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Conscious Beauty Lifestyle

7 Sheet Mask Questions Answered By K-Beauty Experts

Sheet masks are starting to dominate the skin care market, and that’s a good thing. We could all use a little rejuvenation in our lives, right? Sheet masks—Korean sheet masks in particular—have taken Western markets by storm in recent years; according to one estimate, in 2015, the global sheet mask market was valued at $160 million; by the end of 2024, it’s expected to reach $336 million.
While we’re psyched to see this Korean beauty secret take hold in the States, we’ve seen conflicting tips for using sheet masks. Do you leave them on for hours at a time? Does brand really matter? Could we get the same moisturizing effect by simply covering our faces with lotion and standing under a waterfall?
We had a lot of questions, so we reached out to the experts. Whether you’re looking into sheet masks for the first time, or you’re a well-moisturized veteran of the sheet mask game, here’s what you need to know.

What is the difference between a sheet mask and a regular mask?

If you’ve used cream or clay facial masks, you might wonder what makes Korean sheet masks so remarkable.

“Sheet masks are face-shaped sheet fabrics soaked in serums or essences that have many benefits to the skin,” says Yves Saint Laurent Beauté ambassador Elisa Lee (@sokobeauty on Instagram). “Depending on the active ingredient, it can help with sebum production and refining the skin texture.”
“The sheet can be made of a variety of materials [such as] paper, fiber, or gel. They’re usually packed individually, so you can only use them once,” Lee explains. “They’re very different from regular wash-off clay or cream masks. With sheet masks, you are hydrating your skin by locking the moisture in during the 10 to 20 minutes when you have the mask on. You often don’t need to wash off after applying a sheet mask, while you normally would with a regular mask.”

Basically, Korean sheet masks are designed to hydrate your skin, while wash-off facial masks are intended to provide a cleansing effect.
“Sheet masks and regular masks do, in fact, complement each other,” says Ryan Sim, better known as Singapore-based beauty blogger Ryanraroar. “There is a reason why you can only experience a truly deep cleansing effect from a clay mask that comes in a jar. On days when you want an exfoliative deep cleanse, pick a clay, mud, or charcoal mask over a sheet mask. A sheet mask would not be able to offer that kind of deep cleansing effect.”

Lee agrees with that assessment.
“If you would like to exfoliate dead skin cells, remove white or blackheads, and deeply cleanse the skin, then I would recommend to go for a clay or mud mask,” she says. “Sheet masks mainly focus on hydration and nourishment. Depending on the active ingredient, [a sheet mask] can remove excess sebum as well, but it won’t deeply cleanse the skin.”

What’s in a sheet mask, exactly? What ingredients should I avoid?

There’s no standard ingredient list for sheet masks, so consumers have to do a bit of homework. Read the ingredient lists of any two, and you’ll probably find quite a few differences. Sheet mask benefits are largely driven by their active humectants (a substance that keeps skin moist), which vary among products.
“I love sheet masks with hyaluronic acid to moisturize the skin,” Lee says. “I also like niacinamide to brighten the skin. I usually [avoid] arbutin, which is a whitening ingredient, because I personally don’t prefer it. I also avoid alcohol, which may dry out the skin. If one of the two ingredients are listed in the first row of the ingredient list, I stay away from it.”
“I personally don’t like heavily scented sheet masks,” she adds. “I’ve got a sensitive nose, so I stay away from those.”
“With almost any sheet masks, when you look at the ingredients, the top three are usually water and humectants,” says Jude Chao, director of marketing at Beautytap and blogger at Fifty Shades of Snail. “That makes up the vast majority of the volume of the product. When people go looking for sheet masks, usually I just tell them to look at the ingredients.”

“Make sure that it doesn’t have anything that you’re sensitive to,” Chao suggests. “Find things enjoyable to you so that you’ll like using it and you’ll get into the habit of using it. Barring any real sensitivities or allergies, I personally think people can just use what they want to use.”

“There are some ingredients that work exceptionally well for you personally, but not as well for others,” Sim says. “Personally, I adore ingredients like vitamin C, centella asiatica, madecassoside, arbutin, and niacinamide. As for what ingredients to stay away from, I would advise people to read up about [individual ingredients] online to form their opinions, but one ingredient, in particular, is methylisothiazolinone (MIT).”

Widely used in cosmetics, methylisothiazolinone is a preservative and a potential allergen. According to the Environmental Working Group’s cosmetics database, some studies indicate that the substance could be neurotoxic, and the European Union has banned the use of methylisothiazolinone in leave-on cosmetics.

How often should you use sheet masks?

Well-hydrated skin is certainly a good thing, but we did wonder whether or not overuse could cause issues. According to our experts, you can use sheet masks as often as you’d like, provided that you’re not experiencing any negative reactions.

“You can sheet mask every single day,” says Lee, “but if you don’t have the time for it—which I can imagine—I recommend using them two or three times per week to keep your skin moisturized.”
Sim also recommends starting with two to three sheet masks per week.
“We’ve all heard the saying, ‘Everyone’s skin is different,’ and that’s true,” he says. “We all have varying skin types and skin needs, therefore, we should all listen to our skin and address it accordingly. …[Frequency] greatly depends on how the skin feels. There are some people, myself included, who do a sheet mask daily without an issue. I’d like to think that there is no hard-and-fast rule here. Ultimately, you just have to be aware of your skin type/condition and be selective about what you put on your skin.”
If you feel like you aren’t getting results from your current sheet mask regimen, and you haven’t noticed any tender or irritated skin, feel free to increase the frequency of your sessions.
“The basic function of the sheet mask is to hydrate,” says Chao. “It’s not a treatment product, so it really depends on how much you like using them. I think that well-hydrated skin tends to be more resilient in general. It tends to heal faster, and that’s something that sheet masks help a lot with. You won’t get those kinds of effects from any other type of product.”
“So it’s all personal taste,” Chao continues, “but I definitely find my skin looks its best when I’m using them almost every day.”

What should I know about sheet masks if I have sensitive skin?

“I think for some people, ingredients like alcohol or fragrance may be problematic,” Chao says. “That’s especially because of the function of the sheet mask. It’s this cylindrical sheet that holds the product on your face, keeping it moist for quite a long time. [Sheet masks] use a bunch of penetration enhancers to help more of the volume of product get into your skin. Ingredients like alcohol and fragrance that may not pose as much of a problem in regular-use skincare may be more irritating for some people when their skin is exposed to them for such a long period of time.”

With that said, Chao says that fragrance and alcohol aren’t absolute no-nos.
“I’ve used masks that have them and don’t personally have problems,” she says. “I think you kind of play it by ear. Some masks, you open them up and they just smell like alcohol, or they just smell strongly fragrant. I won’t try those, but a little bit here and there won’t be an issue for most normal skin.”

If your skin is especially sensitive, you’ve still got options, but you’ll have to do more research before making a purchase.
“For dry or dehydrated skin, you can look for sheet masks with one of these main ingredients: hyaluronic acid, manuka honey, aloe vera, or snail [secretion],” Lee says. “Some Korean brands also have cream sheet masks, and those are perfect for dehydrated or dry skin.”
“For acne-prone or sensitive skin, you can look for centella asiatica, tea tree, snail, salicylic acid, or propolis, and for oily skin you can look for charcoal or green tea,” she suggests.

Where do sheet masks fit into a balanced skincare regimen?

“On nights when I use a cotton-type sheet mask, I would use it right after my toner step,” says Sim. “However, if it is a hydrogel-type mask, I would first tone my skin and follow up with a serum/ampoule—usually a simple hydrating one with hyaluronic acid—before applying the mask. This is such a great trick to double-up the moisture and increase the overall masking experience.”
“You can use it after your serum and before your moisturizer,” Lee notes,  “so the order can be toner, essence, serum, sheet mask, then moisturizer.”
We asked our experts for other general tips for using sheet masks properly.
“You should always, always apply a mask over cleansed and toned skin,” Sim suggests. “The active ingredients will better penetrate the skin when your skin is moist.”
If you’re still not seeing results, consider extending the length of your sheet mask sessions.
“I would say to leave the sheet mask in place for a minimum of 20 minutes,” Chao says. “I personally like leaving them on even longer, so for around 30 to 45 minutes. When I take the mask off, I feel that more of the product absorbed … If you take it off too soon, your face is still really wet, and I always feel like I’ve not absorbed as much product as I can.”

Still, don’t overdo it.
“Avoid leaving the mask on to the point of total dryness,” Sim says.

What specific sheet masks do these beauty experts recommend?

“I normally use sheet masks from South Korea,” Lee says. “I love the ones from the following brands: Troiareuke, A. by BOM, POLATAM, CREMORLAB, MILU, and Common Labs.”
As for Chao, she says, “I really like a lot of Taiwanese brands, actually. There’s My Beauty Diary, Dr. Morita, and also great Korean brands like Papa Recipe.”
“I absolutely love masking and [am] always up to trying out and discovering new ones,” Sim says. “At the moment, some of the ones I have used and liked are Naruko Tea Tree Shine Control & Blemish Clear Mask, Dr Jart+ Dermask Micro Jet Clearing Solution for when I am dealing with pimples, Neogence N3 Arbutin Brightening Mask for brightening, Neogence N3 Ceramide Moisturizing Mask for hydration, The Face Shop Real Nature Mung Bean Mask for soothing, and The Face Shop MASK.LAB Chitosan Face Mask for skin renewal.”
Brand preferences aside, our experts agreed that a sheet mask’s price tag can’t tell you everything.
“It all depends on the brand and what ingredients they use,” Lee notes. “If you purchase a sheet mask of a high-end brand, it doesn’t mean that it will be better than the mid-level ones. The mid-level brands can create amazing sheet masks as well. “
“You may see brands overcharging because they want to profit from the sales, but there are some genuine cases whereby brands actually use new technologies or premium ingredients in their products to warrant a slightly higher than normal price point,” Sim says. “If the science and lab data matches the marketing claims put out by the brand, then I would say go for it!”

How can I use sheet masks in an eco-friendly way?

Let’s address the big, green elephant in the room: Sheet masks are wasteful. That’s true of just about any disposable single-use product—but if you’re careful, you can reduce your footprint.

“The materials used in most mask pouches are not recyclable, so that is an issue,” Sim says. “However, most of the sheet masks themselves are made of biodegradable material (e.g. cotton, pulp fibers), so we can compost those. An eco-friendly option would be to purchase those economical mask packs that come in a pack of 30 sheets.”

“Examples of [those] mask packs include LuLuLun Face Mask, which has 32 sheets in one pack, Saborino Morning Face Mask, which [also] has 32 sheets in one pack, Quality 1st All in One Sheet Mask, which has 50 sheets in one pack, A’PIEU Hyaluthione Soonsoo Daily Sheet Mask, which has 33 sheets in one pack, and MISSHA Pong Dang Water Daily Sheet Mask, which has 30 sheets in one pack.”
“There are certain brands that make a point of being more eco-friendly,” Chao says. “You can look to each brand’s individual policies to find out whether their packaging is recyclable.”

Categories
More Than Mom Motherhood

How To Help A Friend With A Preemie Baby

Your best friend’s baby arrived—way too early. Weeks or maybe even months ahead of schedule. The baby is tiny and in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), and your friend—who is essentially living at the hospital—is terrified. In other words: She needs you more than ever.
I spoke with three moms about their experiences with premature babies. Here, Ashley Patronyak, Laura Millendorf, and Juliet Ross—New York City moms with two kids each—give us the lowdown on how to help a friend, what to say, and, most importantly, what not to say.

But first: What is a preemie?

A premature baby, often known as a preemie, is one born before 37 weeks’ gestation. An early birth is often accompanied with a slew of complications, which are, of course, exacerbated the earlier the baby is born. In other words, a baby born at 31 weeks will usually be smaller, less developed, and more at-risk than one born at 36 weeks, but this depends entirely on the circumstances around the birth and what problems led to preterm labor.
Other than being quite small—often well under 5 pounds—a preemie baby might have trouble in a number of vital areas: difficulty breathing and regulating temperature and a lack of reflexes to suck or nurse. A preemie baby may have heart problems (low blood pressure or heart complications), brain problems (because of possible brain bleeds), blood problems (anemia and/or jaundice), and gastrointestinal problems (because the system is underdeveloped). The immune system is also compromised.
Preemies often develop into typically healthy kids, but some can suffer long-term effects—anything from cerebral palsy to hearing or vision problems to impaired learning to compromised immune systems.
In other words, if your bestie has a preemie, she’s going to need your support.

HealthyWay asked the moms about the circumstances of their preemies’ preterm birth.

Laura: I had an abnormal placenta, which didn’t allow for proper growth, so I was hospitalized at 32 weeks’ gestation when my son’s growth percentile was dipping lower and lower (they had been following it since 25 weeks). At 35 weeks they took him out, but he wasn’t the size of a normal 35-weeker, which was the issue. He was 4 pounds, with virtually no body fat, and was unable to keep himself warm, so had to be in an incubator in the critical care nursery for weeks before gaining enough fat and weight to go home.  
Ashley: I began having preterm labor somewhere between 21 and 22 weeks. There wasn’t a definitive explanation for why it was happening, but it was generally written off by my doctors as stress related. So, one of the first unhelpful things I was told was that I needed to relax and “take it easy.” I became pregnant in the very beginning of a still-casual relationship, right before I started my first semester of grad school in a city that was still fairly new to me. I was working long hours at a physically taxing job and was struggling to make ends meet. There was simply no room in all of that to relax or take it easy. I was in and out of the hospital to stop labor and eventually got a new less-stressful, better-paying job, but it didn’t help my symptoms. I was put on bed rest sometime around 30 weeks and had my son at 34 weeks 5 days.
Juliet: My pregnancy was complicated due to placenta previa with bleeding, and baby and I were monitored frequently. Around 30 weeks, the rate of growth declined and it became clear that at some point my baby would be able to grow better outside of me than inside. Once doctors saw restricted blood flow in the umbilical cord, it was time for me to have the baby. He was delivered at 36 weeks, very small for gestational age at 3½ pounds. They gave me medicine to speed up his lung development before he was born, so he was able to breathe well on his own. However, he required a lot of medical support to gain weight, and although he was only a little early, he has experienced a lot of the same challenges in his life that many earlier preemies face.

What are things you should definitely not say to parents of a preemie?

Do not speculate about why this happened.

“The worst thing someone said to me after the birth was speculating that the reason my son had been born with these issues was because I had consumed coffee during my pregnancy,” Laura says. “Asking or musing out loud about why the preemie might have been premature is just a bad idea. It’s not your job to figure out why, and if you want to know, just ask an open-ended question like, ‘Do the doctors have any idea what might have caused the early birth?’ But unless you’re an OB-GYN, do not speculate about why this happened and spout pseudo-science about why you think this happened.”

Do not say he’s not “really” a preemie.

“Because my son was born at 35 weeks, people said this a lot,” Laura says. “They had no idea that he was only 4 pounds and his skin was basically transparent, and if they hadn’t done a C-section that day he would have been a stillbirth because his oxygen levels were dipping.”

Do not tell us to count our blessings.

“When my son was born, he was a hulking giant compared to the micropreemies around him, and only spent a week in the NICU,” says Ashley. “But it was extremely unhelpful anytime someone told us we were lucky or to count our blessings. I think any parent who’s been through an emergency early delivery and whose child has survived has already taken stock of each and every blessing many times over, and fortune falling in your favor in terms of relative health, size, and gestational age doesn’t ease the deep gnawing fear that something could still go suddenly awry or the anxiety from leaving your baby in the hands of strangers, no matter how qualified they may be. It’s also very difficult to think of things on a scale of luckiness, knowing that the parents and babies around you are suffering too.”

Don’t talk about the baby’s weight.

“The worst thing anyone said was, ‘You’ll never have to worry about him being fat!’” Juliet recalls. “Close runner up: ‘It’s great to have nurses take care of your newborn in the NICU and you get to sleep through the night!’ It also wasn’t helpful when people said, ‘but now he’s okay, right?’, because I knew that what they wanted was for me to reassure them. I resented the demand to comfort other people outside of my immediate family. And I did not know if he would be alright.”

What can you say to best support parents of a preemie?

“If someone is unsure what to say, rather than pointing out a baby’s size—‘He’s so tiny!’—err on the side of a compliment,” says Ashley. “‘She’s perfect’ or ‘He’s gorgeous’ are far less likely to trigger parents’ fears as they wait for their baby to reach size and health that they can leave the hospital, and perhaps even guilt or shame, because they may still be wondering what went wrong, if it was their fault, and what they should or could or would have done differently.”

How can I support my friend with a preemie?

Practical To-Dos for Preemie Parents:

  • Buy them preemie clothes. “Most people get lots of baby clothing gifts,” Laura says, “but if you end up having a preemie, suddenly you find that you don’t own anything that fits the preemie, because nobody plans for a preemie and hasn’t bought those sizes.” Juliet concurs: “It was so special when people sent clothes that fit my baby. I still have a lot of them, and now my daughter puts them on her dolls. They remind me of how far we’ve come!”
  • If the parents have any other kids at home, take care of those kids. Offer to take the kid out for pizza and a few hours at a playground, or come over and do bedtime with the kid.
  • Help with pumping. “Pumping is not something I expected to be doing around the clock with a newborn,” says Juliet, “but like many preemie moms, I pumped for my son before he was able to nurse. People sent their favorite pumping bras and advice about cleaning pump parts.”
  • Offer to walk their dog in the evenings. The world doesn’t stop just because a preemie was born. That means that furbabies might not get the time and attention they’re used to, so if you can step in, it’s appreciated.
  • Send them a gift certificate for a cleaning service. Cleaning the house will likely be low on their list of priorities. This is a thoughtful way to make their home feel more like a sanctuary than another point of stress.
  • Send pre-cooked meals. Note that this does not include gift baskets with jams and cornichons and cookies, which offer little nutrition.
  • Offer to go to the grocery store for them. On that same note, preemie parents may want to cook food on their own to add some normalcy to their days. If they have the ingredients on hand, that’s one less stop they have to make after leaving the hospital.
  • Start a meal train or send a gift card to a restaurant near the hospital. Leaving a preemie in the hospital is hard, so most parents want to be as close as possible. Letting them have an hour or two at a restaurant nearby can feel like a godsend.

Emotional To-Dos for Preemie Parents

  • Cool it with the milestone chatter. Remember that preemies don’t always meet their milestones exactly “on time” because the preemie has to adjust. So if your preemie-parent friend is stressed about milestones, remind him/her that it sometimes take a couple of years for a preemie to fully catch up and to try not to compare them to non-preemie parents and babies.
  • Do not shame a preemie mom for using formula. “Formula literally saved my son’s life because it supplemented my breastmilk,” says Laura, “It gave him enough calories to gain weight when he was losing weight rapidly as a preemie.”
  • Show up for your preemie parent friends. Don’t just assume they want to be left alone; don’t feel too awkward to reach out. Keep them company at the hospital or at home.
  • The more you and others can band together to help relieve stress—including the stress of having to make more decisions or ask for help—the better! “When my son was in the NICU and newly home, I was unable to deal with making more decisions or with the everyday details of life, so just having someone come over to talk or bring food was huge,” says Ashley.

Finally, keep a preemie safe by respecting the parents’ health rules.

Preemies are particularly vulnerable to illness, so this one is extremely important to abide by. It’s so crucial to preemie parents, in fact, that all three moms had plenty to say on the topic.
Laura: When I finally had my son’s bris, I put up signs outside the front door telling everyone to use hand sanitizer upon entry. People who haven’t been through this with a vulnerable kid don’t always get it. Your kid’s cold might mean my kid’s hospitalization. My son was hospitalized at 6 months because he was still so small that a respiratory virus left him struggling to breathe. So please don’t bring your toddler with “just a cold” over to my apartment, and please don’t touch my kid’s face unless you’ve sanitized. I’m not a helicopter “keep them in a bubble” type of parent by nature. But preemie immune systems and respiratory systems are no joke. If you don’t vaccinate your kid, don’t come near my child.
Ashley: If a preemie parent says they can’t have visitors, respect that. Their child may be in especially fragile health, or they may just be exhausted and unable to focus on anything else. When we brought our son home, we were told not to take him in public for at least two months, barring doctor visits. We were very careful about visitors. If you aren’t up on your vaccines or you’re getting over feeling sick, starting to feel sick, or have been in contact with someone ill recently, put your own wants aside and don’t go near a premature baby (or, for that matter, any baby!) until you can do it safely.
Juliet: I demanded that everyone who wanted to kiss my baby get a flu shot and whooping cough booster. I also required a lot of hand washing, and some people thought I was nuts! The NICU gave out little signs you could attach to the stroller that said, “wash your hands before touching mine,” and I got a lot of sidelong glances in response. My son needed the extra protection of our clean hands—that had been made very clear to me in the NICU. I also understood that a baby under two months who gets a fever has to go to the hospital, and I had had more than enough of the hospital!

Categories
Fresh Fashion Lifestyle

Fast Fashion: Convenient, Cheap, And Absolutely Awful For Everyone

You might not have heard about fast fashion, but you’ve almost certainly participated in it. The term refers to cheap, fashionable clothes sold at major department stores and big box chains. As soon as a style hits the runway, fast fashion companies put it into production and offer it to a mass audience, making a considerable profit in the process. On the surface, that doesn’t seem like much of a problem. You get on-trend clothes at an incredibly cheap price; what could be better?
Unfortunately, fast fashion has a dark side.
Ayesha Barenblat is the founder of Remake, a nonprofit that promotes sustainable fashion, the alternative to fast fashion. Of fast fashion she says, “It’s marketed to us as something that’s convenient, cheap, and fast, but it’s only later that we realize in order to enjoy that convenience, we have to cut a lot of corners.”
Fast fashion is like fast food, Barenblat claims, in that “there are so many ways that the food is simply not healthful. Fast fashion is no different in that, in order for our clothes to come to us so inexpensively and so quickly, they’re essentially built for rapid obsolescence.”
In other words, you’re not supposed to wear that cool new t-shirt more than a few times. You’re intended to toss your clothes out and move on to the next big thing.
According to Greenpeace, worldwide clothing production doubled from 2000 to 2014. A typical person buys 60 percent more clothing items than an average person did just 15 years ago—and today we keep our clothes for about half as long.
Even if you donate your used clothes to your local secondhand store, you’re still part of the problem. According to ABC News, only about 10 percent of donated clothes get resold; most of the rest are sent off to textile recycling mills. That’s an extraordinarily wasteful process. Clothes that are often imported in the first place frequently have to travel overseas for a second time only to get broken down and turned into cleaning cloths and industrial items that may wind up shipped back to the States.
The goal of seriously considering the impact of fast fashion isn’t to make anyone feel guilty. Fast fashion is nearly unavoidable, and for people on budgets it can often feel like the only choice. We’re not trying to start any new boycotts either (more on that later). Most of us have bought fast fashion products, and we completely understand why clothing brands take advantage of the irresistibly lucrative opportunity.
With that said, fast fashion needs to go away. Here’s why.

Fast fashion has an extraordinary ecological impact.

Many fast fashion clothes are made with cotton, which is an incredibly thirsty crop. To make a single t-shirt, you’ll need more than 700 gallons of water, per the World Wildlife Fund. The textile production industry also has one of the largest carbon footprints of any global industry. By one estimate, manufacturers produce an astounding 1.2 billion tons of CO2 equivalent per year. That’s more than the maritime shipping industry—which also gets plenty of business from the textile trade.
That would be bad enough, but on top of that, these inexpensive mass-produced clothes aren’t expected to last very long. We’re buying more clothes than ever before, but obviously we’re wearing the same number of clothing items, give or take, on a day-to-day basis as people have been for decades. So how is a retailer going to make you buy more clothes that you don’t really need?
“The only way for fast fashion retailers to make money is for [clothes] to fall apart within five or six washes,” Barenblat says. “A $10 t-shirt probably isn’t going to last very long.”
“Fast fashion is based on trends and low price points,” says Quang Dinh, general manager of Girlfriend Collective, a sustainable athleisure brand most famous for making leggings with recycled water bottles.
“To achieve both, fast fashion brands needs to forecast really well and make a lot of units at the lowest cost possible to hit price points that let their customers purchase more frequently,” Dinh says. “All of those things are problematic because making low-price-point goods generally means that those items won’t last. They ultimately end up at the landfill a lot faster than if the item was well made with materials that were made to last.”
When clothes start to fade, rip, or wear, consumers throw them away or take them to secondhand stores.
“A lot of these clothes are either ending up incinerated or in landfills,” Barenblat says. “Often, American clothes will end up in Haiti or North Africa, but because of fast fashion and the staggering volume of clothes that we’re sending to these countries, they’re starting to push back. They’re saying, ‘No, we don’t want your cheap clothes. They’re devastating our local economies, and we have nowhere to put them.'”
In late 2017, East African countries including Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, and South Sudan attempted to stop importing used American clothes, pressing for an outright ban by 2019.
Their reasoning: They want to manufacture their own clothes, and cheap American garments prevent that from happening. Government officials in the United States have responded by issuing de-facto penalties for those countries in an effort to protect the American fashion industry, according to a piece in The New York Times.
“Garment manufacturing [doesn’t] take hold when the local markets are flooded with cheap secondhand clothes from Western countries,” Dinh says.

Fast fashion doesn’t empower women.

Part of the appeal of fashion is that choosing your own clothing and expressing yourself through style is a fundamentally liberating experience. Over the decades, the fashion industry has empowered countless women, but that doesn’t mean that it’s always a force for good.
About 75 percent of apparel and footwear exports from low-income countries wind up in the U.S. and EU countries. In many of the developing countries that export clothing, work conditions are brutally difficult, if not outright dangerous.
We spoke with Barenblat on April 24, but we weren’t aware of the significance of that date until she told us.
“It’s great we’re having this conversation today,” she says. “Five years ago, Rana Plaza, which was a big factory complex in Bangladesh, fell down. It was the biggest industrial disaster of our time.”
The Rana Plaza factory building had been illegally expanded to meet the growing demand of the fast fashion–obsessed Western clothing market. Floors were stacked on top of one another without proper reinforcement; when the building collapsed, 1,134 people died. At the time, Barenblat was working with major brands on their sustainability efforts; after Rana Plaza, she left to found Remake.
“It doesn’t seem like this generation [of factory workers] in Bangladesh, Cambodia, or Myanmar are any better off today,” she says.
“The fashion industry is one of the only industries in the world that is predominantly built on the backs of women,” she says. “The formal numbers are 60 million [women employed in clothing factories], but it’s actually quite hard to get official numbers of the industry. There are a lot of shadowy supply chains.”
“The numbers go from anywhere from 60 to 75 million, and 80 percent of those who make our clothes are young women in their early 20s. We pay less for our clothes than we did 10 years ago. There’s only one variable cost in that equation, right? The way for a lot of fast fashion companies to profit is to go into countries where the wages are really low and exploit these women,” says Barenblat.
A common response to this point is that American clothing companies are actually stimulating local economies by providing jobs to warehouse workers who’d otherwise remain unemployed. Barenblat says that there’s some truth to those arguments, but other factors quickly change the math.
“Can we really say that these jobs are good enough when we know about the poor health and safety conditions?” she asks. “Many of these factory workers are young women who might be leaving school, forfeiting an education, to work. If the job is not even going to keep her safe, is that really the type of job we want to be exporting?”
“I firmly believe that unless these are living wages—unless these are jobs of dignity, with safe conditions—essentially, what we are creating is modern day slavery for the worker,” Barenblat says. “We’re keeping her trapped in a cycle of poverty and exploitation, and that’s just not good enough.”
But it’s not just the fast fashion that’s made in developing countries. You might think that buying American-made clothes would solve the problem—land of the free, home of the labor laws—but even clothes made here can be unethically sourced.

Per a paper from the congressional Joint Economic Committee, there are positive signs indicating that the fashion industry is “reshoring,” or returning a sizable part of its manufacturing processes to the United States. Barenblat doesn’t believe that’s cause for celebration, though.
“Fashion is really a global industry, and that’s not changing anytime soon,” she says. “Different countries specialize in different technologies and have different resources.”
The idea that Americans can produce most of their own clothes is, according to Barenblat, naive. Even if clothing companies did move all of their production back to the United States, the industry would remain unsustainable in its current form.
“You look at fast fashion manufacturers that operate in, say, Los Angeles or New York, and you find that they’re still relying on poor working conditions to produce clothes so quickly and inexpensively.”
In 2016, the United States Department of Labor announced a crackdown on alleged worker abuses in the Southern California garment industry, citing “widespread minimum wage violations,” while a 2017 Los Angeles Times investigation found Forever 21 employees working in a “stifling factory” on the outskirts of Los Angeles for less than minimum wage.

Fast fashion might even be harmful to your health.

Aside from cotton, many fast fashion products are made with polyester blends. Polyester, a plastic-based fabric, is inexpensive, strong, and flexible—but it’s not really something that you’d want to find in your drinking water.
Barenblat says, “At this point we’re literally drinking the plastic that’s in our fast fashion.”
That’s not an exaggeration. According to one study, 94 percent of the faucet water in the United States contains microscopic plastic fibers. Researchers at the data journalism site Orb found that most of those fibers come from clothes, upholstery, and carpets, and a separate study found that each washing machine cycle could release as many as 700,000 of the plastic fibers.
Many fashion activists also believe that the chemicals used in textile manufacturing deserve more attention.
Cheap fabrics that are used in fast fashion have to survive rigorous manufacturing and shipping processes, so they’re often treated with compounds like formaldehyde, which can cause allergic reactions for people with certain sensitivities. Some clothing dyes may contain heavy metals, which Greenpeace claims can bioaccumulate over time, potentially posing health risks.
Think you’ll simply wash those chemicals out of your clothes before you wear them? Think again. Research shows that many potential toxins remain in clothes through multiple wash cycles.
“Fast fashion is really creating a public health crisis, and we never think about this in terms of health,” Barenblat says.

To end fast fashion, we need to change the way that we shop.

Boycotts don’t really work in the world of fashion. While most consumers say that they want to buy ethically sourced clothes, they’re often willing to look the other way in the heat of the moment.
“If it’s a cute shirt or a cute pair of jeans, we sort of turn a blind eye,” Barenblat says. “But we don’t really show what we say. We [hold] these values, but it doesn’t translate into actual sales.”
She believes that the best way to fight fast fashion trends is to provide shoppers with the resources they need to purchase high quality, sustainably sourced clothing. Remake—which, again, is a nonprofit—evaluates brands and provides an online directory for consumers.
“We don’t have a relationship with any brand,” she says. “We’re able to give you choices to make better purchases. I think that’s what needs to change, and that’s an area where we, as activists, failed consumers in the ’90s. All we were doing was calling for boycotts, but as it turns out, unless we’re all running around naked—which is the most sustainable option—we need better choices.”
Fortunately, it’s easier than ever to research brands, read about sustainability efforts, and make smarter choices. Your research will pay off since higher quality clothes last for considerably longer, and you won’t succumb to flash-in-the-pan fast fashion trends that you’ll be over by next season—or sooner.
Once you’ve settled on a long-term wardrobe, keep the goodwill going. The World Wildlife Fund recommends air-drying clothes and skipping ironing whenever possible, which can reduce a t-shirt’s carbon footprint by a third—and it’s easier on your clothes than sending them through a hot dryer. With proper care, our clothes can last for decades, and we certainly don’t have to sacrifice fashion in the process.
“A lot of our clothes today come from shadowy places,” Barenblat says. “The best disinfectant for this is transparency. That’s what this industry needs, and that’s what people should demand when they’re shopping.”
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Categories
Happy Home Lifestyle

How To Create The Perfect Cleaning Schedule—Without Losing Your Mind

The notion of spring cleaning isn’t doing us any favors. When the birds start chirping and the crocuses bloom and all you see are dust bunnies and streaks on the windows, that’s a sign that the concept might not be working for you.  
You don’t have to live this way. This year, try creating a simple, step-by-step cleaning schedule that will keep you on track all year round. When you bring a bit of organization into your cleaning life, you can keep those tasks from building up all year and instead tackle them as they come.
Lacking motivation? Just remind yourself of this: Studies have found that people who regularly clean their homes are physically healthier and can concentrate better. It turns out that having less clutter around helps you focus on tasks more easily, and the physical exertion from a cleaning activity can help keep you fit. Who knew, right?
Above all, don’t be discouraged! Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and anyone can get on track with the simplest of cleaning schedules. Planning it all out might seem overwhelming at first, but when you begin to think of cleaning your home in terms of small tasks, it’s not so bad.

The Cleaning Schedule: What It Is and Why You Need One

Some people are naturally good at keeping up with their chores. Others … not so much. No matter where you fall on this spectrum, adding a cleaning schedule to the mix is only going to help.
The cleaning schedule itself is basically a detailed breakdown of your whole home that assigns specific chores to a timeline throughout the year. This type of schedule will help keep you on top of all your regular housework—plus those pesky chores no one even thinks about (we’re talking about you, baseboard corners and refrigerator tops).
What’s more satisfying than accomplishing a task while getting to cross something off a list? Nothing!
Plus, these cleaning schedules can get you out of some really messy situations. They’re great for people who have grown inured to constant clutter. Because the plans are broken down so extensively, they allow you to make changes gradually.
Translation: You don’t need to spend 10 hours a day with a mop and bucket to make this work.

How to Start Creating Your Personalized Cleaning Schedule

There are a lot of cleaning schedules available online, each one offering slightly different time frames and chore breakdown—but they’re all essentially the same. The goal is to help you get your home clean by dividing the job into discrete, easy-to-accomplish tasks.  
Most cleaning schedules list specific chores—from a daily list to the more obscure cleaning tasks that only need to be done once or twice a year.
Don’t just pick an online list generator willy-nilly, though. The best cleaning schedule will be a highly personal plan. Start by thinking about your cleaning goals.
“You need to identify what kind of goals you want for your home. Write everything down, and list those that can wait and those that need to be prioritized,” Joanna Douglas, the owner of cleaning company Clean Affinity, tells HealthyWay. Using a cleaning schedule is great, but setting goals will really help keep you on track.
There are two schools of thought for how to actually take action and make regular cleaning a part of your life. One side believes you should pencil in specific cleaning times each day.
“Sometimes [cleaning] spontaneously can rock you off your groove,” says Douglas. “It’s because you can never know when visitors come to visit you unexpectedly or if there are people in the house it will just make it hard for you to move around. Make sure you come up with a schedule and make sure that there will be no distractions during this time of day.”
The other side believes the easiest way to work regular cleaning into your life is by changing your routines. If you’re the type of person who comes home and immediately throws your bag and coat on the ground, you’re creating a mess to deal with later. If you can change this action—hang up your coat, put your bag in your office—you’ll get ahead of the mess.
For most of us, the best solution is probably using both of these approaches. Blocking out specific, dedicated time (it doesn’t have to be hours and hours) for cleaning and modifying your own messy habits will create a recipe for success.

Breaking Down Your New Cleaning Schedule

Daily Cleaning Schedule Chores

First, the bad news: Your newfound cleaning schedule does need to include a few daily chores. Every day, you should at least make your bed, wash the dishes, do some laundry, wipe down counters and bathroom surfaces, and sweep the floors, according to the venerable cleanliness experts at Good Housekeeping. Once you get in the habit of taking care of these things each day, you’ll never have to spend your weekend washing and folding eight loads of laundry again.

Weekly Cleaning Schedule Chores

These weekly chores should include washing and changing your bed sheets, mopping the kitchen and bathroom floors, dusting furniture, vacuuming, wiping down kitchen appliances, and throwing out expired food. Not too bad, right?

Monthly Cleaning Schedule Chores

The monthly chores start to get a little more obscure, hitting some of the most overlooked spots in your home. You should vacuum vents, dust light fixtures and any curtains or blinds, and clean your dishwasher and washing machine.

Three-to-Six Month Cleaning Schedule Chores

Now we’re onto the three-to-six-month chore list; these are things that don’t need to be done quite as frequently, but let’s be honest, you probably aren’t doing them often enough. Washing pillows and comforters, wiping down the refrigerator, cleaning out the freezer, freshening up drains and the garbage disposal, and cleaning under all your furniture are some chores you only need to hit a few times a year.

Annual Cleaning Schedule Chores

Finally, deep-clean your carpets, windows, fireplace (if you have one), curtains, dryers, and gutters about once a year.
All of this can vary some, of course, depending on how many people and pets are in and out of your home. But it’s a pretty good example of what the complete care package for a typical home looks like.  

One Great Complement to Your Cleaning Schedule

In addition to setting goals and using a cleaning schedule, why not take the time to put together a cleaning caddy? It will be easier to keep up with your cleaning routine when all your supplies are kept together and easy to find.
You can put together your own cleaning caddy, complete with DIY cleaning supplies, pretty easily. This caddy will mean you have zero excuses for not cleaning: All your supplies will be in one place!
Check your local dollar store for cute (and cheap!) tote and microfiber cloth options. Stock up on green cleaning products, like Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day Multi-Surface Cleaner and Method Daily Shower Spray. Be sure to keep your caddy in an easily accessible place.
If you follow these tips, your home will sparkle all year round, and you’ll be free to spend the spring frolicking outside instead of scrubbing the bathroom.   

Categories
Health x Body Wellbeing

PMDD Is PMS’ Evil (And More Debilitating) Cousin

When Amanda LaFleur quotes the PMDD statistics for America, she quickly adds an asterisk.
The medical community estimates 3 to 8 percent of cisgender women of reproductive age have premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). But that figure may be a wild underestimation of the number of cisgender women, transgender men, and non-binary folks who do battle with the condition every month, says LaFleur, who is the co-founder and executive director of the Gia Allemand Foundation, a non-profit focused on reducing the stigma and raising awareness of reproductive mood disorders, suicidality, and depression.
The foundation is named for Gia Allemand, an actress whose death by suicide rocked the country, her family, and her friends in 2013. Allemand had been diagnosed with PMDD before her death, putting her in that 3 to 8 percent. But PMDD is a condition that many folks don’t realize exists at all, and misdiagnosis is rampant, LaFleur says.
So what is PMDD? And why is it so hard for those who have it to find help? We asked the experts to shed a little light on the mental health condition and how to get treatment if you need it.

What is PMDD?

Most people have heard of PMS or premenstrual syndrome, the symptoms that crop up anywhere from a week to a few days before your period starts. You may feel bloated, have cramps, and even have some mood swings.
PMDD is not PMS. At least not exactly.
Someone with premenstrual dysphoric disorder may have some of those symptoms, and they will show up in the week prior to menses, but PMDD is both more severe and more debilitating, says Cindy Basinski, MD, an OB-GYN from Newburgh, Indiana.
“The symptoms experienced are more severe in PMDD as they affect the ability of a woman to perform normal daily activities,” Basinski explains. And while as many as 80 percent of women experience PMS on a regular basis, PMDD is considerably more rare.  
What sets the two apart?
PMDD is characterized by five or more of the following symptoms, says Nicole B. Washington, DO, a board-certified psychiatrist from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and chief medical officer at Elocin Psychiatric Services:

  • Mood swings
  • Sudden sadness
  • Increased sensitivity to rejection
  • Anger or irritability
  • Depressed mood
  • Sense of hopelessness
  • Self-critical thoughts
  • Tension
  • Anxiety or feeling on edge
  • Impaired concentration
  • Change in appetite or food cravings
  • Decreased interest in usual activities
  • Low energy
  • Feeling out of control
  • Breast tenderness
  • Bloating
  • Aching joints or muscles
  • Impaired sleep

The symptoms typically disappear as soon as the period starts or within a day or two of the first sign of blood—only to return again a month later.
Exactly why PMDD happens to some people and not others isn’t fully understood in the medical community, although Washington says it’s thought to be triggered by changes in sex hormones during what is known as the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle.
“This only occurs in susceptible women, but what we don’t really know is what makes one woman susceptible over another,” Washington says.
That’s not for lack of trying by scientists. The more awareness there is of PMDD, the more researchers are trying to suss out what happens to patients in the days and weeks before their period. A National Institutes of Health (NIH) study released in 2017 seems to have keyed in on one of the major components: a hormone susceptibility that only PMDD sufferers have. The scientists said their findings indicate molecular differences detectable in the cells of those with PMDD.
“We found dysregulated expression in a suspect gene complex, which adds to evidence that PMDD is a disorder of cellular response to estrogen and progesterone,” Peter Schmidt, MD, of the NIH’s Behavioral Endocrinology Branch, said in an NIH press release. “Learning more about the role of this gene complex holds hope for improved treatment of such prevalent reproductive endocrine-related mood disorders.”

Getting a PMDD Diagnosis

The path to diagnosis should be simple enough. PMDD is in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5), the official guide of the American Psychiatric Association.
But Washington says the frequency of misdiagnosis comes down to issues on both the patient’s and the provider’s part.
“[The patient] may not be thinking that happens around that time of the month,” Washington says, “And the provider may not think to ask.”
In part, LaFleur blames this on a profound lack of understanding of how PMDD differs from PMS. People who struggle in the run-up to their menstrual cycle often doubt themselves, she says, even blaming themselves for not being able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and muddle through a time of the month that’s hard on just about every person in their shoes.
“So many go through life thinking, ‘Oh, everyone goes through PMS, I’m just being dramatic’,” LaFleur says. In reality, a PMDD sufferer isn’t “just” going through PMS. While timing is the same, the symptoms are far more troublesome. That’s one of the cornerstones of PMDD itself: Symptoms have to interfere with life in order for the diagnosis to be made.
But the condition isn’t talked about very often—not nearly as much as PMS, which most Americans have heard of.
“It has the double stigma of the female problem of menstruation, which isn’t talked about because people think ‘ew, icky, blood, we don’t want to talk about that,’ and then you have the stigma of mental health on top of it,” LaFleur says of PMDD.
Even within the medical community, PMDD patients face stigma. As recently as 2002, the American Psychological Association ran an article in which some psychiatrists and psychologists said PMDD should not be classified as a mental illness at all.
Add to that the fact that some PMDD symptoms can crop up with other mental illnesses, and it’s no wonder there are misdiagnoses, Washington says.
In particular, LaFleur sees a number of patients who say they were first diagnosed with either borderline personality disorder or bipolar disorder before it was finally ascertained that they were experiencing PMDD.
Why?
According to Washington, borderline personality disorder is characterized by mood swings and extreme reactivity. Both are traits that crop up in PMDD sufferers. The difference? Personality disorders are what the medical community calls pervasive, meaning they are there all the time, rather than showing up only cyclically, as PMDD does.
Similarly, bipolar disorder is characterized by extreme mood changes that limit daily functioning—a symptom that can crop up with PMDD—but bipolar disorder is not related to the menstrual cycle.
Narrowing down the correct diagnosis can take time. Patients often don’t even recognize the tie to their menstrual cycle or have repressed it because of the fear that they’re blowing “normal” PMS out of proportion.
Washington says she encourages her patients to begin keeping a diary with their symptoms over a course of several months. She asks them to include important dates, especially the start and end of their periods, so she can see if there’s a link between the mental health component and a patient’s menstrual cycle.
Getting a patient the right diagnosis is crucial for myriad reasons.
First, treating someone for the wrong condition means putting them through unnecessary treatments, Washington says. The medicines used to treat bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder are different from those used for PMDD, and getting the appropriate treatment right away spares someone having to deal with taking the wrong medication.
What’s more, getting the right treatment can help someone get their life back on track.
The Gia Allemand Foundation estimates that 15 percent of PMDD sufferers will attempt suicide, a shockingly high number that can be lowered by treatment.
Even for those who don’t face suicidal thoughts, the effects of PMDD can be life altering.
Carol (who has asked for her name to be changed) remembers the day she slapped her son in the face. It was the day before she called her counselor and asked for help.
“He was 3, and I thought he was trying to manipulate me,” Carol recalls. Now she realizes she was wrong to hit her child and to put that sort of burden on his shoulders, but at the time, she had no name for her feelings or means to control them.
Having one out-of-control moment that serves as a tipping point and sends them seeking help is common for PMDD sufferers.
“I can think of people who have been hospitalized, who have had marital problems, who have lost their jobs because they snapped at work,” Washington says—all this because they were experiencing untreated PMDD.
In Carol’s case, she’d always been susceptible to mood swings related to her hormones, but she says it wasn’t something her mother had ever talked to her about.
“We never really discussed that kind of stuff in my house,” she recalls.
When she went to find help, the counselor at first thought Carol was in a bad place in her marriage. But by the end of their second session, the counselor had pinpointed a problem related to her menstrual cycle.
“She said, ‘OK, now I see what is going on. I would like you to go see this gynecologist. She should be able to help you out,’” Carol recalls. She went to the OB-GYN, who directed her to keep a diary much like Washington’s patients, and then began treatment.

How to Deal With PMDD

In Carol’s case, treatment was a combination of birth control pills (meant to control her cycle to reduce hormonal ebbs and flows) and a prescription for a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a medication typically used to treat depression.
It hasn’t cured her of PMDD, but it has curbed her symptoms immensely.
“My guys are fully aware of my meds, my freakouts, everything,” she says of her sons and husband. “I make sure they understand that it is my issue and overreaction and not them. I always explain how I was out of line. Sometimes I don’t say I am sorry because I don’t want them to feel as if they have to accept my apology. But I explain that my behavior was out of line.”
The medicine has enabled her to live with her PMDD without it massively impacting her life.
For some patients, more conservative PMDD treatments do work and work well, Basinski says; those can include increasing exercise, meditation, reduction of salt and sugar intake, and getting more rest. Some over-the-counter options, such as black cohosh and St. John’s wort, are also available, but data varies on their success in treatment.
For many patients, however, medication is required up until the beginning of menopause. Typically that means birth control in the form of oral contraceptive pills or hormone injections (such as the Depo-Provera shot) to regulate hormone levels, Basinski says, while some may opt for Mirena, an IUD that includes a hormonal component.  
Some doctors may add an SSRI to the mix as well as or instead of the birth control pill. But unlike those taken by depression sufferers, sometimes the SSRI will be given only during the luteal phase of the cycle, says Lisa Valle, DO, an OB-GYN at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California.
For some people, like LaFleur, the next step is surgery. She opted for a full oophorectomy and hysterectomy several years ago, allowing doctors to remove much of her reproductive system, including her uterus and ovaries. This stopped her periods and the hormonal shifts that come with a menstrual cycle, ending her fight with PMDD.
It’s a drastic move, and one that LaFleur acknowledges is not appropriate for many people. It puts an end to any chances of carrying a baby and sends the body into menopause early in life.
But ending her own personal battle with PMDD has empowered LaFleur to fight for more cisgender women, transgender men, and non-binary folks in her position.
“I want them to know it’s not about mental strength. It’s not about willpower. You didn’t do anything wrong to have this happen to you,” she says.
And there is help out there. Beyond the treatment options, the Gia Allemand Foundation offers online support through its website, along with symptom trackers and other tools for PMDD sufferers.

Categories
Gym x Studio Sweat

Boxing Workouts: How To Start Throwing Punches For Fitness And Fun

Have you fallen into an exercise slump and can’t seem to get motivated? Don’t be discouraged—we’ve all been there. For something new, try introducing a boxing workout to your routine.
Boxing has grown in popularity over the last few years, with celebs like Gigi Hadid and Adriana Lima endorsing the sport as a great workout, and more and more gyms are offering beginner classes, making boxing accessible even for those who haven’t spent time around a ring. Meanwhile, folks are starting to realize that footwork around a bag and learning to punch (and kick!) safely and swiftly are great ways to relieve stress while also building muscle, stamina, and discipline.
There are tons of resources available for boxing beginners to get acquainted with the sport, and you don’t need to go to a boxing gym to learn the basics. We break down everything you need to know to get fit by throwing a few punches at the gym, or even in the comfort of your own home.

The Surprising Health Benefits of Boxing Workouts

You might think boxing is all about upper body strength, and if you box, you’re going to get giant, hulking arms. If you pursue boxing regularly, your arms will become stronger, but boxing is truly a whole-body workout.
“The health benefits of boxing are numerous—it’s a total body workout,” personal trainer and kickboxing instructor Monique “Moe” Adams tells HealthyWay. “You are engaging several muscle groups through every punch and kick you execute. Your core is engaged the entire time and you are working both upper and lower body for maximum calorie burn.”
Boxing is so much more than just throwing punches! Even beginner-level sessions will get your heart rate going. Boxing is a great cardio option “because your heart [has to] work harder at pumping blood around your body,” fitness trainer Miriam Amselem tells HealthyWay.
Boxing workouts have the power to strengthen your cardiovascular system, improve coordination, alleviate stress, and build muscle—all while burning some serious calories. What’s better than that?

Boxing Exercise Fundamentals: The Jab

Throwing a punch is a lot more complicated than you might think. You’re not just tossing your fist into the ether in front of you, hoping to make contact. A punch, or jab, as the pros call it, involves very specific setup and execution.
“The number one mental tip I tell my students is to first picture their target,” says Adams. “Imagine yourself delivering the jab with the maximum power and be ready to do some major damage.”
After you’re mentally set, it’s time to prepare your body to execute on the move.
“Feet have to be a bit outside of hips and hands have to be in front of the face, as if blocking a punch,” says Amselem. “Engage your core by pulling your belly button into your spine to get your entire torso ready.”
Guarding your face by keeping your arms up is key to proper form. Amselem says that before you move your arm, “you have to pivot your foot and bring your hip around in the same direction, so your shoulder will be right on top of your hip.”
Finally, Adams says to “extend your jab 90 percent, aim for your target’s nose, and let all the power come from your body.” Of course, you probably won’t have a human target, so imagining striking your bag at nose height is the goal.
Also, don’t forget to breathe! Your breath plays an important role during any exercise—and boxing is no exception. Think of matching your breaths to your motion; slow movements require slow, deep breaths, and fast movements require short, quick breaths. When you set your body and stance, inhale slowly through your nose. Then, when you’re ready to punch, exhale quickly in short bursts as you execute the perfect jab.
It sounds complicated, but after you run through the motions a couple times, throwing a jab will become second nature!

Warm-Up Exercises for Your Boxing Workout

Before you begin your boxing session, you should always prepare yourself with a proper warm-up routine.
“Your warm-up should include dynamic and rhythmic movements that serve as a dress rehearsal for what you are about to do,” says Adams. You want your blood flowing and your muscles moving before getting into any serious physical exertion.
Amselem suggests two different warm-up sets to prepare for a good boxing workout. Note that the American Heart Association recommends a warm-up of 5 to 10 minutes before any exercise and recommends intense workouts like fitness boxing begin with a warm-up that’s on the longer end of that spectrum. Of you do both of these warm-up sets, cycling through each exercise for a minute apiece, you’ll be in great shape to begin your boxing workout:

Warm-up I: Lower Body

Jumping jacks, lunges, jump rope, squats—rotating through each movement for one minute each

Warm-up II: Upper Body

Shoulder raises, bicep curls (with light weights), push ups—rotating through each movement for one minute each
Adams suggests a handful of good warm-up moves including step touches (side to side), reaches (both over the head and across the body), squats, shoulder rolls, and knee strikes, all of which can be used to spice up your pre-boxing routine.
Adams notes that any side-to-side motion will help prepare your body for your boxing workout combinations.

Boxing Workout Combinations for Beginners (and Beyond)

Once your body is warmed up, you can get into the workout. You can start boxing with or without a punching bag. In fact, even the pros practice shadow boxing, which involves sparring with an imaginary opponent rather than hopping in the ring with another person or unleashing on a bag. That said, having a stopwatch or your phone for a timer is a necessity.
For a solid beginner workout, Adams suggests the following timed combinations: Three rounds, lasting one to three minutes each, with a 30 to 45 second break in between. Note that in certain combinations, you’ll begin with a right lead, meaning your right leg and right arm will be forward. A left lead, on the other hand, involves your left leg and left arm being forward.

Combination I:

  • Begin with a right lead
  • Triple jab/cross 25 times
  • Jab/cross/hook/uppercut 25 times
  • Take a 30 to 45 second break
  • Repeat the entire combination on the left lead

Combination II—The Triple Jab Cross:

  • 3 right jabs followed by 1 left cross for a 4-count combo

Combination III—The Jab/Cross/Hook/Uppercut:

  • Right jab/left cross/right hook/left uppercut for another 4-count combo

Amselem usually has her clients throw combinations of single arm jab, uppercut, and straight punch for three minutes, plus front kicks, followed by a 60 second “break” during which they practice lunges, planks, or squats.
“[This workout] is a calorie and fat torcher which they all love when it’s over and love even more when they see the results,” says Amselem.
Once you get comfortable with these moves, try working out with a heavy bag. With boxing’s growing popularity, you can probably find one at your local gym if you don’t have the room or the desire to bring one home. When you use a heavy bag, you introduce more resistance into your practice, which ultimately helps you build more muscle.

Cool-Down Routines for Boxing Workouts

Cooling down after a difficult workout is just as important as warming up. The cool-down process brings your heartbeat and breathing rate down slowly, which helps prevent dizziness. It also helps prevent post-workout soreness.
“Cool down should include static stretching for flexibility gains while incorporating deep breathing—bringing your heart rate down and relaxing the body,” says Adams. “Following a boxing workout, stretch your shoulders, biceps, triceps, chest, and back. If your workout included kicks, stretch out your quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves.”

How to Get the Most Out of Your Boxing Workout Classes

While it’s great to be able to learn and practice something in the comfort of your own home, changing up the setting and putting your skills to the test in a class is also beneficial, so don’t be scared of signing up for a boxing class!
When you’re ready to try out a class, it’s important to start with the right attitude.
“Be ready to have some fun,” says Adams. “Grab a towel and plenty of water. Remember, this is a new activity for you, so give yourself permission to make mistakes. Any new fitness format you try for the first time will have a learning curve.”
It’s always a good idea to stick with combinations you’re comfortable with at first, and slowly bring new moves into your practice. You don’t want to go too hard right away or develop incorrect form or bad habits. Remember: A good boxing workout begins with the fundamentals.
Want to learn more about boxing classes? Check out Senior Editor Taylor’s reflections on her first experience at TITLE, the importance of hand and wrist wrapping, and why short and sweet might be the way to go the first time you hop in the ring.

Categories
Life x Culture Lifestyle

Bullet Journal 101: How To Use This Cult Fave Planner For Your Mental Health

Bullet journals, also known as BuJos, are all over social media, and plenty of people—from life coaches and motivational speakers to Instagram influencers—swear by them. Bullet journaling is a great tool for productivity, and it can also be an excellent way to manage your mental and physical health.
As someone who loves diaries, lists, and planning, I was a little hesitant to get on the BuJo bandwagon. Why, I thought, should I invest my time in getting used to a new system? And won’t a pre-made diary work better than a notebook where I have to manually create my own structure and systems?
But after trying a bullet journal for a few weeks, I was hooked. I totally get why people love it so much.
“Bullet journaling can increase a sense of mastery over life since tasks are logged in addition to increasing mental health by capturing one’s thoughts/feelings,” says Wyatt Fisher, PsyD, a licensed psychologist, marriage counselor, and the founder of a couples retreat.
“Traditional journaling has been shown to improve mental health because it provides a format to regularly process through one’s thoughts and feelings. As the old adage goes, ‘better out than in’,” Fisher says. Traditional journaling can require a lot of time and effort, but bullet journaling is quick and easy. Fisher says that this means that people are more likely to stick with it. “It allows people to capture anything from to-do items to thoughts and feelings all in one spot. Because everything is short and abbreviated, it’s simple to do and easy to maintain.”
Desiree Wiercyski, a life coach for ambitious and career-focused women, regularly uses bullet journals to help her clients organize their lives and reach their goals. “The flexibility of bullet journaling is the biggest benefit because it’s an organizational habit that can be what a person needs, and it can shift and grow with that person over time,” Wiercyski says.
If you’re interested in trying out a bullet journal to stay organized and improve your mental health, read on.

What is a bullet journal?

The concept of a bullet journal comes from Ryder Carroll, a digital product designer. On the official bullet journal website, he’s provided some in-depth information on how to get started. But the beauty of a bullet journal is that you can take a lot of these elements and tweak them to work for you.
Bullet journals combine elements of planners, diaries, journals, and to-do lists in one notebook. In other words, you can write about your feelings and actions, plan your day, and write down reminders all in one place.
In brief, here are the bullet journal basics you need to know:
Index: Bullet journals usually contain page numbers and an index, which is like a table of contents. This will help you find important notes quickly.
Spread: A spread is a page or two designated for a specific purpose. You might have daily spreads, monthly spreads, or weekly spreads where you track events or items on your to-do list. You might also have spreads for tracking habits, marking off books you’d like to read, or listing self-care methods.

Future log: This is a particular spread that contains a year at a glance (or six months at a glance). You use future logs to note important upcoming events (like your best friend’s birthday, the date you need to hand in your thesis, or vacation dates) or to note important things as they happen (like servicing the car, turning the compost, or filing taxes).

Monthly log: This is a month-at-a-glance spread. This is great for noting due dates, birthday celebrations, and recurring tasks.

Daily log: This is a day-to-day spread. If you don’t need an entire page for a day, you might want to divide two pages into six sections, with the last section split in two, to create a weekly spread.


Another crucial part of bullet journaling is the key, otherwise known as “rapid logging,” where certain symbols can annotate events, notes, or ideas.
The symbols suggested on the official bullet journal website are as follows:
[dot] – a task
X – a completed task
> – a migrated task (that is, a task you re-scheduled for today)
< – a scheduled task
O – an event
– – a note
* – a priority
! – inspiration (an inspiring quote or an “a-ha” moment)
[eye] – explore (an idea to look into)


These symbols are great because instead of writing “start filing taxes,” and then next to it “Didn’t have enough time! Will do it later!” you can simply write “> start filing taxes,” and migrate the task to another day. Feel free to develop your own symbols to suit your needs, too; I use a little triangle to indicate when work is due because it’s something I have to note often.
Although there is an official method of bullet journaling, you can adjust the method to make your own. You don’t have to use every element in your own bullet journal. Personally, I seldom use page numbers or an index because I don’t have any trouble finding the pages and notes I’m looking for.
The important part is that your method works for you; if you don’t find your system useful or enjoyable, you’re likely to abandon it.

Why is bullet journaling so popular?

Different kinds of planners can be useful, and each of them has its own benefits and drawbacks. Different people have preferences for different planners, and some might even use multiple kinds at once, especially if they’re managing multiple projects.
But bullet journaling is a new way to plan and organize your life, and people love it for several distinct reasons:

It’s not digital.

According to Carroll, part of the reason that bullet journals work is because they’re analog. Instead of keeping a bunch of to-do lists and appointments on your phone or laptop, you write it in your bullet journal.
In a world where we rely on technology for nearly everything, it’s refreshing to use pen and paper once in a while. Research suggests that writing by hand is great for improving cognitive functions and creativity.
Another draw for bullet journaling is that you get to write without being constantly distracted by notifications. Plus, it’s great to give your eyes and thumbs a break from your screen and keypad!

It’s flexible.

I used to love the standard planners I had since high school. They always had the same format, and they were easy to use. But I disliked the fact that I couldn’t see my week-at-a-glance since it was a page-a-day diary. I struggled with this structure for years.
With bullet journaling, you create your own structure. You design your own monthly logs and weekly spreads. If something doesn’t work for you in May, you can change it in June.


Bullet journaling is also flexible in that you can use it for any purpose in any way. “The best thing about bullet journaling is it’s completely flexible and can be whatever you want it to be,” Wiercyski says. “For example, to keep track of expenses, it can be as basic as assigning one page for debits and spending throughout the day and another page for deposits. Another person may like every transaction on one page and using different colors to represent debits and deposits. Bullet journaling is one of those few organizational practices where there’s no right or wrong way so long as you do it.”

You can be as minimalist or as creative as you’d like.

Some bullet-journal users go all out, using watercolors, stickers, washi tape, and more to turn their bullet journals into a scrapbook of sorts. Others keep it simple: They use very little color and don’t decorate at all.
Neither way is wrong. Some people like bullet journaling to be simple, and others like turning it into a creative pursuit. You can approach it however you’d like.
It doesn’t have to be Instagram-worthy to work for you. Don’t get too stressed about untidy handwriting, mistakes, or color schemes. Focus on developing a shorthand and getting in the habit of writing things out quickly.

You can start with very little.

You can buy an official bullet journal notebook if you’d like, and many enthusiasts seem to have endless amounts of accessories to use to decorate their bullet journals. Your bullet journal can be simple or complex—it’s totally up to you.
For our bullet journal essentials, see the end of this article!

How exactly can I use bullet journaling to improve my life?

Now that you understand the basics of bullet journaling, you might wonder what exactly you’ll put in it. Other than a future log, monthly log, and daily log, you can use the pages of your bullet journal to create a number of different spreads for tracking what’s important to you.
To be clear: If you just want to use your bullet journal as a simple to-do list, you totally can. However, there are many ways you can use it to improve your mental health, work on your goals, and cultivate healthy patterns of behavior. Here are some ideas:

Use weekly trackers to track your habits.

Weekly trackers, or habit trackers, are fantastic for anyone who’s hoping to cultivate a habit. And let’s face it—most of us fit in that category. We often hear about the benefits of meditating, drinking a lot of water, and reading every day, but it’s hard to actually integrate those habits in your life and stick to them.
In comes the habit tracker. You can take advantage of the grid-like structure of your bullet journal to draw a little table on your weekly spread. There are many ways to draw it, but I prefer to list the days of the week on the y-axis and the habits I’m working to cultivate on the x-axis. Whenever I commit to a goal or habit on a specific day, I color the block in. I use a weekly habit tracker instead of a monthly one so that I can feel as if I’m starting fresh each week. This reminds and motivates you to cultivate the habit.

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Fisher suggests a scoring system if you’re trying to cultivate certain attitudes, which can work alongside a habit tracker. “You can log personal growth areas, such as how you did for the day from 1-10 being patient with [your] children, tackling dreaded tasks, focusing on thankfulness, putting others first, and so on,” he says.
Your habit tracker isn’t just helpful for cultivating habits—it’s also useful for tracking how your habits affect you. “I worked with a client recently who was frustrated she wasn’t making progress on a book she’s writing, even though she was carving out time,” says Wiercyski. “What she quickly noticed after a week of tracking her writing goals as well as a handful of other pieces, she made less progress the days she didn’t practice mindfulness skills. So now, she has a regular practice of meditating before writing and is seeing the progress she wants.”

Use your bullet journal to break negative patterns.

Just as a bullet journal can help you cultivate good habits, it can also help you break negative ones. Writing things out—from your feelings to your plans—is a great way to cultivate self-awareness.
This self-awareness, Wiercyski says, is essential when it comes to dealing with negative thought or behavioral patterns. “Often I work with clients who are hung up with a certain behavior or habit that they just can’t seem to break. When this is the case, chances are the habit is serving a deeper need and a bullet journal system can bring the to light.”
Wiercyski says that she helps these clients by working on a list of alternative things they can do instead of engaging in their habits. “For example, I recently worked with a client who was trying to break the habit of mindlessly snacking in the evening,” she says. “So instead of snacking, the first thing she would do would be to color for 10 to 15 minutes.” After this, if the client still wanted to snack, she’d write about how she felt, what she liked about coloring, and how she could meet her emotional needs without turning to food.

Use a mood tracker to trace your triggers.

Just as it can help you break negative patterns of behavior, a bullet journal can help you figure out what’s at the bottom of your bad moods. “Taking the time to label your mood then asking the simple question, ‘What’s making me feel like this?’ can bring so much awareness and lift us out of a funk,” says Wiercyski.
You can use this in conjunction with your habit tracker to see what’s causing you to feel good or bad. For example, if you notice that you’ve been feeling fatigued and grumpy, you might look at your habit tracker and realize it’s because you’ve been getting in very little sleep or haven’t been spending enough time in the sunshine.


Wiercyski says that she worked with a client who used a mood tracker. Her client realized that she felt down the days after she went out drinking with her friends. “Now she’s on a journey of learning what she wants her relationship with alcohol to look like,” Wiercyski explains. “That’s the beauty of using a bullet journal to its fullest potential—it shows you how things are intertwined and the unexpected pieces that may be tripping you up on reaching your goals.”

Use it to improve your relationships.

As a marriage counselor, Fisher believes that bullet journaling can also be used to improve your romantic relationships. “It could be used to log daily appreciation for their spouse to cultivate an attitude of gratitude,” Fisher notes. By writing down the reasons that you appreciate your partner and habitually thanking them for their support, you can cultivate a sense of appreciation in yourself while helping your partner feel valued.
Fisher also suggests that you use a bullet journal to log things like dates or quality time spent together, sex, and more. Having a log of your experiences together can help you pinpoint what’s working or what might be triggering an issue. You might even include a spread for fun date night ideas.

Use it as a gratitude journal.

Gratitude journaling is a fantastic tool for your mental health and personal development. Research shows that regularly practicing gratitude is excellent for your emotional and physical well-being.


When you set up your weekly spread, include a little block where you can write about your achievements or things you’re grateful for. You could also create a list on a random page in your bullet journal and use it to write down everything that fills you with gratitude. Whenever you’re feeling down, you can page back to that list.

Use your bullet journal to get creative.

“Because bullet journal lends itself as a creative outlet, it can also be used as a mindfulness tool. Taking the time to make things look nice can be very centering,” says Wiercyski.
We all heard about the benefits of coloring a few years ago when the adult coloring book craze was at its peak. Writing out your feelings is also great, as it can help you process events. Even writing fiction or writing nonsense stream-of-consciousness style can be a great way to release some stress. Combining these things—putting your feelings down in words while decorating them with a fun new pen—is many BuJo users’ favorite part of their bullet journals.
Whether you’d like to doodle or write stream-of-consciousness style for a few moments, you can do it with a bullet journal. Keep a few pages at the back of your book aside for a creative outlet if you need extra space. You can try integrating drawings with your spreads if you’d rather get creative more regularly. I love choosing themes each week and drawing little doodles all over my weekly spread; I’ve done themes like houseplants, animals, crystals and geodes, flowers, space, the beach, and more.
Remember that your doodles don’t have to be beautiful. Art doesn’t have to be good to be good for you—it’s supposed to make you feel relaxed, not self-conscious!

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How can I start using a bullet journal?

The most important thing is just to start! But if you’re wondering which tools you’ll need, here are HealthyWay’s favorite picks:

Notebook

We recommend using a notebook with a dotted or ruled grid-like print. This makes it easier to divide pages up equally as you can easily draw straight vertical and horizontal lines.
If you’d rather start with a simple lined notebook, those work fine too.

Pen

You’ll want a pen that doesn’t bleed onto the next page and that writes smoothly. The world of pens is a surprisingly complicated one, but some recommendations are Sharpie Art Pens (they’re pens, not permanent markers, so they don’t bleed through or have a strong smell), Sakura Microns (these come in a variety of thicknesses), and Uchida of America’s LePen.

All the Extras

Once you’ve got the bullet journal basics, the creative itch might hit you. Then you can start looking into…
Markers and highlighters: We love the Tombow Dual Brush Pens that are perfect for hand lettering and illustrations.
Washi tape: These rolls are ideal for covering up mistakes, decorating pages, and taping in smaller pieces of paper; we especially like this vintage paper style!
Stickers: No planner or bullet journal is complete without stickers. We’re suckers for ban.do sticker books; this one has more than 700 stickers!
 
HealthyWay

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Conscious Beauty Lifestyle

What Are Clogged Pores? Here's How To Get Rid Of Them For Good

If you’ve noticed tiny black specks scattered across your skin or you’ve seen an uptick in white bumps popping up, you’re probably wondering what, exactly, is happening. You could be dealing with clogged pores.
Both blackheads and whiteheads occur when gunk builds up in the itty-bitty openings on the surface of your skin called pores.
If these marks are cramping your style, know that there are quite a few different effective methods of unclogging pores. But it all starts with understanding why clogged pores happen in the first place.

Clogged Pores 101: Understanding Your Pores

“Pores is just a very basic term to describe small openings in the skin,” says Ronnie Klein, MD, board-certified dermatologist at Connecticut Dermatology Group and co-founder of Pure Bioderm. There are two types of pores: oil pores and sweat pores, but they both work the same way. Oil and sweat reach your pores from their respective glands below the skin’s surface and are released onto the skin, explains Klein.
Oil pores (more commonly known as hair follicles) exist all over your skin, except for your palms and the soles of your feet, says Klein. Their size is determined by genetics, says Holly Cutler, medical esthetician at FACE Skincare~Medical~Wellness in Michigan—so if you have large pores, thank Mom and Dad for that. Sweat pores also exist all over your skin, but they’re super tiny and not visible to the naked eye the way oil pores are, says Klein.
Both types of pores can become clogged, though. So, what do clogged pores look like? It depends.
When oil pores become clogged, they manifest as either blackheads or whiteheads. “Blackheads and whiteheads are in the same family,” says Klein. A clogged hair follicle (aka, an oil pore) is called a comedone, and when the comedone is open—that is, when the top layer of your skin, your epidermis, is not covering it—it changes color and turns black when it comes into contact with oxygen according to Cutler.
When the comedone is closed, it becomes filled with bacteria and exists beneath your epidermis. “Air isn’t able to enter the follicle,” says Cutler. “The bacteria inside of it doesn’t undergo a chemical reaction, so it stays white in color.” Technically, blackheads and whiteheads are both mild forms of acne.
Meanwhile, when sweat pores become clogged, they appear as tiny white bumps known as milia. These bumps are not the same as whiteheads, however. “Milia looks like a whitehead, but it’s actually more of a cyst,” says Klein, which means they require professional treatment.

What causes clogged pores?

Knowing that your pores can get clogged is one thing, but understanding why is another entirely. Some of the common causes of clogged pores are completely within your control, but others aren’t.

1. You have a predisposition to clogged pores.

Cutler says clogged pores are sometimes the result of genetics. Yep, there are just some people who are likelier to get clogged pores than others. On top of that, Klein says genetics are at work even when it comes to whether you develop blackheads or whiteheads.

2. You have a buildup of dead skin cells.

Your skin is constantly shedding dead skin cells and bringing new ones to the surface, but sometimes the dead cells stick to the skin and pile up. Dead skin cell buildup can also cause clogged pores according to Cutler.

3. You have a surge in hormones.

Excess oil production (and as result, clogged pores) may be due to a surge in hormones, says Cutler. There are certain times—for example, when you go through puberty, when you’re on your period, or when you’re pregnant (let’s call them the three Ps)—during which an uptick in hormones stimulates your sebaceous glands to pump out more oil.
When it comes to your period in particular, a study published in the Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology reported that monthly hormone fluctuations during your menstrual cycle are likely to contribute to acne flare-ups, with 85 percent of women saying that their breakouts get worse leading up to their periods. Plus, a study published in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care examined how pregnancy affects skin, and researchers found that increased oil production in the third trimester leads to acne.

4. You don’t cleanse enough.

Cutler says when you don’t wash your face enough, you allow dead skin cells, dirt, makeup, and anything else on top of your skin to build up, leading to clogged pores. Klein explains that it’s particularly crucial to rinse off post exercise: “Not showering and washing [after] a workout can cause inflammation and clogged pores,” she says.

5. Or, you cleanse too much.

While washing your face is important, you don’t need to go overboard. “A lot of people with acne-prone skin think they need to scrub skin and never moisturize,” says Klein, “but the drier your skin is, the more oil you will produce.” And you know what happens when your sebaceous glands go into overdrive: clogged pores.
The American Academy of Dermatology recommends cleansing twice a day (as well as washing your face after heavy sweating).

6. You wear pore-clogging lotions and makeup.

Some beauty products contain ingredients that can cause clogged pores, says Cutler. She says some of the biggest offenders are coconut oil, sodium lauryl sulfate, lanolin, cetyl alcohol, cetyl acetate, and cocoa butter. If you’re noticing clogged pores, check your products for these ingredients.

7. You touch your face all the time.

Think about all the dirt and germs that are on your hands. When you touch your face, you’re transferring whatever’s on your fingers to your face. That gunk can leave you with clogged pores and make your acne worse according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

What are the best ways to fix clogged pores?

Nixing clogged pores—and preventing new ones from forming in the future—is possible with the right skin care routine.

1. Wash your face twice a day.

Since oil, makeup, and dead skin cells can clog your pores when they’re sitting on top of your skin, get into the habit of cleansing morning and night. If you find yourself with blackheads or whiteheads caused by clogged pores regularly, Klein suggests using a cleanser with salicylic acid, a beta hydroxy acid. “A salicylic acid wash is one of the cornerstones of acne treatments,” says Klein. Salicylic acid is a compound found in plants that encourages exfoliation and has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties according to the National Institutes of Health.
You can find salicylic acid derived from willow bark extract in Alba Botanica Acnedote Deep Pore Wash. Cutler notes that you can get a deeper clean by pairing a salicylic acid cleanser with a tool, like the Clarisonic Mia 2 ($169), but she also notes that washing your face with a tool like this every day could be overkill.

2. Cleanse after working out, too.

Headed to the gym before or after work? You don’t have to rely on whatever generic facial cleanser is in the locker room. Remember: Sweat buildup leads to clogged pores, and Klein says you should always wash your face after you’re done at the gym. An easy way to refresh sweaty skin when you’re on the go is with a micellar water, such as Pacifica Cactus Water Micellar Cleansing Tonic.

3. Try an at-home peel.

One of the best ways to say sayonara to pore-clogging dead skin cell buildup is by exfoliating once or twice a week, says Cutler. At-home peels use acids to chemically break down buildup—no scrubbing necessary. “Glycolic paired with salicylic is really great for clogged pores,” says Cutler. “This combo works very effectively to loosen up blackheads.”
A study published in the journal Clinical Therapeutics found that salicylic acid pads effectively reduce acne, while a study published in the journal Dermatologic Surgery found that glycolic acid peels also had a positive effect on curbing breakouts. Drunk Elephant T.L.C. Sukari Babyfacial is a once-a-week chemical exfoliator that features a combination of alpha hydroxy acids (glycolic and lactic) and beta hydroxy acid (salicylic) to blast through dead skin cell buildup, leaving you with clearer pores and brighter skin.

4. Exfoliate with a scrub.

Mechanical exfoliation happens when you rub your skin with a scrub, brush, or other exfoliating tool (like the Clarisonic Mia 2) to physically remove the buildup, and it’s a good option if you have clogged pores. Cutler recommends looking for a scrub that also contains an acid for a one-two punch against clogged pores. One option we love: Tata Harper Resurfacing Cleanser, which is formulated with salicylic acid to chemically exfoliate and apricot seed powder to manually bust through the gunk. While this exfoliating cleanser is gentle enough to use every day, keep in mind that over-scrubbing skin is drying according to Klein.

5. Slather on a clay mask.

There’s a good reason why clay masks are super trendy. Clay absorbs oil and impurities in pores, says Cutler. Wildcare Bee Rosy Clay Mask sops up oil and also eases inflammation, making it a win-win for people with acne-prone skin who deal with clogged pores frequently.

6. Whip up a charcoal mask at home.

One of Cutler’s favorite DIY treatments for clogged pores is a charcoal clay mask. “Charcoal is so popular right now,” says Cutler, adding that like clay, charcoal absorbs pore-clogging impurities.
Mix together 1 Tbsp. activated charcoal powder, ½ Tbps. bentonite clay, and ¼ Tbps. water, apply the mask to your face, and leave it on for five minutes before rinsing off. Leaving this mask on for more than five minutes could be drying, says Cutler, so watch the clock.

7. Spot treat with benzoyl peroxide.

Another gold standard in getting rid of clogged pores is benzoyl peroxide, an antibacterial ingredient, says Klein. For a study published in the Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology, participants applied a 5.3 percent benzoyl peroxide foam to their faces, chests, upper backs, and shoulders twice a day for a month and experienced significantly clearer skin.
Klein says benzoyl peroxide is drying, so don’t use it every day, don’t use it in conjunction with other strong acne-fighting ingredients, and be vigilant about moisturizing. Kate Somerville Anti Bac Clearing Lotion is formulated with benzoyl peroxide as well as ingredients that prevent excessive dryness.

8. Add a retinoid to your routine.

Retinoid is a derivative of vitamin A, and it has the ability to minimize the size of sebaceous glands and curb the excess oil production that can lead to clogged pores, says Klein. A study published in the journal Biochimica et Biophysica Acta calls retinoids (whether taken orally or applied topically) “the most effective and first choice for acne treatment.”
While retinoids used to be available by prescription only, there is now an OTC version: Differin Gel. Retinoids leave you sensitive to the sun, so only use them at night (and follow up with dedicated SPF in the morning), says Klein. They’re also drying, so start by only using a pea-sized amount of retinoid two or three nights a week and gradually work your way up to nightly use, Klein adds.
One note: The FDA warns that oral retinoids (like Accutane) come with a host of serious side effects, including the risk of birth defects if you’re pregnant. Because of this, any female patient who’s prescribed an oral retinoid by their doctor needs to enroll in iPledge, a mandatory risk management program. While on an oral retinoid, you’ll have to use two forms of birth control to prevent pregnancy.

9. Make moisturizing a priority.

You might be sensing a theme here: The majority of remedies for clogged pores are drying. That means moisturizing is a must. But don’t just reach for any lotion. Use one that’s oil-free, says Klein, since this won’t clog your pores further. Juice Beauty SPF 30 Oil-Free Moisturizer fits the bill, offering physical sun protection with zinc oxide and lightweight hydration with aloe and hyaluronic acid.

10. Switch to non-comedogenic makeup.

Check your makeup labels for the term non-comedogenic, says Klein, because this means they should be free of pore-clogging ingredients. However, Cutler points out that this isn’t a fail-safe remedy for clogged pores. She explains that there’s no agency regulating whether or not products are actually non-comedogenic, so a brand could feasibly say that their products are non-comedogenic without that actually being the case. Unfortunately, the only way to find out if something is truly non-comedogenic is to test it out and see how your skin reacts.

11. Visit a professional.

If you suspect you have milia, the only way to get rid of this type of clogged pore is with the help of a dermatologist, says Klein. Per a study published in the journal Oncology Letters, milia can be removed with a professional extracting tool.
A professional, whether that’s a derm or esthetician, may have in-office treatment options that can alleviate blackheads and whiteheads, too. Cutler has seen results when using Dermalinfusion on patients. This treatment exfoliates dead skin cells, extracts dirt from pores, and infuses skin with serums all via a handheld tool with an exfoliating diamond tip.
Whatever option you choose to fix your clogged pores, consistency is key according to both experts we spoke to. So, while dealing with clogged pores and the acne they bring isn’t anyone’s idea of a good time, it’s important to carve out time to address your clogged pores. Cheers to clearer skin ahead!

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Conscious Beauty Lifestyle

What Does Toner Do? All Your Questions About Toner, Answered

Each morning and evening you cleanse your face and apply a moisturizer (right?). In the quest for clean, even, and firm skin, those steps have long been thought of as the essentials. But now, thanks to the popularity of the 10-step Korean skincare routine and more skincare companies at Sephora than we know what to do with, skincare junkies are finding more and more products we consider essential, like toner. Beauty experts extol the virtues of toner, but how many of us actually know what it does?
Learning about a new beauty product can be overwhelming, particularly if you’ve already got a skincare routine that you love. Plus, who has the time to understand a new product when you’re scrambling just to find a few minutes to yourself in the morning and evening to wash your face? But set your doubts aside: Once you understand what toner does, you’ll want to incorporate it into your routine.
We spoke to beauty experts and skincare scientists to answer all of your questions about facial toner. We got the answers on who should use it, when it should be applied, and that essential question: What does toner do?
Here’s everything you need to know about this crucial boost to your skincare routine.

What does toner do?

According to Clara Song of Catherine Jinn, a Korean skincare line that aims to bring together Eastern and Western approaches to skincare, facial toner is meant to cleanse your face and prepare your skin for the application of the serums and creams that follow in your skincare routine.
Toner should be applied after you wash your face to remove any leftover debris or dirt from the skin, giving you the perfect clean canvas to apply the rest of your skincare essentials.
Song says many people think they can skip facial toner, but using it really helps enhance a skincare routine.
“It’s easy to think cleaning the skin with a cleanser is enough, but this added step of toner can be an important step in keeping the skin clean without damaging it,” she says.
According to Charlotte Cho, esthetician and founder of Soko Glam and The Klog, a good toner should leave your skin feeling clean and hydrated. After you apply toner, your skin should feel soft and supple, she writes at The Klog, not tight or dry.

What is in facial toner?

Traditionally, toners were made from astringent ingredients that were meant to cause the skin to contract or tighten according to David Pollock, a chemist who has worked on many skincare products and consults in the beauty industry. Most toners were made using an alcohol or witch hazel base, which sometimes stung when they were applied to skin. These products gave toner a bad reputation as a product that would leave your skin stinging, red, or tight: not exactly what you want as part of your beauty routine.
Modern toners, however, are very different.
“Quality toner usually doesn’t contain ingredients like alcohol, which dry out and can even strip the skin of its nutrients,” Song tells HealthyWay.
Rather than assaulting your skin, modern toners are packed with antioxidants, nutrition, and hydrating materials that leave your skin feeling great, according to Rhonda Q. Klein, MD, a dermatologist practicing with the Connecticut Dermatology Group and a former assistant professor of dermatology at Yale University.
“A toner is a fast-penetrating liquid that removes dead skin cells off the surface of the skin leaving plump refreshed skin,” she tells us. “They are primers for the rest of your serums and moisturizers.”
Today, toners are formulated to fit a number of skincare needs from delivering powerful hydration to shrinking your pores and even reducing acne, Klein says.

What does toner do to balance pH?

In the past, facial toner was used to balance the pH level of your skin after it was cleansed.
In case you need a quick refresher on Chemistry 101: pH indicates how alkaline or acidic something is. It’s measured on a scale of 1 to 14, with water—which is neither acidic or alkaline—falling right in the middle with a measurement of 7. Anything with a higher pH is considered alkaline, while anything with a lower pH is considered acidic.
What does all this science have to do with skincare? Well, your skin is naturally acidic with an average pH of 4.7 according to a 2006 study published in the International Journal of Cosmetic Science. The acidity of your skin helps it it stay healthy and keeps bacteria at bay.
“pH balance is important because if it becomes unbalanced, the skin weakens and is more susceptible to bacteria and infections,” Song explains.
So, what does toner do to balance pH? In the past, most cleansers were very alkaline according to Pollock. Because cleaners were alkaline, toner was promoted as a way to restore the proper (acidic) pH of your skin. However, with advancements in the formulation of cleansers, it’s become less necessary to use a toner purely to reset the pH level of skin.
“Multi-purpose cleansers started to do more and be more closely pH-balanced for the skin,” Pollock says. “For the past 15 or 20 years, I have had very few clients interested in launching any type of toner.”

Where does toner fit into Korean skincare?

If toners had gone out of fashion, why are so many people talking about what toner does in 2018? The answer: Korean skincare.
“With today’s K-beauty invasion, toners are coming back into popularity,” says Pollock.
Whereas Americans tend to emphasize makeup products that can make your skin look fantastic, a Korean skincare routine emphasizes having skin that looks healthy, even, and glowing without additional products. Women who follow Korean beauty regimens aim to achieve this using a 10-step skincare routine that involves—you guessed it—facial toner.
According to Cho, Koreans embrace toner as a way to get the most out of the rest of their skincare routine. She uses the analogy of a sponge: If the sponge is completely dried out, it won’t absorb much of the liquid it comes into contact with. However, if it’s slightly damp, it will absorb liquid much more quickly.
Your skin works the same way, she explains. If it is dried out after cleansing, you won’t get as much out of the serums and creams that you put on afterward. Toner, she says, provides the hydration and nutrients that leave your skin ready to take all it can from the rest of the products in your beauty routine.

What does toner do for people with oily skin? Should everyone be using it?

With all this talk of hydration, you might wonder if you can still benefit from using toner if you have oily skin. Good news: You absolutely can.
Cho points out that hydration has to do with the amount of water in your skin, not the amount of oil. Although having skin that feels dry might make you feel like you’ve temporarily defeated your oily skin, it’s not actually addressing the problem. In fact, Cho says that almost every client she sees could benefit from more hydration, whether their skin type presents as dry or oily.
Modern toners are formulated to address a variety of skin issues, so the key is finding one that works for you.
With the right product, Klein says anyone can benefit from using a toner. “If you feel that your skin care regimen is lacking and that your skin is not optimized, adding on a toner is the perfect primer for the rest of your skin care routine,” she says.
Here are toners that the pros recommend for specific skin types:

  • If you have oily skin, try Fresh Umbrian Clay Purifying Facial Toner ($35).
    • This toner gives you the same hydrated but clean feeling that you would experience after wearing a clay mask, without the time investment.
  • If you have dry skin, try Galactomyces Alcohol-Free Toner ($16).
    • This toner has a secret weapon: fermented ingredients that will leave your skin looking smooth and balanced. Korean skincare enthusiasts often use products with fermented ingredients, and this toner is a great way to get started.  
  • If you have combination skin, try Son & Park Beauty Water ($30).
    • This toner is designed to cleanse without drying, making it perfect for people who experienced localized breakouts. With lavender and rosewater, it will soothe your skin and leave you feeling energized.
  • If you have sensitive skin, try Kenzoki Fresh Lotus Water ($29).
    • This misting toner is the perfect choice for women who want something gentle. You’ll feel refreshed and clean no matter when you apply it.
  • If you’re feeling puffy, red, or dry, try Darphin Intral Toner With Chamomile ($54).
    • No one likes when their face feels inflamed. The chamomile will calm irritation and is ideal for a variety of skin types.

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When considering a toner, Klein recommends taking a quick look at the ingredients to determine whether the toner will fit your needs. For instance, rosewater is hydrating and clarifying, while chamomile is calming and soothing. People who are dealing with acne might benefit from an alcohol-based toner, but most everyone else should stick to a water-based formulation, she says.
There are also some ingredients to avoid, depending on your skin type.
“If you have dry or sensitive skin, avoid alcohol, retinols, glycolic, or benzoyl peroxide toners,” Klein says. “If you are oily or acne-prone, avoid toners with vitamin E and other essential oils.”

How do I incorporate toner into my beauty routine?

Toner should be either the second or third step in your skincare routine.
In most cases, you should apply your facial toner directly after cleansing in the morning and the evening.
“You want to tone within one minute of washing your face so that the nutrients are absorbed best,” Klein says.
The only time you should wait to apply your toner is if you are exfoliating after cleansing. Apply your toner after that step; otherwise, it will be washed away when you wash off your exfoliator.
Some people prefer to apply the toner directly using their hands, but if you do that, you want to make sure that your hands are very clean. If not, you run the risk of introducing more debris onto your skin.
“Our hands are not clean either, so rubbing them on our face sort of defeats the purpose of cleaning it,” Song says. She recommends using a cotton pad to gently wipe or pat the skin with toner, without aggressively rubbing it in.
There are many gentle options for toners, so if you find that your skin is irritated, try switching products. If it still feel like too much, try using toner just once a day. Song recommends using it at night in this case, to be sure that your face is especially clean after a long day in order to prevent issues.
“Not having properly cleansed skin can lead to acne and breakouts,” she says.

Can I make a DIY facial toner?

The products listed above are a great way to get started with incorporating facial toner into your beauty routine. However, if you want to try a DIY toner, that’s possible as well.
Witch hazel is readily available and can be applied to the skin directly or diluted with water to make a witch hazel toner.
If you’re looking for a toner that is a bit more gentle, Pollock recommends steeping rose petals in water and adding a bit of glycerin, a natural, non-toxic hydrating compound made from vegetable fat that can boost your collagen levels. You can find glycerin at your local drug store.
Another popular DIY option is creating a green tea toner, which Klein recommends. This is super easy: Brew a cup of green tea, letting it steep for three to five minutes. After the liquid has cooled, you can apply it directly to your face. Be sure to store any DIY toners in airtight containers in the fridge when they’re not in use.
You might have heard of using lemon to make your own DIY toner, but experts don’t recommend this. Lemon is very acidic and can disrupt the pH balance of your skin. Plus, it can leave you exposed to sunburn.
You may not have grown up using facial toner as part of your beauty routine, but adjusting your skincare regimen to fit toner in can be a simple step toward healthier skin.
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Categories
Mom x Body Motherhood

The Signs Of Miscarriage Women May (Or May Not) Notice

The day Bobbi Daniels learned she’d had a miscarriage, she felt like she’d failed. “After seeing my baby’s heartbeat three days before, I laid on a table as the tech searched and searched for a viable baby,” the mom from Camden County, New Jersey tells HealthyWay. “I had lost my baby, had failed another [IVF] cycle, and was $35,000 deep into the process.”
Daniels was seven weeks pregnant at the time, carrying a little boy she’d conceived thanks to in vitro fertilization (IVF) after doctors said she had just a 10 percent chance of ever getting pregnant without intervention. Noah is the name she’d given the boy.
Miscarriage is difficult. It’s confusing. It’s heartbreaking.
It’s not, however, a failure on the part of a mom-to-be. In fact, doctors say the signs of miscarriage can be so similar to your period that some women who miscarry in the very early stages of pregnancy never even know they were pregnant—let alone that they’ve miscarried.
Daniels, on the other hand, had a confirmed pregnancy. She knew she had been pregnant, and she knew she had lost the baby she and her husband were so excited to welcome into their family.  
“I knew in my heart I had lost Noah,” she recalls. “The morning I was going for my scan and found out I had lost Noah, I was going through the list of podcasts to listen to. It sounds ridiculous, but for a quick second I had the thought ‘I don’t want to start a new podcast because I’ll never be able to listen to it if I lost this baby.’ After I had the scan, the doctor recommended a D&C to make sure everything was cleaned out and to speed the process up of bleeding.” (A D&C, or dilation and curettage, is the surgical procedure of clearing out the contents of the uterus.)
“There are no words to explain the pain of walking into a hospital still carrying your child [and] to leave hours later with no baby,” Daniels says. “The nurse had me take a pregnancy test because she didn’t realize what procedure I was there to have done. The torture of watching that stick have two lines, knowing my baby was gone, literally made my chest hurt.”
It’s an experience Daniels will always carry with her, even now that she has a little girl who she calls her rainbow baby, a term used by moms who give birth after a pregnancy loss. And she’s far from alone.
A miscarriage is defined as a pregnancy loss before the 20th week of pregnancy, and miscarriage rates are hard for experts to accurately estimate. Doctors can only judge miscarriage rates by pregnancies that have been confirmed, and those figures are high. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, early pregnancy loss occurs in as much as 10 percent of all clinically recognized pregnancies. Some 80 percent of those cases occur, as Daniels’ did, in the first trimester.  
In fact, the majority of miscarriages will occur right between six and eight weeks, says Sherry Ross, MD, an OB-GYN and women’s health expert at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California.

Signs of Miscarriage

Although the result of a miscarriage—the end of a pregnancy—is the same in all cases, the signs can vary widely from woman to woman.

  • Late Period

    Women who don’t know they’re pregnant often miss the symptoms of miscarriage, says G. Thomas Ruiz, MD, an OB-GYN at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California. These women, who have what’s termed a “chemical pregnancy,” will typically endure a miscarriage within a week of the embryo’s implantation in the uterus. If they’d undergone blood tests, Ruiz says, doctors would be able to see a spike in the hormone hCG, but after a miscarriage, that “rapidly goes to zero.” Then the body starts to bleed, expelling the fertilized egg from the uterus, which most women assume is their period showing up just a week or two behind schedule.

  • Bright Red Bleeding and Uterine Cramping

    If you have had your pregnancy confirmed, bleeding and cramps will be more likely to serve as a warning sign of miscarriage, Ruiz says. After all, a woman who is pregnant knows she should not be expecting her period, as the menstrual cycle goes into hibernation during pregnancy.
    “If a woman is having heavy bleeding that is not stopping and/or if she is experiencing severe abdominal pain, she should go to an emergency room immediately,” Ruiz says.
    Even if the bleeding is not heavy and the pain not intense, it’s still important for a woman to call her doctor. They can determine whether it’s time to run to the ER, head to their office, or go to a medical facility for testing.
    Bleeding could indicate miscarriage, but it could also indicate an ectopic (or tubal) pregnancy, Ruiz explains. That means the fertilized egg has attached itself someplace other than inside the uterus, typically in the fallopian tube.
    “As a tubal pregnancy progresses, the [fallopian] tube can dilate and rupture, which will cause severe abdominal pain and a surgical abdomen, which is a medical emergency,” he notes, so the tests are necessary to prevent further complications.
    For women whose pregnancies have entered the second trimester, testing may also determine if bleeding is being caused by a cervical insufficiency, says Renée Volny Darko, DO, an OB-GYN and founder and CEO of Pre-med Strategies, Inc. Although it sounds like a bit of a slam at a woman’s body, a diagnosis of cervical insufficiency is not a judgment from your doctor. Instead it means that the cervix has dilated too early, which is endangering the pregnancy.
    In that case, “interventions like a cerclage, which essentially ties the cervix closed, can be used to help keep the pregnancy,” Darko says, although she’s quick to add that cerclages are not always successful.

  • No Signs at All

    Some miscarriages may simply occur without a sign. A mom may walk into her doctor’s office as Daniels did, ready for standard testing, only to find out that the baby has no heartbeat.
    “The process of conception and human development is intricate and often imperfect,” Darko says. “But miscarriages might have no symptoms at all. A miscarriage can be diagnosed on a routine ultrasound where the pregnancy is found not to have developed beyond a sac or the fetus has no heartbeat.”
    For moms like Daniels, that can be the most devastating of all.
    “I sat there holding the prayer card to my belly, which was the St. Anthony prayer of miracles,” Daniels recalls of the 15-minute scan when she got the news. “As she asked me to hold my breath, and I watched her face, I knew my baby had died. I cried so hard that no sound could even escape my body. Tears soaked the bed. The nurse whispered ‘I’m sorry hon, I don’t see a heartbeat, get dressed and meet me outside.’”
    Daniels recalls her life flashing before her eyes in those moments. “I didn’t just lose a 7-week baby. I lost the first day of kindergarten, my baby reaching for my hand calling me Mommy, a round belly everyone was going to rub and fuss over, a tired baby I rock to sleep who was comforted by my voice, birthday parties, late night feedings, a lifetime of memories,” she says.
    Her doctors were able to tell her that she could try again, and her little girl, born in April 2018, is the result of her second pregnancy.
    Trying again is not on every woman’s mind. Grief and recovery can take all forms, but Darko says moms who do want to try again are typically given the all clear very soon after a miscarriage, depending on the cause of the pregnancy loss and when it happened.
    “After most first trimester miscarriages, there is really no need to wait to conceive again,” Darko notes. “After a second trimester miscarriage, a woman should be evaluated to see if the reason for the miscarriage can be corrected before conceiving again.”
    So what are the reasons a woman might have a miscarriage?

Why Miscarriage Happens

Because so many women miscarry before they even know they are pregnant, experts don’t know what causes all miscarriages. They term pregnancies in two camps: normal and abnormal. Again, it’s important to note that these terms are medical in nature. “Abnormal” does not refer to a mom herself.
“Normal” pregnancies last beyond 10 weeks, Ruiz says, while abnormal pregnancies make up the bulk of miscarriages.
So what causes miscarriage? Here are some of the most common causes, according to the experts:

  • Genetic Abnormalities

    No parent wants to hear that their baby is abnormal, but again, this is a medical term rather than a judgment from the doctor. In some 60 percent of miscarriages, pregnancy loss will occur seemingly randomly, but it’s due to a genetic abnormality, Ross says. The fertilized egg is unable to continue development, causing the process of pregnancy to end.
    Turner syndrome, also known as 45,X or 45,X0, is one of the leading genetic abnormalities linked to miscarriage, Ruiz explains. The condition, in which a female embryo is partly or completely missing an X chromosome, has been tied to about 15 percent of miscarriages.
    Women in their late thirties and early forties are more likely than others to have miscarriages due to genetic abnormalities, Ross notes, and it can be tied to a mom’s eggs. Because we’re born with all the eggs we will ever have, the older a woman is, the older her eggs are too. “What is well known in the medical world is fertility declines progressively with age,” Ross says. “The aging of eggs is a well-known biological phenomenon referred to as our ‘biological clock.’ If you are 45 years old and trying to conceive, you will have a greater than 80 percent chance of having a miscarriage, compared to a woman under 30 years old who will have a less than 20 percent chance of having one.”

  • Infection

    Simply getting sick during a pregnancy is not a guarantee that a woman will miscarry (although it’s always important to contact your doctor if you are coming down with something). But certain common infections—from the flu to sexually transmitted infections such as syphilis and herpes—have been linked to a higher incidence of miscarriage. To stay ahead of these conditions, your OB-GYN may screen for STIs at one of your early appointments, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends pregnant women receive a flu vaccine for their own protection as well as their baby’s.

  • Abnormal Uterine Cavity

    The uterus is where an embryo implants and then resides, developing until birth. But for some women, problems with the uterus can lead to miscarriage, Ruiz says. Dubbed an “abnormal uterine cavity,” one of the most common is a uterine septum, an upside down, triangular piece of tissue that can divide the uterus in half. “if the embryo implants on the septum, there is high risk for a miscarriage,” Ruiz says.

  • Asherman Syndrome

    Scarring of the uterine cavity is another issue that can cause miscarriage. Called Asherman syndrome, the condition is rare and typically occurs after an infection or a woman undergoes a D&C, Ruiz explains. Because the condition affects the endometrium, or the wall of the uterus, it can make even getting pregnant difficult to begin with. “The embryo needs a nice endometrium to implant well,” Ruiz adds.

  • Medications

    If your pharmacist asks you whether you’re pregnant when you’re filling your prescription, they’re not just being nosy. Studies have linked miscarriage risks to everything from certain antibiotics to anti-inflammatory pharmaceuticals.

  • Cervical Incompetence/Cervical Insufficiency

    The cervix is a narrow passage that separates the uterus—where an embryo develops—and the vagina. When it’s time for a baby to be born, the cervix will begin to dilate, allowing a baby the space to move out of the uterus and into the birth canal to come into the world. But in some instances the cervix begins to dilate too soon—sometimes as much as three to four months before the fetus is ready for birth.
    More commonly linked to miscarriage in the second trimester, an “insufficient” or “incompetent” cervix is one that begins to dilate too early in the pregnancy. This condition is associated with weakness in the cervical muscles, and Ruiz says it can be related to a previous D&C or biopsy of the cervix (such as one done by an OB-GYN when abnormal tissue is found that might indicate a cancer or pre-cancer). It can also happen to women who’ve had multiple previous births. And although there are several risk factors connected to the condition, it can also happen out of nowhere with no foreseeable cause.

Minimizing Miscarriage Risk

There is never a guarantee, Darko says, as pregnancy loss is a part of life, albeit a difficult one for parents-to-be.
The best defense, however, is a good offense. If you’re planning to try to conceive, Darko says to meet with your doctor. Discuss your risk factors and any medications you might need to change or conditions you might need treated.
“Seeing a doctor to optimize your health before getting pregnant can be the difference between a good and bad outcome,” she notes.
And while one or several miscarriages can be heartbreaking and discouraging, the majority of women do get the all-clear to try again from their doctors, and for many of them, it can be successful.
For Daniels, another cycle of IVF and another pregnancy helped bring her little girl into the world. “The road that led me to her was the most difficult, trying time in my life,” she says. But, she adds, “Noah will always be a part of me, he is me, and because of him I continue so he continues. His sister will grow to always know the love I have for her and her brother.”