December 05, 2019 at 02:00PM by CWC My hair has been parched lately. Between the soul-sucking heat from the office radiators to the frigid wind outside, it’s as if I’m testing my hair’s limits in just how much it can endure before it all breaks off. But, thankfully, the Well+Good readers in our Beauty Geek Facebook group are saving the day with their product recommendations that revive dry, cracked strands. In a recent post, someone (hi Zoë!) asked for the best products for dry hair repair—and our readers delivered. Since I haven’t heard anyone around me talk about how moisturized and soft their strands feel right now (hey, it’s winter you guys), I’d say it’s the perfect time to share our beauty geeks’ savvy product recommendations. From a hair butter to luxe oil options to full-on treatments, here are the five best products for dry hair to get into your shower, stat. And don’t forget to join Beauty Geek to peep all kinds of beauty intel, and share some hair-saving faves of your own. Photo: IGK 1. IGK Expensive Amla Oil Hi-Shine Topcoat, $29 Though this is technically a gloss, you can use it in all kinds of different ways. One of our readers says that she mixes it with a styling product as a leave-in “to refresh dry ends in between washes.” Or you can put it all over your strands when you wash. Either way, the blend of strengthening amla oil, protecting sea kelp extract, and sunflower seed oil
Month: December 2019
Rent the Runway’s Closet Concierge aims to make packing for vacation a thing of the past
December 05, 2019 at 02:00PM by CWC I’m a big fan of the innovative packing tips evangelized by women who somehow effortlessly stock their suitcases for multi-city tours. However, I will never possess such impeccably orchestrated packing skills. Typically, I end up carting around everything in my closet just in case—or alternatively, having to buy all the things I failed to pack in an effort to streamline my travel wardrobe. Rent the Runway’s latest offering may save your next trip, sartorially-speaking, as well as your sanity. The clothing rental company has partnered with W Hotels on Closet Concierge, a service launching Thursday that allows you to order clothes directly to one of four W Hotels locations, including Aspen, South Beach, Hollywood, and Washington, D.C. For $69—or about the price of an overweight piece of luggage—you’ll get four styles sent to the hotel before your arrival. While Closet Concierge allows access to the site’s entire Unlimited Closet, customers will also be able to choose from customized collections curated for each destination based on trends, climate, and culture. These capsules are pretty clutch when visiting a city for which you’re not sure how to dress. (D.C.? No idea.) At the end of your trip, simply drop your worn clothing at the front desk to return—more or less the dream. In case you missed it, this isn’t the only big news to come out of the RTR offices this week. The company has added athleisure to its virtual racks, from brands like P.E.
Should we be talking about “mental wellness,” not “mental health”?
December 05, 2019 at 01:30PM by CWC Mental health issues affect everyone, but research suggests people in the Black community are less likely to have access to culturally competent care. According to the American Psychiatric Association, only one in three African Americans who need mental health care receive it. That’s where organizations like Chicago’s Sista Afya Community Mental Wellness are making a difference. Founded by Camesha L. Jones, LSW, the group serves fellow Black women through mental wellness education, workshops, group and individual therapy, and community outreach. The idea, as Jones puts it, is to make mental wellness simple, accessible, affordable, and centered around Black women’s experiences. Here, she speaks with Well+Good Council member Latham Thomas about the healing power of community—and why she prefers the phrase “mental wellness” over “mental health.” Latham Thomas: Where did you come up with the idea for Sista Afya? Camesha Jones: I like to call myself a mental illness survivor and a community mental wellness advocate. After I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had been hospitalized twice, I was looking for resources for Black women but I wasn’t finding anything. In 2015, I was in the midst of my graduate school training in social work. I thought that with what I’d learned from my personal experience and in school, I could put the two together to create a community mental wellness organization—a platform for black women with mental health conditions to receive the support that they need through groups and classes. I believe
Is it smart to keep dating a nice person even when you don’t feel a spark?
December 05, 2019 at 12:00PM by CWC My taste in men could be (and has been) described as bad—and that’s being generous. So when I finally met a guy who is best described as “nice,” I decided to see where things could go. Because kindness is an important relationship quality, right? Well, right, but it’s also not the only important relationship quality. With this person—correction, this nice person—I had no spark; no butterflies keeping me up at night thinking about what he might be doing or thinking. But nothing was wrong. In fact, on face value, it seemed that everything was essentially right. We went out on a few dates. Our personalities clicked. He made plans in advance. My texts never went unanswered. But still, no spark. I figured I’d wait to feel a flutter of something, but I wasn’t sure how long. All of the inner turmoil got me thinking: Is kindness the most important quality in a partner? And should it trump all other qualities? Obviously I don’t want to be with someone who treats me terribly (despite what my past choices seem to suggest), but where’s my baseline for what constitutes feeling fulfilled? With each successive date I went on with this nice guy, I grew fonder of him and wanted less and less to hurt his feelings by breaking it off, especially given that nothing specific seemed to be wrong. I was growing to care for him—but enough to be with him? I wasn’t so sure.
The next frontier in digital fitness is coming to a gym near you
December 05, 2019 at 02:00AM by CWC Take a look around any gym and you’ll see people consulting phones about what move comes next. Digital fitness has brought expert trainers straight to our fingertips, and with Life Fitness On Demand—the newest launch from the cardio machine engineers at Life Fitness—your treadmills, ellipticals, spin bikes, and more will now come with built-in trainers. Announced Tuesday, the next move by Life Fitness heralds a digital fitness era marked by even more accessibility. While Peloton long ago made the trainer and the machine a package deal, introducing the same principal to equipment found in gyms across America means an even wider reach for digital fitness. Ranging from 10 to 40 minutes in length, the 80 newly launched classes span across a host of cardio machines you’ll spot at the gym, in health clubs, at hotels, and more. Photo: Life Fitness “We are thrilled to be the first to offer on-demand cardio classes on a full line of cardio equipment,” said Dan Wille, global vice president of marketing and product development at Life Fitness in a press release. “Life Fitness products are in over 250,000 facilities around the world and 60 million people use them every year. Our priority is to help our customers—commercial fitness facilities—keep their exercisers satisfied.” “We believe by partnering with Life Fitness, we will be able to provide users with premium workout content with the goal of expanding our reach and making fitness more accessible to a global audience.”—Nathan Forster,
Sip on this delicious chocolate peppermint tea for a happier digestive system
December 05, 2019 at 01:00AM by CWC [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNB5uDKpv94] Be kind to your digestion with this delicious peppermint tea. Watch the video for the recipe. As far as power flavor duos go, peppermint and chocolate rank pretty high up there. It’s a combo that’s everywhere during the holidays, from your seasonal Starbucks drinks to the desserts table at the office holiday party. But what if I told you there was a way to enjoy that flavor all year round—and it was good for your digestion, too? It’s not too good to be true, promise. In the latest episode of Plant-Based, holistic health coach, herbalist, and Supernatural founder Rachelle Robinett reveals a delicious (and healthy) way to get your peppermint-chocolate fix. “Peppermint is part of the mint family, obviously, and mint is one of the most medicinal families of plants on the planet,” Robinett says. “Peppermint has been used for thousands of years to treat digestion, respiration, as well as aches and pains.” It’s particularly effective for digestion, she says, because it both stimulates and soothes the digestive system—which keeps things moving without irritation or discomfort. It’s also been shown to reduce stomach muscle spasms. Of course, it has the added benefit of leaving your breath smelling fresh, too. Robinett says that chocolate peppermint plants (yes, you read that right) exist in nature—and that’s the ingredient she uses to make her festive, digestion-supporting chocolate peppermint tea. “If you don’t have access to chocolate peppermint [plants], you can use regular dried peppermint
The “Melt Method” will decompress your neck in 3 minutes flat
December 05, 2019 at 12:00AM by CWC My neck feels like it’s perpetually stuck in a C-curve. Thanks to all of the staring down at screens that I do throughout the majority of my day, my neck alignment is way off and my posture‘s a mess. But all it takes to combat that tension is an easy exercise to decompress your neck. Enter: the “Melt Method.” All you need is a foam roller or a towel to put behind your head, and you’re good to go. “The unloading of our spine is so overlooked and a daily necessity,” says Karen Joubert, PT, celebrity physical therapist in Beverly Hills. “The use of cell phones has made this a necessary addition to our daily routines.” She likes the melt method because you barely need anything and it only takes about three minutes to do. “Use a foam roller, or, if you tend to have a forward head that makes this difficult, use a small hand towel and fold it,” she says. “Place it under the base of your head—not under the neck. Also bend the knees to unload the low back.” Just the pressure of gravity on your neck over a foam roller works to decompress all of that forward tilting that you do. Sue Hitzmann, neuromuscular therapist and creator of the Melt Method, says it’s key to keep the pressure consistent at the base of your skull, which you can do by looking up at the ceiling. To get all sides of
How self-care became a commodity in the modern era of wellness
December 04, 2019 at 11:00PM by CWC These days, you’d be hard-pressed to scroll on Instagram without seeing someone eating something delicious, or wearing something cozy, or jet-setting somewhere exotic, all in the name of #selfcare, a term that’s been hashtagged 21.3 million times on Instagram (and counting). But the concept far pre-dates the fall of 2016, which is when Google searches for it picked up steam and the idea metamorphosed into a full-blown lifestyle philosophy of prioritizing the self in the name of health. Decades earlier, Slate reports, self care was used to describe a form of political resistance that involved looking inward in the midst of external chaos. Usage saw peaks in the ’60s and ’70s during the women’s liberation and civil rights movements. Its 2016 resurgence makes sense, then, given its ascent alongside that year’s presidential election, the results of which left many Americans feeling stressed and looking for avenues to feel better. “Self care is knowing yourself and knowing that at different times and different seasons and parts of your life, you will need support differently,” says wellness expert and reiki master Kelsey Patel. And while the original definition of self care—care for your body, mind, and spirit—still holds true in its modern iteration, there is a component of it that’s new to this decade. Now, the internal reflection that facilitates caring for oneself often comes to fruition with the assistance of products and brands—or, as coined in a 2011 episode of Parks and Recreation, the “treat
Doctors successfully brought a dead heart *back to life*
December 04, 2019 at 10:28PM by CWC On a given day, up to 114,000 people await a transplant in the United States, and the heart is one of most in-demand organs. On Sunday, a heart transplant team at Duke University became the first in the U.S. to bring a heart from a deceased donor back to life—and transplant it into a living recipient. In a process called donation after circulatory death (DCD heart warm perfusion), an artificial circulatory machine pumps warm, oxygenated blood through the heart once removed from the donor, effectively reviving the organ. This process gives surgeons up to 12 hours to transport the organ to the recipient—a notable increase from the previous 4- to 6-hour window of viability. “This surgery marks the first time in the U.S. that a heart utilized for transplantation was derived from a non-brain dead donor,” explains Brian Lima, MD, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Northwell Health via email. “Until recently, hearts could never be used in these instances because waiting until ‘cardiac death’ could damage the viability of the heart. But thanks to the advent of ex-vivo heart perfusion (so-called heart-in-a-box) technology, that heart could be resuscitated on a perfusion apparatus and assessed for viability.” On average, 20 people die every day waiting for organs in the United States, according to the American Transplant Foundation. Duke is currently one of just five medical centers in the United States carrying out DCD heart transplantation in clinical trials, but Dr. Lima says widespread adaptation of the
Redditors can’t get enough of these 5 beauty brands, and neither can dermatologists
December 04, 2019 at 10:00PM by CWC Whenever I’ve got a beauty question, Reddit’s SkincareAddiction thread is the first place I turn. That’s because chances are, someone on there has had the same question, and dozens (sometimes hundreds) of people have given his or her two cents on what the answer is. The thread is the number one most popular beauty community on the platform—for good reason—and I as a beauty editor trust their intel a whole lot. Suffice to say, when the Reddit community recommends a product, you best believe it’s worth listening to… their crowd-sourced 4-1-1 on all things skin related is legit, to say the least. Need proof? Reddit just released its 2019 trends, and the five most talk-about beauty brands are among our own—and our dermatologists’—all-time favorites. In fact, we’ve spent this year talking about many of the same products as our favorite Reddit community has, which goes to show how on the nose they are. The best part of the top brands? The majority of them are available at the drugstore. Below, the five top beauty brands of 2019 that Redditors couldn’t get enough of, and our picks for the best products to buy from each. Top beauty brands of 2019: 1. Cerave Photo: Cerave Cerave Daily Moisturizing Cream, $19 Drugstore go-to Cerave cinched the top spot for Reddit’s most talked-about beauty brand of 2019, and for good reason. According to derms, Cerave Moisturizing Cream (which clocks in at an ultra-affordable $19 for a giant