Year: 2019

February 14, 2019 at 08:00AM by CWC If you’ve come across vitamin E oil in your skin-care products, it’s probably been used as a sidekick, meant to amplify or balance out other spotlight-stealing ingredients, such as vitamin A (AKA retinol) and vitamin C. The underdog skin-care staple, however has a laundry list of benefits for your complexion that will make you reconsider its role in your beauty routine. “Vitamin E can be found as a key ingredient in many cosmetics,” say Mostafa M. Omar, PhD, a natural product chemist and founder of Phyto-C, going on to explain that it’s a potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory ingredient. The truth is, vitamin E oil goes by several other names like tocopheryl linoleate, tocopheryl oleate, tocopherol, and tocopheryl acetate, according to Renée Rouleau, celebrity esthetician and the founder of her eponymous skin-care line. So you might already be using it and not even know. That said if you’re not, it’s easy enough to incorporate into your routine on the daily as a stand alone ingredient or in a bottle with other ingredients. If you’re looking for a product that simply has vitamin E as one of the key ingredients, Dr. Omar says to look for 1 to 5 percent concentration to get maximum benefits. If you’re, instead looking to buy it alone, take note: Rouleau recommends smaller bottles since “vitamin E oil can oxidize and go rancid,” she says. “To get the most effectiveness, you don’t want to be using the same bottle for a long time.”

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February 14, 2019 at 07:40AM by CWC As a beauty editor, I can confidently navigate a beauty product label. I can tell my sodium lauryl sulfate from my cocamidopropyl betaine (both make you cleaner FWIW), and I can decipher when a Latin term indicates a natural botanical, but I will admit that my knowledge blurs when it comes to retinol. I mean, the stuff is referred to by using a lot of different terms, and what’s more, they’re not all the same thing: some are prescription-strength formulas (of which there are many) and some are OTCs (of which there are many more). And since vitamin A (the umbrella term for all of these) gets name checked by skin pros on the daily, I wanted to clear up the matter at hand. “All retinol products are derivatives of vitamin A and are called retinoids,” says Gary Goldenberg, MD, a board-certified dermatologist at Goldenberg Dermatology. Beyond that, however, the vocabulary you need to know your retinol from your Retin-A can be confusing, so keep on scrolling for what to know about the buzzy skin-care ingredient. How to tell retinoids apart Over-the-counter retinols: Retinoids are responsible for amping up cellular turnover in skin and they also help to stimulate collagen, which leads to the youthful, clearer-skin that everyone knows and loves. “Most people talk about retinol with respect to its anti-aging benefits,” says Joshua Zeichner, MD, a New York-based dermatologist.”Over the counter, there are 3 different types of retinoids available: retinol, retinaldehyde, and retinyl esters.” Now, it’s important

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February 14, 2019 at 06:47AM by CWC In today’s flaky dating climate, there’s something particularly awe-inspiring about couples who have committed to starting businesses together. While so many of us are just hoping our partner texts us back in a reasonable amount of time, these duos are nurturing a shared vision, creating something new for the world, and voluntarily spending pretty much all of their waking (and sleeping) hours together. What could be more romantic? Well, as you can probably imagine, it’s not all million-dollar ideas and summer Fridays. Anyone who’s ever mixed love and commerce will tell you that building a biz with your S.O. requires a ton of self-awareness, super-sharp communication skills, and a fierce commitment to prioritizing date nights when spreadsheets and emails beckon. But for many couples who do it, working together proves to be a bonding experience like no other. “Everything we’re doing is new to us, and there’s a lot of learning and correcting and learning again,” says Lizzie Brown, who co-founded the yoga alarm-clock app Yoga Wake Up with her husband, Joaquin. “So sometimes, we spend hours on end just brainstorming and dreaming about where the [business] will go.” Plus, some say that pursuing your passion alongside your partner can provide a special kind of rocket fuel for the business itself. “We truly believe that couples who work together accomplish their goals 10 times faster—and also strengthen their relationship in the process,” says Taylor Norris, who launched Los Angeles-based fitness studio LIT Method with her

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February 14, 2019 at 05:41AM by CWC Real talk: Who doesn’t love the feeling of having a squeaky-clean mouth filled with glistening, alabaster teeth? Aside from the fact that it’s good for your oral health and makes your breath smell minty fresh, it’s just nice to rub your tongue over a set of pearly whites that have been given a literal spit shine. But, according to dentists, there are two types of toothpastes that—though they promise these types of results—could be doing your mouth more harm than good. “Charcoal and whitening toothpastes are highly abrasive and can cause permanent destruction to your tooth structure,” says celebrity dentist Dr. Dustin Cohen of The Practice of Beverly Hills. “They’re basically sandpaper in a tube.” He explains that the abrasive properties in these types of toothpastes “scrub away the gums and white enamel of your teeth,” which ultimately leaves behind a darker layer of your tooth. So though you may be using these products to try and make your teeth look whiter, in the long term you’re actually doing the opposite. “Those toothpastes are so abrasive that they actually scrub away the gums and pretty white enamel of your teeth,” says Dr. Cohen. “These areas become irreversibly thinner and more see-through, exposing the more yellow-colored inner layer of tooth.” And that’s not the only reason why you should consider tossing your whitening and charcoal toothpastes, stat: According to him, because they strip your gums and enamel away, your teeth also end up becoming more sensitive to hot

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February 14, 2019 at 04:45AM by CWC Editor’s note: This story contains descriptions of gun violence and abuse, and could be triggering for survivors of gun or domestic violence. It’s been nine years since Lisette Johnson’s husband shot her four times and then turned the gun on himself. Nine years since her heart rate dropped to a dangerously low level, her body was replenished with 14 units of blood, and doctors performed multiple surgeries to keep her alive. There’s still a bullet in her liver, and another in her chest wall. The physical recovery was a long, painful hell. But for Johnson, that wasn’t the hardest part of surviving. “In a weird way, the physical pain was easier to navigate than the emotional pain,” she says. Patience Carter’s experience with gun violence was as public as Johnson’s was intimate. Two-and-a-half years ago, she and some friends were dancing at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, when a shooter opened fire, leaving Carter severely injured and claiming the lives of 49 people. But Carter no longer wakes up in the middle of the night screaming in fear. She says she’s moved on. “I knew I had to be my own superhero,” she says, a mantra that helped her recover both physically and emotionally. Both Johnson and Carter survived the unimaginable. But what connects their experiences with gun violence is more than just the bullets. It’s the complex, and often overlooked, emotional recovery they both had to navigate in the months and years after

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