist TV series Fleabag snagged four 2019 Emmy wins, including one for Outstanding Comedy Series. The runaway success of Fleabag indicates a cultural shift that’s not only destigmatizing but awarding conversations focused on women’s pleasure and desire. This entertainment-industry proof, combined with rising rates of porn consumption and sex-toy purchases among women, and increased funding for companies innovating the female-focused sexual-wellness space, makes one reality abundantly clear: We’re on the cusp of a pleasure revolution. Fleabag is far from the only pop-culture window we have into this more inclusive view of sex. In the past year, HBO premiered two sex-positive shows that depicted desire at different points on the age spectrum: Mrs. Fletcher (based on Tom Perrota’s 2017 novel), follows a middle-aged empty-nester navigating her sexual awakening, while Euphoria focuses on a group of high-schoolers discovering their nuanced sexual identities. While fictional, these examples are certainly inspired by real-life interest that spans demographics and ages—and they’re furthering increased openness in our conversations and habits. Lisa Taddeo’s much talked about non-fiction book Three Women, which documents the vastly different desires of three women over the span of eight years, is further evidence that we want to have real conversations about
We’ll all breathe easier with air purifying devices in our homes
December 10, 2019 at 08:00AM by CWC Atmospheric pollution is a hot topic right now, but did you know that indoor air quality is often two to five times worse than what’s outside? If not, you’ll be hearing (and thinking) a lot more about this in 2020, as new air-purification technology allows us to assess the quality of the air we breathe and to take the steps necessary to improve it. New peer-reviewed data clearly articulates that air pollution—especially ultrafine particles generated from burning substances like natural gas, wood, and incense—has the potential to harm every organ in the body. Chemicals given off by carpets, paint, and cleaning supplies can also linger in the air and cause health issues, according to the American Lung Association. “The particles of concern are the ones you can’t see,” says Jake Read, advanced design engineer at Dyson. As more new information emerges, experts predict that the global air purifier market will grow at a healthy rate of 9 to 12 percent annually between now and 2023, which would have it valued at over $33 billion in three years time. The race is on to create a product that meets this rising consumer demand. Companies like Dyson and Molekule have recognized that people are willing to pay a premium—upwards of $700, in some cases—for towering air purification units that remove and destroy pollutants from the air, many of which we bring into our own homes in the form of cleaning products or aerosol beauty products
Chickpeas Are Getting the Cauliflower Treatment (AKA They’re Everywhere)
December 10, 2019 at 07:00AM by CWC Hummus has long been a wellness staple—a tub of it would be right at home beside a bag of home-cooked granola and a stick of Palo Santo in your wellness starter kit. But this is a new decade, and chickpeas are being transformed into healthier, high-protein versions of classic comfort foods, from pasta and rice to chips and ice cream. And consumers are eating it up. Kelly Landrieu, the global coordinator of local brands for Whole Foods, says she’s definitely seen an uptick in the number of chickpea-based products lining store shelves, from both new brands and established ones. To name just a few: Banza’s chickpea pasta and rice (a plant-based boxed mac-and-cheese is coming in January 2020), Hippeas’ and Biena Snacks’ chickpea puffs, Delighted By’s dessert hummus, Lebby Snacks’ chocolate-covered chickpeas (AKA the new Whoppers), Nutriati’s chickpea mylk, P.S. Snacks’ chickpea cookie dough, and Little Chickpea’s chickpea ice cream. In 2020, chickpea comfort foods will even be entering the restaurant space, a priority Banza co-founder Brian Rudolph announced after the brand secured $20 million in funding in November. Why the garbanzo explosion? “Chickpeas are versatile, nutritionally dense, allergen-friendly, and inexpensive as an ingredient,” Landrieu says. “They’re also familiar to consumers, so even if the product isn’t something they’ve seen before, it’s easier to convince them to give it a try.” (For the record, registered dietitian Shawn Wells, RD, says this trend gets his stamp of approval, citing the ingredient as a good
The Blooming Fertility Industry is Delivering More Options for Parents-to-Be
December 10, 2019 at 06:00AM by CWC It’s been 40 years since the first baby was born through in vitro fertilization (IVF), yet today, infertility treatments, including egg freezing, intrauterine insemination (IUI) and IVF, have stayed largely a place of last resort. The prohibitively high costs of these treatments—as much as $20,000 for just one round of IVF—make them inaccessible to most of the one in eight women struggling to have children. But as consumer interest in fertility options has grown in recent years, a slew of new startups and innovations have risen to meet demand. In 2020, they’re poised to make IVF, IUI, and egg-freezing available to more people than ever before. Due to the high barrier to entry the number of people seeking fertility assistance remains relatively small. “Somewhere between 3 and 4 percent of all births [in the United States] are from IVF,” says Norbert Gleicher, MD, FACOG, and founder of the Center of Human Reproduction. But, those numbers are growing at rapid rates, especially as people continue to delay pregnancy and parenthood. According to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, in 2017 (the most recent data available), over 72,000 babies were born from approximately 263,000 cycles of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) performed during that year. Nearly 11,000 of these were fertility preservation cycles for patients choosing to freeze and bank their own eggs—a 24 percent increase from 2016. Investors want in on this growing space: By some estimates, the market for fertility solutions is growing by