An investigation discovered that makeup testers from beauty stores are crawling with all kinds of gross bacteria.
Makeup samples are extremely popular, with lots of people trying out products on all areas of their faces before making up their minds and purchasing them. Also, who doesn’t love free stuff? An investigation conducted by WCNC analyzed testers across different stores in Charlotte, N.C., finding plenty of bacteria that ranges from herpes to E. coli.
Ten makeup testers were compiled from different stores across the city, with researchers taking free samples from lipsticks, blush kits, mascara and eye shadow. In order to be analyzed in depth, these samples were placed in Petri dishes and combined with agar, a substance that reveals the organisms that have been growing in the sample. The results were shocking for doctors, finding evidence of bacterial infections from staph infections to even sexually transmitted diseases.
“You have even G.I. organisms like E. coli for example. What I’m really worried about some of these samples actually look like staph and MRSA infections,” says Dr. Arash Poursina, an infectious disease specialist.
Photo by Matthew Henry via Burst
Staph and MRSA infections can be deadly if they interact with your bloodstream. Also, the presence of E. coli means that someone probably went to the bathroom, didn’t wash their hands and used the makeup tester.
While all testers contained traces of bacteria, the samples that were worse off were eyeshadows and lipsticks. These come in direct contact with eyeballs, lips and saliva, presenting a perfect opportunity for spreading diseases and infections. Moist products like mascara and lipstick are even more likely to spread around diseases, since bacteria loves these kind of environment.
Sephora and other large makeup stores have policies that ensure their testers never spend too much time on display, but there’s no way of guaranteeing that the product is clean. You could wipe the surface of what you’re sampling, for example, cleaning brushes and swiping a towel with alcohol over the surface of lipsticks and powders. You could also just buy the product and return it if you didn’t like it.
This week there’s new songs from Billie Eilish, FKA Twigs and Panic! At The Disco.
This Week’s Music is a weekly column that discusses the weeks’ best, worst, and most interesting songs. We try to select songs of different artists and genres to keep things interesting and to please a variety of music fans.
To whet your musical appetites, Billie Eilish returns with yet another song, Panic! At The Disco does the Frozen 2 soundtrack and FKA Twigs is back and awesome as usual. Have a listen to this new music:
Pop
Billie Eilish – Everything I Wanted
Singer songwriter Billie Eilish has had a great year, releasing a really good debut album, going on a world tour, singing on SNL and just being super famous. While you were moping about the end of yet another year, here’s another Eilish song, and it’s also great and moody like her best work. “Everything I Wanted” is more restrained than her crazier outings, maybe a little more adult, with a consistent and electronic hum that permeates and makes you wanna dance while you cry a little. It’s great.
I should preface this by clarifying that my tolerance for Panic! At The Disco is very low, but this song is just objectively awful. Although Brendon Urie is trying his best to pull off an Idina Menzel, nothing is working here. This is not “Let It Go.” No little kids will be obsessed with this song because it sucks.
FKA Twigs – Sad Day
FKA Twigs is alien similar to Frank Ocean, an artist who clearly enjoys pushing buttons and testing listener’s patience. Still, she’s well balanced, never distracting from the power of her music and lyrics. There’s no smoke and mirrors in her work; Twigs is weird but she’s also sincere and undeniably talented.
Originating from Africa, this hound of sorts with its erect ears shares traits of the pariah dog groups, such as the dingo and New Guinea singing dog.
Did you know? Due to its unusual larynx producing a yodel-like sound, the Basenji is known as the “barkless dog”.
Originating from Africa, this hound of sorts with its erect ears shares traits of the pariah dog groups, such as the dingo and New Guinea singing dog. At full stride, this hunting dog can track down any bird, while resembling the beauty of a racehorse.
It’s no wonder the Basenji, with its shiny coat and a tightly curled tail, wrinkled forehead, and longing eyes, has a cult following.
Here, we find some of the most striking Basenjis of Instagram.
Cannabars at company outings can change the vibe, one catering service says, and bring people together in a new way.
Office holiday parties aren’t the easiest social interactions most of us encounter this time of year. On one hand, your company rewards your hard efforts all year with free food and drink—a combination sure to get you in the holiday spirit. But on the other hand, you’re still around colleagues and your actions, whether anyone says so, remain under scrutiny. Drink too much and suddenly you’re embarrassing yourself out of that promotion you wanted.
Thankfully, some companies have invited new ideas into their party planning committees. According to The Daily Beast, corporations in states with legal marijuana have introduced cannabars hosted by budtenders to their usual holiday office parties. That means those who abstain from alcohol, or those who prefer marijuana otherwise, can consume cannabis so they can reasonably enjoy around their colleagues.
“It’s a lot of fun because when people are not from the cannabis space, we get to learn about the first time they smoked, or hear if they smoked once and had a bad experience, and we get to change it for them,” Bec Koop, who co-owns Irie Weddings and Events, told The Daily Beast. “We can engage with folks and even change their minds.”
Photo by Teddy Rawpixel via Rawpixel
Here’s how it works
Companies hoping to include cannabis lounges will legally purchase all the marijuana from a licensed cannabis dispensary they’ll serve to employees. If you’re using Koop’s business, you can choose between a Flower Package—which will cost $7.25 per person and ensure them all the edibles and weed they could possibly want—or the Beverage option—which will run you $12.50 a head and include mocktails with microdoses of THC.
Of course, these social cannabis catering services can also add a layer of privacy for employees nervous about smoking a joint around their bosses. Positioned away from the main bar and dance floor, most cannabars will include a white “weed tent” for additional security and seclusion. That way you can light up in peace away from your co-workers. Or you might find a new friend at work you never knew you had. Either way, you’ll celebrate the holiday in a way you probably haven’t previously.
“[Weed bars] change the vibe of a company party,” Koop said. “People will see their co-workers smoking and say, ‘Oh, you’re a homie, we should hang outside work.’ We say it all the time, cannabis is a common denominator across all demographics—East Coast, West Coast, rich, poor, white, black, gay, straight; it brings people together.”
There are tons of myths and generalizations surrounding sex, perpetuating beliefs both outdated and not based on science. How could this not be the case? Our culture is one that mystifies the act and immortalizing it in books, movies, porn, while stifling it and preventing us from speaking openly about it.
Luckily, we’re entering an era where there’s more information, body positivity and less shame about sex. Anyone of any age should feel comfortable enough to ask questions about sex, or to at least Google them.
Here are five of the most common myths about sex.
It’s impossible to get pregnant while you’re on your period
This is a common misconception that makes couples feel like having unprotected sex during a period will prevent pregnancies. OB-GYN Christine Grieves spoke with The Huffington Post and explained that getting pregnant while you’re on your period is rare but possible. “The problem with saying that you ‘cannot get pregnant on your period’ as a general statement? Sometimes women have bleeding not associated with a true period, and they may think they are getting a period, but that’s not actually the cause of bleeding,” she says.
So no planning to have sex during your period is not an effective birth control method.
If someone says something like this around you, feel free to run away. This damaging and pervasive stereotype is one that hinders sexual performance and makes people feel a lot of shame.
According to a survey from 2016, men underestimate their wives desire to have sex, with 71 percent of the women reporting they’d like to have more sex than what they’re currently having.
While orgasms are great, they’re not the point of a healthy sex life. Focusing too much on orgasms can make you distracted and frustrated when you don’t achieve it. Other aspects of sexual satisfaction like kissing and touching feature benefits of their own, improving your mood and making you feel close to your partner.
While latex condoms are very effective in protecting against sexually transmitted diseases like HIV and gonorrhea, other infections like HPV and herpes — both transmitted through skin-to-skin contact —are harder to protect yourself from. The only way to truly prevent an illness is to talk with your partner about STIs (sexually transmitted infections) before you have sex and always be careful.
Female orgasms can be confusing, with a high amount of women claiming they don’t know if they’ve even experiencing orgasmic satisfaction during sex. There are vaginal orgasms, clitoral and sometimes hybrid orgasms, making it difficult for women to understand what exactly is going on down there.
‘Ok Boomer’ has become this week’s most popular phrase and meme.
Older generations often mention how much better everything was back in their time, when people weren’t distracted by phones and political correctness. While not all baby boomers act this way, we’ve all encountered our fair share of whiny older adults. There’s nothing wrong with them, they just make a great source for jokes and memes.
The origin of this meme comes from a TikTok video, where a man passionately disses younger generations, claiming that the ideals they’re searching for aren’t sustainable and they need to grow up. Your typical old guy spiel. A parallel video simply shows someone carefully writing the phrase “Ok Boomer” on a piece of paper and throwing out the peace sign, because that’s what you do when there’s nothing else to say.
Now, the phrase can mean anything, encompassing older people’s approach to political correctness, their disregard for environmental concerns, the fact that they can’t use an iPad, or gen z and millennials’ current economic struggles. It’s also a good way of shutting down an argument that you know you’re not gonna win. “Ok Boomer.” End of discussion.
Check out some of the funniest versions of the boomer meme on social media:
We generally don’t associate technology with good health, but there’s a lot of apps out there designed to help you stay healthy and think more positively.
There are a lot of tools out there designed to help you stay mentally and physically healthy, one of them being your phone. Although there are way too many crappy apps out there cluttering the market, there are a few helpful ones that can help you keep track of positive behaviors. Here are 5 apps every happy person needs.
Below, we’ve compiled five of the best of them, all having great ratings and functions that can help you achieve your fitness goals, create healthy lifestyle habits, and stay positivie in your day to day. Here are 5 apps that’ll help you stay healthy and be happier:
MyFitnessPal is pretty helpful for keeping a food journal that tracks your diet, so you can better learn about calories and all that complex stuff. The app has a pretty full database of all kinds of food information, informing you on calories, meal planning, healthy recipes, and more. It even lets you know about the contents of restaurant meals.
Headspace is a great app if you’re looking to get involved with guided meditation and don’t know where to start. Although you’ll need to pay if you’re planning on developing a meditation habit, the app includes a few meditation sessions for free, tailored to whatever it is you’re trying to achieve, like relieving stress, managing anxiety, and more.
Sleep plays a big role on your happiness and health, and Sleepcycle is one of the few tracking apps that accurately monitors your sleeping habits. The app tracks your quality of sleep cycle and your heart rate, indicating if you’re sleeping peacefully or not. It also has the feature of waking you up when you’re sleeping your lightest in the morning, ensuring that you’ll start the day off feeling well rested and awake.
For more psychologically-oriented apps you have the following two. Live Happy prompts you to do different activities that can elevate your mood, like goal-setting, staying present, creating positive thoughts, and more. While it might take you a little while to develop a habit, once you do you’ll quickly see the benefits.
Thought Diary is an app that allows you to keep track of your negative thoughts, generating different alternatives that are healthier and giving you the chance to spot these unhealthy patterns.
Be sure to contact an attorney if this happens, because civil asset forfeiture laws are no laughing matter.
Let’s say a working mother is kicking back in her home one evening, reading the news on the internet when she spots an article that reads, “Marijuana Legalization Is Now More Popular Than Jesus Christ.” Upon clicking the link to the story, she sees that not only have 11 states legalized the leaf in a manner similar to alcohol, but that this forward momentum is applying pressure on Capitol Hill lawmakers to end pot prohibition once and for all. “Hmm, times sure are changing,” she says, pondering a day not so long ago when the police would nail a person to the cross for a joint.
It’s just about the time she is finished reading the piece that there is a knock at the door. She gets up to see who it is, only to find officers with the local police department standing there. And they have a search warrant for the residence because someone at that address is suspected of selling marijuana to the neighborhood kids. Well, it’s not mom, so who’s the big dumb dope dealer in the house?
It turns out that Little Jimmy, a high school sophomore, has been moonlighting as a small-time pot dealer. He’s been slinging nickel bags out of his backpack for a few months so that he could afford the new Assassin’s Creed. All was moving along swimmingly, too, until Little Ricky, one of Jim’s ride-or-die buddies, narc’d him out after his mother found some weed in his sock drawer. Now the police are involved, and Little Jimmy might get arrested for marijuana offenses.
In his room, the cops find around two ounces of raw marijuana, various vape pens and edibles and maybe even some paraphernalia. He’s obviously not the next Pablo Escobar, but selling illegal drugs, no matter what, is considered a serious offense here in the great United States of America.
Yep, Jimmy’s going down. The kid might not spend years in prison, but he definitely has some legal problems ahead.
It’s time to get a lawyer, and a good one. Because not only will Jimmy need a reliable defense attorney to see that he doesn’t get into serious trouble, mom may need one, as well, to keep law enforcement from seizing her home. It’s sad to say, but if the prosecutor suspects that the parent knew about Jimmy’s illegal drug operation and did nothing to prevent it from happening, it is conceivable that the state might try to seize her property. Believe it or not, there are federal and state laws that allow the police to take ownership of personal property if it was used (or even thought to have been used) in a crime. So if the prosecution really wants to press the matter, it is certainly possible for someone to lose their home because of a child’s marijuana offense.
Photo by FatCamera/Getty Images
What’s really messed up is they don’t have to convict Little Jimmy (or even charge him for the crime) for this injustice to happen. Civil asset forfeiture laws basically allow police to steal other people’s property just because they suspect that something fishy is going down. It is then up to the owner of the property to prove (usually before a judge) that there was absolutely no criminal activity connected to their stuff. Welcome to America, indeed! It may sound crazy to think that the cops can just swoop in and take whatever they want from us because they believe we may be using or selling marijuana, but make no mistake about it, these laws are very real.
Fortunately, if Little Jimmy happened to get busted in a legal state, the cops are probably not going to seize mom’s home. While it is still illegal for minors to possess marijuana (and it’s illegal for anyone to sell it on the black market), the civil asset forfeiture laws are not so militant in places where weed is legal. Seizures for breaking the rules associated with marijuana can happen in legal states, but it’s just not as likely as it is in other areas. At least not for small offenses. But it is worth mentioning that even where marijuana is legal, federal civil asset forfeiture laws still apply. If the DEA or FBI comes-a-knocking, it could mean that you’re about to be homeless.
Fortunately, thanks to a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, it is harder these days for law enforcement to make elaborate seizures. The Court found that the Constitution’s ban on excessive fines applies at the state level, placing restrictions on seizures during criminal investigations. So if the prosecutor notices that some teenage kid was selling nickel bags out of his bedroom, they probably aren’t going to try and take possession of their parent’s house. In some states, the primary residence cannot be seized anyway under a homestead exemption clause.
Just remember, the prosecution must have strong evidence that the homeowner had knowledge of Little Jimmy’s criminal activity before they can seize your home and other personal property. But if they try, it is absolutely crucial to contact an attorney with experience in these matters right away. Failing to go to court without proper legal support will only ensure the property is going to be lost forever.
In hopes of reducing social media stress, Instagram will start to hide “likes” on post, a feature on the app since day one.
After some rumors, it’s finally happening: Instagram is hiding their like counts. This new measure is the biggest change in some time on the social media site, one that could potentially influence how a lot of people make their income.
This process began a few months ago in April, when Instagram rolled out the feature to a sample of select users in Canada and later expanding into other parts of the world. As of this week, small subsets of Instagram users in the U.S. and in every country can no longer see their like counts, with the app tweeting that they’ve adapted correctly to the changes.
Starting today, we’re expanding our test of private like counts globally. If you’re in the test, you’ll no longer see the total number of likes and views on photos and videos posted to Feed unless they’re your own. pic.twitter.com/DztSH0xiq2
This is a big change that will have clear implications for lots of users. While those who have large follower counts and enjoy looking at those hundreds of likes will be annoyed, people who do business on Instagram could be seriously affected. “Likes” have been a part of the app since the beginning, affecting the mystical Instagram post algorithm and the order in which you see posts from users you follow and from the discover page. There’s also the fact that a lot of endorsements and partnerships rely on like counts. This has been the basis of social media influencers since the term was first conceived.
Photo by Prateek Katyal via Unsplash
“Starting today, we’re expanding our test of private like counts to the rest of the world beyond Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Italy, and New Zealand. If you’re in the test, you’ll no longer see the total number of likes and views on photos and videos posted to Feed unless they’re your own. While the feedback from early testing has been positive, this is a fundamental change to Instagram, and so we’re continuing our test to learn more from our global community,” said an Instagram spokesperson to TechCrunch.
A change as radical as this is something that I find very exciting, one that goes further than changing a logo or adding new filters. People have long criticized the negative impact social media has on mental health and no app is more responsible for this than Instagram. Will this change solve our crippling addiction to social media? Probably not. But maybe it’ll push people to post pictures that are more fun and out of the norm, without having to worry about the fact that they’ll attract no likes. That counts for something.
Eating a vegetarian diet, even just some of the time, can reduce our environmental impact and improve our health in different ways.
People debate about the pros and cons of a vegetarian diet all the time. There’s the tired trope that vegetarians have to work extra hard to consume the proteins their body needs, while the rest of America tends to eat way too much meat. Fortunately, by eating vegetarian part-time, you can incorporate the best of both worlds. Here are some perks of adopting a part-time vegetarian diet.
Cutting out meat forces a lot of people to go outside of their comfort zone and find other ways to get the nutrients their body needs (and, yes, all of the nutrients you need can be found in plant-based foods).
Quitting chicken and replacing it with pasta won’t solve any of your problems. You might save a few chickens and reduce the damage you do to the environment (that’s actually nice), but your health may not exactly skyrocket. Instead of sticking to simple carbs five times a week, learn about protein substitutes and start eating lentils and beans, which are the simplest (and cheapest) options for beginners. Start off slow and ease your body into the transition.
Here are just some of the benefits of a vegetarian diet.
Less chance of obesity
When done correctly, a vegetarian diet can decrease the chance of obesity. A Portuguese study found that people who consumed a mostly vegetarian diet were 43% less likely to become obese. “Our recommendation is to eat less meat. Don’t increase the consumption of animal foods. Prefer plant-based foods to animal foods,” said one of the authors of the study.
Better heart health
In 2015, the American Heart Association said that consuming less meat could cut your risk of having a stroke or some form of heart disease by 20%. This could be due to the fact that vegetarians aren’t consuming red meat, which has been associated with high cholesterol and heart disease.
By eating less meat, you’ll naturally consume more veggies, fruits, seeds, whole grains, and other plant-based foods. All of these foods provide fiber, something that plays an important role in everyone’s diet. “These plant foods are very high in antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and fiber, which are all key components for reducing the risk for chronic disease,” says Stephanie Papadakis, founder of Gut of Integrity.
A change in your gut microbiome
Your gut microbiome is the amount of bacteria that lives in your stomach. There’s thousands of little guys there, affecting our health, immune systems, the amount of vitamins in our bodies, and more.
Hopefully this guide of perks of adopting a part-time vegetarian diet was helpful.
