There’s a theory called the “lipstick index” or “lipstick effect,” which states that in a time of economic crisis, people will cut back on expensive, big-ticket luxury items but still spend money on small indulgences, like lipstick.
A crisis like the coronavirus pandemic may have tested this lipstick-effect theory once more, but there’s one problem: face masks. Because these cover the lower part of your face and cause makeup products to smear and transfer, it’s understandable if people aren’t too keen on buying a new lipstick during a time like this. It’s just not practical.
But if you take the theory at face value and less literally, the lipstick effect could be applied to any makeup product. During a time when lipstick doesn’t make the most sense, people might look for a small comfort to enjoy in its place – and nail polish might just be that item.
Of course, lipstick will always have its place in the spotlight, but for now, embrace the nail-polish trend. This is the perfect time to give your bold lip a break and let your manicure shine with the best new nail colors, ahead.
Any glasses wearer knows face coverings come with a price: foggy lenses. But thankfully, the best face masks for glasses can help solve that problem for you. To slow the spread of COVID-19, the Centers for Disease Control recommends wearing a face covering in public spaces where social distancing measures are difficult to maintain—but walking around with blurry vision and steamy specs isn’t the safest thing, either. Luckily, mask makers are developing various glasses-friendly styles as a solution, with many including pliable nose wires and strip inserts, nose guards, and adjustable ear loops for the most secure fit possible.
Why glasses fog up when wearing a mask
When you breathe inside a mask that doesn’t fit your face snugly, the hot air can build up inside the mask and escape through the top, coating your glasses with condensation. Aside from fogging your lenses, breath escaping your mask may defeat the mask’s purpose altogether. The whole idea of wearing a face mask is to protect passersby from escaped droplets when you talk, cough, sneeze, etc.—and an extra secure face mask helps to prevent this from happening.
How to prevent foggy glasses while wearing a face mask
One of the most effective ways to prevent foggy glasses while wearing a face mask is to ensure your mask has a tight seal around your nose and mouth, which means finding a mask that fits your face properly. Look for masks with adjustable ear loops, a nose guard, or a wire that contours to the bridge of your nose. This makes it harder for hot air to escape and steam up your lenses. Additionally, check out our list of antifog spray and other tips.
Where to buy face masks for glasses
Don’t sleep on face masks on Etsy. With countless independent artisans creating unique and effective face coverings on the site, you can find plenty of top-rated face masks featuring nose wires for snug fits on various face sizes. Amazon is another top contender, with reusable and disposable face masks with reviews to back them. Finally, tons of brands have hopped on board to utilize their resources to help protect the public, and we selected some best-selling options specifically for glasses wearers below. Ahead, the 19 best face masks for glasses to shop now, along with rave reviews from happy customers.
Get maximum use out of your decorations for even non-patriotic holidays. This set of pom poms and paper lanterns is easy to assemble, and its colors can be mixed and matched for any future party regardless of whether the theme is red, white, and blue. In case you don’t know, this is why we celebrate Labor Day.
Melamine dinnerware set
Just because summer’s almost done doesn’t mean you can’t still break out fun colors and patterns for your party. This 16-piece melamine set is perfect for outdoor use thanks to its durability and light weight.
Red pennant banner
For a more subtle way to decorate for Labor Day, this pennant banner is the perfect touch. It features the official print of summer (gingham, like a picnic tablecloth) plus a handful of other patterns to close out the season in style. Then, store it for the winter and break it out again for all of next summer’s parties, too.
Confetti-filled balloons
Whoever thought of filling balloons with glitter and confetti should win some sort of party-hosting award, in our opinion. These super-cute transparent white balloons are filled with little red, white, and blue stars, perfect if you’re into more subtle decorations.
Star streamers garland
Create the perfect Instagram backdrop so all your guests have a spot to pose and post. This star-spangled banner (see what we did there?) can be repurposed for other patriotic holidays and even hung up in your trees like string lights, without the major electricity bill.
Picnic check blue tablecloth
For a twist on the traditional gingham tablecloth, try this blue floral-patterned one. It has the easy-cleaning, durable vinyl surface you love in a tablecloth, so it’s perfect for parties. Just wipe up any messes and get on with the lawn games!
Waterproof string lights
The party will last long into the night with the help of these outdoor string lights. They add soft illumination whether you string them from trees in the backyard or fasten them around the perimeter of your porch.
Outdoor throw pillows
Make your guests feel comfortable with these outdoor throw pillows. Their simple stripes could be subtly patriotic, or could just be a fun way to celebrate summertime.
Patriotic banner
If you’re not so crafty yourself, check out this fun cardstock banner pre-made on Etsy. You’ll want to break it out again for Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and every other holiday in between.
Galvanized metal serving tray
This rustic galvanized metal serving tray will have you serving up drinks and snacks with ease. Its farmhouse-chic style means you can use it all year round for any occasion, indoors or out. In the cooler months, fill it with candles and use it as the centerpiece of your table
Instead of taking your anger out on someone else, channel it constructively through yoga. Image Credit: Westend61/Westend61/GettyImages
When you feel so angry you could just scream, let it out in Lion’s Breath pose, a controlled primal roar that helps you release tension and blow off steam.
Also known as Simhasana, Lion’s Breath pose consists of a single breath that originates at the pelvic floor and moves up through the abdominal muscles, lungs and throat to relieve tension and reset your nervous system.
The Benefits of Lion’s Breath Pose
“Our bodies carry a lot of ‘fight-or-flight’ energy as we move through our busy days, sometimes feeling as though our to-do lists are chasing us,” says psychologist Tanya Mickler. Lion’s Breath can help release that built-up energy to bring your body back into “rest and digest” mode, using the breath as a gateway to improved functioning.
“The large inhalation that takes place before the audible exhale forces excess oxygen into the base of the lungs, which fuels the brain [and] improves circulation,” says Natasha Snow Needles, a co-owner of SoHo Yoga in Hermosa Beach.
“If we’re going deeper into the philosophy of yoga, the throat chakra is illuminated and balanced with this prana [life force] practice as well,” Needles says. “In times when you feel less expressive, stifled or perhaps communicating to the end of exhaustion, this chakra can become a bit unbalanced, and Lions Breath can help.”
How to Perform the Lion’s Breath Yoga Pose
Image Credit: Jenny Cline/LIVESTRONG.com ACTIVITYYogaGOALMental Health
Kneel and sit back on your heels.
Lift your chest as you shift your weight and lean forward until your knees are on the floor. Place your hands on the floor in front of you as if you were a lion getting ready to roar.
Stretch your fingers out as if claws were shooting out of the ends.
Look up, focusing both eyes on the point between your eyebrows.
Open your mouth wide and stretch out your tongue as far as it will go. Breathe in.
Contract your abdominal muscles and pelvic floor, then exhale in a single, forceful breath. Exhalation will naturally create a sound through your open mouth while sticking your tongue out. The release of the breath should sound like a very breathy hah.
Repeat three times.
Tip
While practicing this pose, you’ll roar with a forceful exhalation without constricting your throat. The exhalation results from the contraction of the abdominal muscles and the pelvic floor. This posture is meant to allow the breath to be released with an audible, forceful exhale.
If you’re lucky enough to find disinfecting wipes these days, you may want to use them on almost everything. But don’t do it — and not just because you won’t want to burn through your precious stash so quickly. On certain surfaces, disinfecting wipes can do a lot more harm than good. Save them for the hard, nonporous surfaces not on this list, manufacturers recommend.
No matter your lifestyle, a well-loved handbag can get filthy. So can your leather car seats or furniture. While disinfecting wipes seem like a quick way to clean them, they contain alcohol and ammonia that can dry out the supple leather and damage its finish. Instead, opt for a commercial leather cleaner, or try a mix of warm water and dish soap, taking care not to soak the leather.
Granite Countertops
Tempted to clean those gleaming granite countertops with disinfecting wipes? Use caution. Repeatedly scrubbing them with the acidic wipes can break down the sealant on the granite, leaving them vulnerable to long-term damage. For daily cleaning, you can simply use dish soap and hot water. To disinfect them, a spritz of isopropyl alcohol can do the trick, according to the Kitchn.
Eyeglasses
Resist the urge to swipe your specs with disinfecting wipes, because they can eat away at the delicate lens coatings, experts say. Instead, clean glasses with a drop of dish soap and warm water, or use a commercial lens cleaner with a soft cloth.
Pearl Jewelry
Swiping and scrubbing those heirloom pearls with alcohol-infused disinfecting wipes isn’t a good idea. They can damage softer stones including pearls, opals, and emeralds. Pearls are also susceptible to damage from ammonia, also typically found in wipes. Again, all you really need here is warm water and a mild soap, experts say.
Your Toilet and Plumbing
Your toilet can be ground zero for germs, and you can certainly use disinfecting wipes to clean the seat and exterior with no ill effects. But there’s a big catch: Never, never flush them when you’re done, experts warn. Unlike toilet paper, wipes don’t adequately dissolve when they’re flushed, which can clog your pipes and mean big plumbing bills in the long run.
Delicate Clothing
Got an embarrassing midday stain? Scrubbing at it with a disinfecting wipe may make it less noticeable, but it won’t do certain types of clothing any favors. The alcohol in the wipes can fade colors and damage more delicate acrylic and acetate garments. Our favorite way to clean up in a pinch? Portable stain solutions like Tide to Go.
Vehicle Touchscreens
Your greasy fingerprints are all over it, but put those disinfecting wipes away. The alcohol and ammonium compounds in the wipes can eat away the screens’ protective coatings and eventually cause fogging or blotching, manufacturers warn. Instead, clean these screens with soap and water, taking care not to get them too wet. Nissan also recommends wipes specially formulated for screens, but specifically warns against any that are “anti-microbial.”
Produce
We hope we don’t need to tell you this, but you should never clean fruit, veggies, or any other food with disinfecting wipes, as the ingredients are not meant to be ingested and may lead to vomiting. The FDA says all you need to do is rinse, rub, or scrub produce under running water to make it safe to eat (you don’t even need soap).
Unfinished Wood Furniture or Floors
Like the rustic look? Be careful. While Clorox says you can use its disinfecting wipes on wood, an asterisk notes the company means only “polyurethane treated wood.” Because unfinished wood acts as a sponge, it can absorb too much of the wipes’ cleaning solution, eventually swelling, cracking, or warping. The Canadian Conservation Institute recommends dry cleaning methods such as using a stiff brush and a vacuum.
Fabric Upholstery and Carpet
Always check labels before using any sort of cleaner on fabric upholstery or carpet, which can become discolored when used with certain cleaners. And as Apartment Therapy notes, disinfecting wipes just plain won’t work on most soft, porous surfaces.
Dishes and Food Storage Containers
If you eat off of it or store food inside it, be sure not to wipe it down with a disinfecting wipe, as convenient as it may be. The chemicals in the wipes aren’t meant to be ingested, of course, and can linger on hard surfaces. If you really want to disinfect your dishes, use the hottest water possible on their next trip through the dishwasher, buy antibacterial dish soap, or use a solution of bleach and water, Real Simple recommends.
Use Caution: Your Smartphone
Until recently, most experts cautioned against using disinfecting wipes to clean your smartphone, but the pandemic has turned conventional wisdom on its head. Apple now says it’s okay to use wipes to clean your phone, but warns that you need to be gentle and stick to the hard outer surfaces, taking care not to get cleaner inside the charging ports or other openings. (For the record, Samsung also says disinfectants are okay, but recommends they be applied with a microfiber cloth.)
When you think about an ice cube tray, well, the concept of creating ice to pop into your drinks is all that comes to mind. However, your handy, reusable cube-maker can be used for so many more hacks than just simply chilling water.
“Freezing things this way in an ice cube tray is a great way to use leftover bits and bobs and to have them portioned for the future. You can let the cubes freeze solid, at least overnight, then pop them out and store them in a zipper-lock bag if you want to use your tray for something else,” says Hannah Crowley, executive editor of tastings and testings at America’s Test Kitchen in Brookline, Massachusetts.
So yes, there are tons of ice cube tray hacks that you might be surprised to uncover how much these trays can do! Try these tricks to make the most of your ice cube tray and create flavor-filled food in a flash
“Chilling coffee with regular ice cubes can lead to a watered-down product. Freezing brewed coffee in ice cube trays allows you to add that ‘ice,’ but as it melts, it’s a continual dose of coffee,” says Chanel Hayes, executive chef at Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts.
If you prefer your coffee with a splash of dairy, freeze milk cubes, suggests Burt Cho, chef at Katsuya in Hollywood, California.
Have some bonus Beaujolais? Pour it into small portions for easy access later on. “I like to store wine in an ice cube tray,” Crowley says. “It’s a good way to use up the last bit of a bottle, especially after a party, and then I have some the next time I want to make a pan sauce or some soup. That way I don’t have to use any of whatever I’m drinking that night!”
3. Save stock
If you’ve gone through the effort of simmering up a pot of homemade stock or broth, you want to make the most of it, and that’s where the ice cube tray comes in. “I like to make a big batch of stock and store the leftovers in ice trays. This allows you to choose the quantity you need, so you don’t have to thaw large portions,” Hayes says.
Store herbs in broth, melted butter, or oil—the possibilities are truly endless! Dice herbs and cover with some liquid substance, then freeze to preserve summer’s best to use all year long. Try the herb cubes melted into soups, sauces, or stir-fries, or simply melt a pat atop a grilled steak.
5. Baby your DIY baby food
Instead of grabbing a jar, defrost a couple of cubes.
“I enjoy making my child’s food—and knowing that it was made from scratch with fresh ingredients,” Hayes says. She dedicates a day to meal prep a few different items (such as sweet potatoes, squash, and carrots), purée them, and then freeze each in a separate ice cube tray. “This way, my kid can have a variety of items in one day, and they’re all quick to heat up,” she says.
6. Make the most of fruit
Berries and bananas can go bad before you know it, so freezing them in cubes is a way to make them last a lot longer than they typically would.
“Purée and freeze fresh fruit at its prime, then try these as a replacement for store-bought frozen fruit for smoothies,” Hayes says. Or, you can pour the final few ounces of your 100% fruit juice into a tray and freeze it to later use them to top seltzers or cocktails with colorful, tasty cubes.
7. Build better buttermilk pancakes
A typical single-serving homemade pancake recipe calls for about 1/3 cup of buttermilk. Too bad it often comes in half-gallon containers, right? The solution: Fill one-ounce wells two-thirds of the way full with the rest of the bottle of buttermilk, then defrost four cubes to build batter for another short stack any time.
8. Waste no more egg whites
Using egg yolks for custards, ice cream, or hollandaise? Preserve the whites for another day by filling each ice cube well with one white. Then, you can thaw as many as you need for your recipe in the fridge overnight and use them to add a protein boost to your menu.
Use egg whites as the “glue” for spices on candied nuts, combine them with whole eggs to bring a stir-fry together, or scramble them with leftover vegetables and proteins.
9. Build a better (stiffer) bourbon drink
Calling all cocktail aficionados: Stock up on larger or spherical ice cube trays.
“A ball of ice is better than a cube because the less surface area that is exposed to the warm liquid, the slower the ice will melt. A sphere of ice will melt slightly slower than a cube of ice, so you can chill the drink without quickly diluting it,” says Mario Segura, chef at Umami Burger in Los Angeles, California.
10. Create crystal-clear cocktail coolers
If you want your ice to be as clear and cool as your favorite cocktail bar, try Crowley’s trick.
“Restaurant ice is bubble-free if it comes from commercial ice machines that have purifiers and freeze the water really fast,” she says. “You can make similarly-sharp cubes at home by boiling distilled water and freezing it—no need to cool first. This makes clear ice, like all the fancy bars serve now, and the clear ice actually stays frozen longer than regular ice, making it perfect for cocktails.”
11. Chill caramelized onions
A bit nutty, a bit sweet, a bit tangy—caramelized onions lend a delicious flavor to soups, sauces, and pasta. What we’re not so wild about is the 45 minutes or so it takes to get them lusciously jammy. Luckily, they freeze up just fine if you pack them into ice cube wells tightly—no other ingredients required. Caramelize several onions at once, then store in a zip-top bag (with as much of the air pressed out as possible) in the freezer for up to three months.
Bakery-bought chocolate-covered strawberries can cost upwards of $3 each. Try this ice cube tray hack to save cash.
Combine two cups of chocolate chips with two tablespoons of coconut oil and microwave at 45-second intervals at 50% power until melted, stirring between each shift.
Fill each of the 12 ice cube wells a little over half full with the chocolate mixture, then press a whole strawberry, stem-side up, on top to coat most of the sides of the berry.
Freeze until the chocolate is solid, then pop them out and dig in.
Dress up your daily dose of water with some spiffed-up cubes.
“Freeze citrus juice and zest, fresh berries, or even edible flowers in water to make your drink a little fancier,” Hayes says. Who doesn’t love a daily dose of spa water, no getaway needed?
Clean up these 3 perennials in fall for the best start in spring!
Fall garden clean up doesn’t just save you time next spring — it gives plants a fresh, healthy start as soon as the weather gets warmer. Here are three perennials that benefit from being cut back right now. We’ll tell you why it’s a good idea to get rid of old growth and the best way trim them back.
Prevent disease
Cut back peonies (Paeonia lactiflora) to keep any fungal diseases, such as peony leaf blotch, from spreading. Gather a handful of stems and cut them off 2 to 3 in. above the soil.
Never compost suspicious-looking or infected plant material. That could spread the problem. Send it away in the trash instead.
Control reseeding
Coneflower (Echinacea spp. and hybrids) has seedheads that you can leave standing for winter interest or to feed the birds. But if you don’t want them to reseed and take over the area, cut them back in fall. Snip spent flowers back just below the mound of foliage for a tidy look.
Avoid smothering spring growth by removing large hosta leaves in fall.
Make room for spring growth
Cutting back fading hosta (Hosta spp. and hybrids) foliage in fall helps spring-blooming bulbs and perennials — hosta leaves create a dense mat over the ground, which can deform or prevent new spring growth. Don’t cut the leaves all the way to the ground, though. Instead, leave about 2 to 3 in. of each stem standing to protect the crown during winter.
Avoid smothering spring growth by removing large hosta leaves in fall.