Category: Travel

November 19, 2019 at 07:22PM by CWC Earlier this year, while overcome by a fit of rage, I threw out four of my pillows. It’s an embarrassing confession given how unsustainable the act was and how…unstable it paints me to be, but I was feeling claustrophobic and uncomfortable and just done. Specifically, I was done tossing and turning in the middle of the night thanks to the floppy, rectangular obstacles and rock-hard, just-for-decoration puffs in my way. After months spent on a decidedly minimalist mattress setup, though, I was ready to open my heart and bedtime routine to another cushion, and I when I came across the Pluto Pillow, the personalized head-cushioning companion, I was sure I had found The One. Pluto Pillow launched in 2018, and when I personally learned about it in 2019, after my pillow purge, was excited, to say the least. Unlike many personalized pillows on the market that lean on tracking data and optimization technology, the $85 Pluto Pillow simply conforms the the uniqueness of you without a goal or an agenda beyond snagging you some zzz’s. “The only innovative pillows I found online were ‘smart’ pillows or ‘adjustable’ pillows—I just wanted a simple, high quality pillow at a fair price,” founder Susana Saeliu writes in a product release. Rather than a “smart pillow,” think of Pluto as the world’s first “thoughtful pillow,” because it does seem to really listen to your wants and desires. So, rather than a “smart pillow,” think of Pluto as

Read More

November 19, 2019 at 03:00PM by CWC “It’s made us better communicators, lovers, and partners,” Liz* tells me. She’s not referencing a choice to try couples’ counseling or get a puppy together or another typical, mainstream marker of relationship-building and -boosting strategies. Rather, she’s talking about bringing a third person into bed. While she’s always been interested in threesomes, Liz, a 24-year-old bisexual, cisgender woman, says she never knew how to broach the subject with past partners, so she would go about it in a joking way. But when she joked about it with her current partner, Tucker, a 32-year-old cisgender, heterosexual man, he didn’t laugh it off. Instead he asked if that’s something she’d be interested in exploring together. She said yes, and now they’ve been having regular threesomes for almost as long as the two years they’ve been together. Liz and Tucker are part of a growing number of couples who are expanding beyond traditional monogamy to create a relationship structure that works best for them. “A lot of couples, including those who identify as monogamous, are interested in exploring threesomes,” says pleasure-based sex educator and sex-positivity advocate Lateef Taylor. “A lot of couples, including those who identify as monogamous, are interested in exploring threesomes.” —sex educator Lateef Taylor One survey of more than 4,000 Americans, analyzed in Tell Me What You Want by sex educator Justin Lehmiller, PhD, nods to that fact. In his research, Dr. Lehmiller found group sex and threesomes to be the most common sexual

Read More

November 19, 2019 at 12:00AM by CWC Your skin might be loving all the new skin-care products you try every month, but the planet? Not so much. The beauty industry is known for producing a lot of waste. Many products come in containers made up of mixed materials that can be hard to recycle, which means they probably end up in landfills. Fortunately, some of our favorite brands are making the effort to be more eco-friendly by launching recycling programs. Summer Fridays recently introduced a program to “help keep the Earth a little cleaner” by rewarding customers who recycle their empty containers. For every five empties you collect and send back to the brand to be recycled, you’ll receive a free Jet Lag Mask ($25). But Summer Fridays isn’t the only beauty brand that will give you a pat on the back for recycling. 5 beauty brands with sustainable recycling programs (and rewards) 1. Kiehl’s For every one empty full-size product container you return to Kiehl’s, you receive a stamp. And when you have 10 stamps, you get a free travel-sized product. Product to try: Kiehl’s Midnight Recovery Concentrate, $49 2. Lush If you save and return five clean black pots to your local Lush store, you’ll receive a free fresh face mask. Product to try: Lush Rosy Cheeks Fresh Face Mask, $13 3. Pacifica If you send your empty and rinsed-out products to Pacifica (up to eight at a time!), you’ll get 100 loyalty points added to your account.

Read More

November 18, 2019 at 04:00PM by CWC Stefanie Iris Weiss Each month with On the Cusp, we point our astrological magnifying glass on all the people born between two zodiac signs. Because when your birthday falls at either the tail end or the very beginning of your sun sign’s season, your personality may be influenced by your cosmic neighbor. Now, as we begin to give gratitude and slip into the holidays, it’s the Scorpio Sagittarius cusp that’s taking the astrological spotlight. Below Stefanie Iris Weiss, astrologer and co-author of Surviving Saturn’s Return: Overcoming the Most Tumultuous Time of Your Life, explains what happens when deep and mysterious Scorpio (October 23 to November 22) merges with optimistic and cheerful Sagittarius (November 23 to December 21). As we fall deeper down the rabbit hole of fall, closer to the holiday season, when everything gets more and more festive by the day, celebrations become top of mind, what with friendsgivings, Thanksgiving, and holiday parties. Because of this, it’s easy for those with a holiday-season birthday, including those on the Scorpio Sagittarius cusp, to feel cast aside. So, let’s make this clear from the outset: There’s no better combo of fire-and-ice energy than you, Scorpio Sagittarius cuspers. “It’s like going from a slow, sexy simmer to a full-on high boil that might set the whole kitchen on fire,” says Weiss. “This cusp is about the way that deep waters transform into fire.” “This cusp like going from a slow, sexy simmer to a full-on high

Read More