StyleRefinery 29 UKI Did My Own Balayage At Home & It Totally Transformed My Hair
When lockdown was announced in March, I, along with every other beauty fanatic I know, felt a wave of panic as hairdressers, nail salons and skin clinics closed. My relationships with my colourist, hairstylist, dermatologist, nail technician and eyebrow lady were all put on hold and I started to worry that I would end up resembling something out of Teen Wolf. That said, lockdown has been the perfect catalyst for switching up my look. I didn’t have to worry about The Outside World for a while so in April I gave myself a big chop. It ended up being a defining moment for me. Finally — yes, finally! — I was at peace with my curls. Over the last few months I have tended to my tresses like a precious garden, watering daily, massaging my scalp, coating my curls with deep conditioner and butters and giving myself a trim every six weeks. While my hair has grown considerably as a result of hiding my straighteners and tongs (goodbye, heat damage), I still felt that my crown was missing some va va voom.Naturally, like everyone during the summer, I decided to bleach my hair. Before you gasp in horror (because yes, bleaching at home can be hit or miss), I did my research. I watched countless “How To Bleach Hair At Home” and “How To Bleach Afro Curly Hair At Home” videos on YouTube. I flooded various WhatsApp groups with questions. One of my friends suggested I try BLEACH London Plex Bleach, £17.50, which is specially formulated for afro hair. I purchased the bundle, which included the Plex Bleach and an Ice White Toner. I’ll be honest, though. I was terrified. I’ve never bleached my hair at home before, let alone used a toner to get to my desired shade. I had no idea what to do and the bundle sat in the corner of my room for weeks. Then one day, I took the plunge. I decided to give myself DIY balayage.Balayage is a French freehand hair-painting technique. Lighter pieces (two or three shades lighter than the rest of your hair) are blended in among natural strands without harsh lines. The method is designed to mimic the way hair naturally lightens in the sun for a believable, subtle highlight. Think of it as similar to using Sun In as a teen but without burning your ends off, so it won’t look horrendous in a few months’ time when it grows out. I spent hours googling balayage looks, taking inspiration from hundreds of curly-haired beauties and celebrities, from Jessica Alba and Elaine Welteroth to Halle Berry, in order to understand how the light would hit each curl. It’s very different from straight hair. I decided that I would paint the bleach onto each curl individually and focus on highlighting the curls around my face to brighten and lift.BLEACH London’s Plex Bleach was pretty straightforward to use. The bundle included the bleach powder, developing lotion and a small sample of the Reincarnation Mask to condition at the end. Using a tint brush, I mixed the bleach powder and developing lotion in a mixing bowl to create a white, grainy paste before sectioning my hair into four parts. I chose to start at the front of my hair as I wanted that area to be lighter, and applied the bleach freehand to the curls around my hairline and my fringe. I started halfway up the strands and coated the ends, pinning them back with butterfly clips as I went. Thankfully my bathroom has two mirrors, one in front and one behind, so I was able to apply the bleach and see every section. I made sure that all of my ends were coated.I used around half of the bleach mixture before putting on my shower cap and letting the bleach develop, checking my hair every five minutes. I left the bleach on for a total of 30 minutes (including application time) before adding some more bleach to the top strands of my hair for extra brightness. At this point I was winging it because I felt I had nothing to lose. I thought that if it went wrong, I could always dye it brown again with my foolproof Moroccan Oil Colour Depositing Mask in Cocoa, £28.85. This is always a great fallback option for hair boo-boos.After I rinsed out the bleach, I dried my hair to check the colour. At first I was alarmed by the brassiness, partly because I’ve been so used to being brunette. Change is always going to be a shock. I opted to use the toner and applied it exactly how I would a conditioner: I lathered it all over my head, ensuring every strand was covered so it would be even, before covering my hair with a shower cap and letting it work its magic for 30 minutes. I rinsed it out and applied Olaplex’s No. 3 Hair Perfector, £26, to repair any brittleness from the bleach. After that, I washed and conditioned my hair with the OG silver shampoo, PRO:VOKE Touch of Silver Colour Care Shampoo, £4.19, and Conditioner, £4.99, to get rid of any remaining brassiness.Here’s some advice: if you’re hoping to achieve DIY balayage at home, don’t be alarmed by the immediate result, especially if it’s a huge colour change. It has been a few weeks since I bleached my hair and the colour has settled nicely into my strands; it’s less brassy and the sun has naturally lightened the ends. When it comes to bleach, I’d suggest using little and often. Start on your mid-lengths and work your way down to the ends. Also, freehand paint the bleach onto the top layers of your hair to create a natural highlight. Once I diffused my hair, I was able to see the real results and I was over the moon. I had expected my hair to become drier and perhaps see the ends split or break. I’d mentally prepared myself to sob all evening but my hair was in perfect condition and the colour was just what I had hoped for. Admittedly, I have gone from looking like Jonathan Creek to Orphan Annie, but I’ll take it! Most of all, this experience has highlighted just how easy the DIY balayage technique is, especially as you can do it in the comfort of your own bathroom. Of course, I do miss the salon experience and I’m looking forward to supporting my local. However, £17.50 for a pretty seamless at-home balayage is an undeniable bargain compared to my £170 salon job. Minus the head massages, tea and biscuits and salon goss (sob!) it’s a great option should we find ourselves back under lockdown (perhaps inevitable) or if I’m low on cash (often). Now I know how kind Plex Bleach is to my fine 3c hair, maybe I’ll decide to go lighter. Maybe. Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?Why I Gave Myself The Big Chop In LockdownThis Is What Hair Salons Look Like Post-LockdownThese 4 Shades Of Balayage Are Trending For Fall
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My Experience Of EMDR – The Cutting Edge Therapy Used To Treat Trauma
Warning: This article contains descriptions of traumatic events which some readers might find upsettingTrauma is a popular word right now. This is good because it has drawn attention to the emotional and physical legacy of distressing events on those who have been subjected to them. However the term is increasingly used erroneously to refer to generalised suffering or discomfort, which is not what it means. When I talk about my own trauma, it is in relation to the memory of the sustained exposure to domestic violence that I experienced during my childhood. After years spent talking to people about these experiences, and still finding that I suffered from anxiety and certain phobias, I decided to change tack. At the beginning of lockdown I started a course of therapy known as eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing, or EMDR. I’d heard of it through Bessel van der Kolk’s celebrated book, The Body Keeps the Score, which makes the claim that many of our most traumatic memories are stored as much in the physical body as in the mind. Ten weeks later, I feel like a new person. So how does it work? As the name suggests, EMDR involves moving the eyes from right to left rapidly while recalling traumatic events. But few people seem to know that it can be administered in other ways, too. Because I underwent my treatment under lockdown restrictions, I received EMDR via Zoom in a method that simply required me to cross my arms and tap my shoulders. The point is to stimulate the left and right sides of the brain alternately, to reawaken the past and at the same time store those difficult memories in a less panic-stricken part of the brain which, crucially, doesn’t stimulate the amygdala (the bit of the brain which controls emotions and is responsible for triggering the fight-or-flight response).> By the end of each session, the memory I had focused on had gone from being highly charged to being somewhat neutral: like a scene playing out on a screen but disconnected from my emotional responses.Because EMDR is focused on processing specific memories, it is also finite. Unlike talking therapies, practitioners can usually give you a rough estimate of how long it will take for you to complete your treatment. For me, one memory per session was enough and at the end of each, my body and my mind would both feel completely exhausted. It’s a gruelling therapy but garners immediate and noticeable effects. By the end of each session, the memory I had focused on had gone from being highly charged to being somewhat neutral: like a scene playing out on a screen but disconnected from my emotional responses. Each memory became distant and less important. The cumulative effect of this process led to an overall sense of contentment, inner calm and happiness. The results have been quiet but profound.What’s more, for people who might be embarrassed or ashamed of their past experiences, or suffer from difficulties in communicating, EMDR does not require you to divulge what happened to you. The process led by the practitioner is purely practical, like air traffic control directing you to land while the view from the plane window remains completely private.Sandi Richman headed up an EMDR practice at the Maudsley Hospital in south London for eight years, administering the therapy to hundreds of people including asylum seekers and refugees from war-torn countries. These patients often, and understandably, had very complex traumas and couldn’t speak English. EMDR was one of the most successful therapies for alleviating their residual flashbacks and panic attacks. Sandi’s success led her to become recognised as one of the leading practitioners in her field.“EMDR isn’t about opening up a Pandora’s box,” she’s keen to explain. “It isn’t necessary for us to do a spring cleaning of every traumatic memory. Very often if you work on certain memories, there will be a generalised improvement in other areas of the mind. What’s more, it doesn’t involve exposure therapy, which can be very difficult to go through and in that sense is a lot more gentle than other approaches.” “EMDR also seems to go places that talking therapy alone isn’t able to,” she adds.> EMDR isn’t about opening up a Pandora’s box. It isn’t necessary for us to do a spring cleaning of every traumatic memory. It doesn’t involve exposure therapy, which can be very difficult to go through and in that sense is a lot more gentle than other approaches.> > Sandi Richman, NHS EMDR CONSULTANTThis was true for me. As I recalled one memory from my early childhood that was hazy and incomplete, I started to get a severe trembling in my right leg. The sensation caused me to remember that I’d been standing on a chair and was nervous about falling off. This was just one instance in which physiological sensations during EMDR enabled me to build a fuller picture of my traumatic memories in order to see them more rationally and constructively.Where cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) often asks us to confront our fears directly and in the present – the ‘exposure therapy’ that Sandi refers to – EMDR seems to take us on a journey, causing us to build a fuller picture of our memories and at the same time helping us to demystify them and reduce their level of intensity. With all these benefits then, why might you still not have heard of EMDR? The answer seems to be political. The CBT lobby, for example, is very powerful and there’s a lot of research dedicated to understanding its methods of success. CBT is also far more historically rooted in the psychological profession, having links with earlier behavioural methods that were developed in the early 20th century. EMDR, by contrast, is relatively nascent. It was ‘discovered’ and published in a paper by Francine Shapiro in 1989. Combined with the fact that its methods are so divergent from more traditional approaches, this means that it probably still suffers a degree of stigma. The lack of research also means that we remain somewhat in the dark about the many other possible benefits. Many people believe that it might be useful in overcoming addiction, for example. There are also big controlled trials currently taking place across Europe exploring its veracity in treating depression and other mental health conditions. > As I recalled one memory from my early childhood that was hazy and incomplete, I started to get a severe trembling in my right leg. The sensation caused me to remember that I’d been standing on a chair and was nervous about falling off. These efforts mean that the stigma is slowly starting to lift and EMDR is now recognised by the World Health Organization and administered on the NHS, although the waiting lists are still very long. Sandi is training NHS staff around the clock in a bid to make the therapy more widely available. Growing awareness of its potential benefits offers a glimmer of light at a time when tens of thousands of coronavirus survivors are thought to be at risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), not to mention the thousands of healthcare professionals who’ve been exposed to the more grim aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sandi describes “a tsunami of mental health problems hitting the NHS” but where PTSD was once a life sentence, treated to varying degrees of success through a combination of talking therapy and medication, we may well have found a far more effective and universal solution that is finite and therefore cheaper than most talking therapies.I never expected to find inner peace and happiness through a bewildering dance that involves tapping my shoulders in front of someone I’ve never met via Zoom, but here we are. In the future, and hopefully by building awareness, many more people will have the chance to experience EMDR’s life-changing effects. For support with PTSD, contact PTSD UK or call the Anxiety UK infoline on 03444 775 774. Anxiety UK also offers a text service on 07537 416 905.Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?5 Women On What Having PTSD Is Actually LikeMy Trauma Was Unlocked In LockdownCooking For Myself Helped Heal Me After A Trauma
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My Life In LA Was Carefree – Until I Came Down To Earth With A (Literal) Bump
The following is an extract from writer Sophie Heawood’s upcoming memoir The Hungover Games. What happens when you suddenly find yourself on a path to single motherhood in your mid 30s when you’re still trying to get to grips with caring for yourself? This is what Sophie was about to find out when her life writing about celebrities in Los Angeles was interrupted and she was brought down to earth with a (literal) bump.You know how your life can develop a background hum, like a sound that you might hear coming from a fridge or a fan when everything else in the house has fallen still at night? A nagging feeling at the back of your mind that tells you that you have done something foolish which is going to make itself known sooner rather than later but you’re going to carry on pretending you haven’t? That there’s something about to fuck up in the future because you haven’t dealt with it? A debt that you didn’t pay, which has been multiplying all through your finances, silently. An infidelity that is going to catch up with you. A body that you buried in a shallow grave. Well, it was a Saturday night in Los Angeles and my background hum was getting louder. My whole body was waiting for blood to trickle down my thighs, and it still hadn’t come. I was waiting for signs of no life. That’s what waiting for a period is – waiting for a little death: a petite mort of the silent kind.There were already some clues that something was happening, because I had interviewed the actress Amy Adams a few months before, in a hotel suite at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. She was promoting The Fighter, a film I had really enjoyed. She told me that when she had first moved to LA she was constantly going to castings and wanting to look pretty. She was broke and had previously worked as a barmaid in Hooters. Then she saw how attractive the woman who served coffee at 6 a.m. in Starbucks was, and she thought, holy fuck, this town – I’m going to need something other than looks. So, she explained, she had worked her arse off on technical skills and humour and timing, and it had got her there instead. I liked her immediately.She had a one year old baby and told me she had truly enjoyed being pregnant. I’d never heard anyone say that before, so I asked her to explain. She said that it was the first time she had felt that her body knew what it was for, that she was so focused, so able to move forward and plough through everything she had to do, her form and her mind united in ambition for once. Something like that. And then, because we are women, trained to need social approval for our every thought, she had politely sought reassurance by saying, ‘Do you know what I mean?’ and I had replied ‘Oh yes, of course!’ and I had thought to myself, I have absolutely no idea what Amy Adams is talking about.Fast forward a few months to January, where I was sober and ploughing through my todo lists like never before. It had dawned on me that month, sitting at my kitchen table and ticking stuff off, that I was achieving more in one day than I used to in two weeks. It was like I could focus for once, as if my body wanted to move in one direction only, forward, just like – hey – suddenly I remembered what Amy Adams had said, and I knew exactly the feeling she had been talking about!A pink bougainvillea plant was growing all across my window from the yard outside.Holy fucking shit.I added these feelings to the hum. Pushed them down. Carried on. Another week passed.And then it was the Saturday night where I strangely felt no desire to go out at all, and it was time to look back a month in my calendar and work out what inappropriate place I had last been when completely surprised to find I was bleeding into my knickers, because, despite having had this happen once a month since I turned thirteen, it had taken me by surprise every single time.I counted forward on my fingers. Nine days late. Wow. I might have been an unpunctual sort but nine days seemed a lot. There was a twenty four hour drugstore one block down from my apartment. I rolled the thought around in my head for a couple of hours, arguing that it was essential I watch this new Obama speech on CNN and have important and significant thoughts about America as a political entity in a changing world, and find out the latest development in what would become the Arab Spring, and finally, at around midnight, my body put its own shoes on and trudged down to Rite Aid with a ten dollar bill. It was all I had. My credit cards, debit cards, English and American bank accounts – all were maxed out. In the shop there was a stand with every different kind of pregnancy test, but the cheapest I could see was fifteen dollars. Holy fucking shit again.And then I saw it: the bargain basement test, the one that didn’t have anything complicated with multiple lines or something telling you how many days pregnant you were but instead a very, very simple system. If you were pregnant, the word P R E G N A N T would appear. It cost $9.99 and didn’t come with a spare like the others did, so you had to aim your piss right the first time. I bought it, went home, aimed my piss right the first time, and watched the word P R E G N A N T appear.At 2 a.m. I rang my friend Diane in London, where it was Sunday morning at 10 a.m. This was not a time for texting. “Do you think,” I asked her, after exchanging literally no pleasantries at all, “that you could ever be so premenstrual that all the preperiod hormones in your body are fizzing around so hormonally that they could make a pregnancy test come out as positive when really it means that you’re literally about to bleed?”‘You didn’t pass biology GCSE, did you?’ she replied.‘No,’ I said. ‘Or chemistry or physics. I went to a shit school and I blame the teachers.’‘Mmm,’ she said. ‘I don’t think pregnancy tests give false positives, only false negatives sometimes.’‘Yeah, but this was the cheapo one so it probably didn’t even work.’‘Sophie, they’re all the same, you just piss on a stick.’‘Mmm,’ I said.‘So, you’re pregnant?’‘Mmm,’ I said.And then I went to bed, and as I climbed into it I said out loud, to nobody at all, there is no way I am going to get any sleep tonight, and as soon as my head hit the pillow I slept the entire night through.The Hungover Games by Sophie Heawood is published by Jonathan Cape on Thursday 16th JulyLike what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?All The Single Mothers: You Are NOT AlonePutting Myself First Doesn't Make Me A Bad MumWhy We're So Tired Of Thinking We're Bad Mums
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HealthRefinery 29 UKCondoms Can Teach Us A Lot About Face Masks
I’ve been writing about the novel coronavirus for months now. So much about the pandemic and the public reaction to it has surprised me. Most of all, the mask controversy. For a long time, I didn’t really “get” why people were refusing to wear face masks. After all, The Center For Disease Control and Prevention says they protect us from virus-spreading respiratory droplets. Donning one seemed like a public service and a no brainer to me. Until recently — and the sudden understanding of the “no mask” mentality came from a surprising source: a sexpert, who was comparing masks to condoms.“If you want to know how we get people to comply with wearing face masks, ask a sexologist — it’s not our first rodeo when it comes to convincing people they should wear a barrier for protection from a deadly virus,” wrote Jill McDevitt, PhD, a sexuality educator, in a Facebook post. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard the mask/condom comparison. Just last week, Nate Favini, MD, told me: “Wearing your mask down around your chin is like having a condom and leaving it on the nightstand while you have sex.” In April, The New York Times posed the question: “Are face masks going to become like condoms — ubiquitous, sometimes fashionable, promoted with public service announcements? They should be.” But something about McDevitt’s words finally made it click. I don’t know too many people who’ll admit that they’re refusing to wear a mask right now. But I do know hoards of people my age who’ll confide that they dislike condoms, and even avoid wearing them. When I was younger, a common joke among friends was that “Plan B is my Plan A.” Ha ha — but I always sensed that there some some truth to it. We laughed along when comedian Amy Schumer quipped, “You have to pretend like you want to use a condom.” We all knew better; but we still didn’t all wear them every time.I wondered if people don’t wear masks for the same reasons they don’t wear condoms. At least one study found that “masculine ideology” was associated with “sexually risk behaviour” like eschewing rubbers. According to the researchers, this ideology is associated with a few traits: status, anti-femininity, and toughness, as The Scientific American reports. The research on what makes people not wear masks is thinner, of course, but a Gallup Poll conducted in mid-April did find that more women wore masks more often than men. > If you want to know how we get people to comply with wearing face masks, ask a sexologist. 😷👩🏼🏫 It’s not our first…> > Posted by Jill McDevitt on Monday, June 29, 2020When I reach out to McDevitt directly to ask more about her thoughts on the overlaps between condoms and face masks, she admits, “The condom analogy isn’t perfect, but my hope is that it can at least provide a framework for thinking about masks.” She also notes that we can use what we learned from four decades of condom research to help encourage people to don masks. She recommended the following steps, to start. Lead by exampleFirst and foremost: Wear your own mask. It may seem like a small step, but your actions have a bigger ripple effect than you might realise. McDevitt remembers being in a long line at her local post office towards the beginning of the pandemic. “Every single person was wearing a mask — [then] a man walked in without one,” she says. “After a few moments he said to the person who got in line behind him ‘can you hold my spot? I’m going to run out to the car to get a mask. I don’t want to be the only one without one.’ And that is how we normalise. The sign on the door of the post office saying MASKS REQUIRED didn’t make him do it. Wanting to fit in with the ‘norm’ is what made him do it.” Same goes for condoms: The more wearing them is seen as the norm, the more people get on board.Empathise, then educate Guilting people into compliance does not work, McDevitt says. “As much as shaming people may feel satisfying to folks, if the end goal is wearing a mask, that tactic will fail,” she says. “People who aren’t complying may be ‘assholes,’ but telling them so won’t make them do what you want.” A better route? Try to understand where they’re coming from, then gently point out the errors in their perspective. For instance, recently McDevitt encountered someone who said they couldn’t wear a mask because they have asthma, and they worried it would trigger their symptoms. “Empathy — ‘My goodness, I don’t know much about asthma but it must be scary feeling like you can’t breathe’ — and problem-solving — ‘Here are the links to where to get face shields to wear instead of a cloth mask’ — go a lot farther than, ‘If you don’t wear a mask, you’re dumb and you don’t care about killing people,’” McDevitt tells me. The condom equivalent? “Oh, you’re allergic to latex? Have you tried the lambskin or polyurethane versions?” Positive reinforcementGive people plenty of reasons to keep wearing their masks. McDevitt says she makes a point to pay compliments to people on their masks when she goes out. She might point out the fun pattern or the pretty colour. You can also just thank a person for helping to protect others from respiratory droplets. (“Thank you for having a condom,” is always a welcome compliment too.)AccessibilityKeep extra masks on you to hand out to others in case they forgot. Don’t shame someone for forgetting; just say, “Oh here, I have an extra!” and pass it off. They may be genuinely glad you have their back. Just like your partner would be if you happened to have an extra condom or dental dam on you on the one day they ran out.Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?Coronavirus Might Cause A Global Condom ShortageIt's Hot. But You Still Need To Wear A Face Mask16 Pretty & Protective Face Masks You Can Buy Now
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HealthRefinery 29 UKBoob Sweat Sucks. But We Have Solutions
There are many simple pleasures in the summer — eating a snow cone on a hot day, batting at a beach ball in the pool. But one major downside is the dreaded boob sweat that accompanies the heat. No one likes the feeling of their beach balls being soaked in perspiration. A drenched sports bra is a killjoy. Not just that: Boob sweat can cause skin rashes and bacterial infections as well, says Alyssa Golas, MD, clinical assistant professor in the Hansjorg Wyss Department of Plastic Surgery at NYU Langone Health. She says candida loves a moist, warm, dark environment — like your underboob. You could end up with a fungal, bacterial, or yeast infection on the skin, which can be itchy and painful, and may even require a prescription cream to treat. (If you notice symptoms such as continuous itching, spots, or split skin, you may want to talk to a doctor.)Boob sweat can plague anyone in the summer, especially during workouts. But some women are more likely to deal with the nuisance, including those who have bigger breasts and folks going through hormonal changes such as pregnancy, nursing, or menopause, explains Maryann Mikhail, MD, a dermatologist at The University of Miami.It’s super common, and typically harmless. The strategies here — listed from least to most extreme — should help you stay dry. “You shouldn’t be embarrassed by it,” Dr. Golas adds. “The majority of women with large breasts have this problem, but they don’t want to talk about it. But once they know it’s common, it’s easier to discuss and treat.” Preach, Golas, preach! Powder upDust on a sweat-fighting body powder like Hiki’s, says Dr. Golas. An anti-chafing powder may help too, she says. (Not a lubricant stick or petroleum jelly, which is meant to keep things feeling moist.) Good, old-fashioned corn starch can also absorb perspiration. And some women swear by the same antiperspirant they use under their arms. Wear the right bra Some of Dr. Golas’s patients stick maxi pads to their bras, to help sop up their underboob sweat. But the right kind of bra and shirt can do a better job of keeping you dry. “The best options are cooling bras, bras designed to wick sweat, or those made of breathable fabrics like cotton, bamboo, or soft lace,” Dr. Mikhail says. “Full-support bras or push-up bras can help by keeping the breasts from laying on the chest wall.”She adds it’s best to avoid synthetic fabrics such as polyester or rayon, as well as padded bras because the extra material may cause even more sweating. When it comes to your top, wear shirts or dresses made of breathable and sweat-wicking fabrics, suggests Dr. Mikhail. Carry wipesOf course, life happens. You might find yourself running to catch a bus on a hot summer day, or maybe the air conditioning will suddenly conk out when you’re at a formal dinner. Maybe you’ll be kidnapped and left to fend for yourself in the desert! The world is full of crazy possibilities, so it’s best to be prepared. Keep alcohol-based wipes on hand for knockers-related emergencies. They can’t stop you from sweating the way that a deodorant might, but they can close your pores a bit to reduce sweating. Botox In general, there’s no need to talk to a doctor if your sweaty boobs are occasional or just when you workout, says Dr. Golas. “But if you’re wearing regular, nice clothing or a normal bra and it’s happening in the AC, that can be problematic, so you should seek out treatment.” That treatment might include botox, which is an FDA-approved remedy for excessive perspiration. The injections block the nerve signals that make you sweat. Each round lasts from three to six months, and may cost up to $1,000 (£800). Breast surgery Maybe underboob sweat is just one more problem in a long line of issues you have with your breasts. Maybe you also get intense back pain; you’re plagued with frequent irritation; or you just don’t feel comfortable with the size of your breasts. In some specific and extreme scenarios, Dr. Golas says that breast reduction surgery could be an appropriate solution. “If someone has large breasts and they’re interested in a reduction, they should see a board certified plastic surgeon,” she says, adding that in some cases, a breast lift could be worth exploring too.Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?The Best High Impact Sports BrasThe One Tattoo You Should Get This SummerIs It Bad That I Haven't Worn A Bra In 3 Months?
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“End The Torture Now”: Celebrities Call For Conversion Therapy Ban
Celebrities and high-profile figures including activist Munroe Bergdorf, singer Dua Lipa and comedian Katherine Ryan have signed an open letter urging the government to ban conversion therapy.Singer Elton John, UK Black Pride founder Phyll Opoku-Gyimah and Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall have also signed the letter, which denounces conversion therapy as a form of “torture” which is being allowed to continue on British soil.As LGBT charity Stonewall notes, the term “conversion therapy” refers to “any form of treatment or psychotherapy which aims to change a person’s sexual orientation or to suppress a person’s gender identity”.It’s predicated on the false and incredibly damaging idea that homosexuality and being transgender are mental health issues that can be “cured”. Government research has found that 2% of LGBTQ people in the UK have been subjected to conversion therapy – and 5% have been offered it. Another survey published last year found that it leads to high levels of mental health problems including suicidal feelings, self-harm and eating disorders.Conversion therapy has been denounced by all major therapy and counselling associations in the UK including the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP). Internationally, it’s already illegal to subject minors to it in Germany, Malta, Ecuador, Brazil and Taiwan, as well as in 20 US states. As the BBC reports, the UK government actually pledged to ban conversion therapy two years, but has yet to fulfil its promise. An online petition to make it illegal in the UK has now attracted nearly 215,000 signatures. The celebrities’ open letter is addressed to Liz Truss, the Minister for Women and Equalities, and urges her to “introduce a truly effective ban on ‘conversion therapy’”.“Any form of counselling or persuading someone to change their sexual orientation or behaviour so as to conform with a heteronormative lifestyle, or their gender identity should be illegal, no matter the reason, religious or otherwise – whatever the person’s age,” the letter reads.“Let’s end it now. Let’s finish what was pledged two years ago and ban ‘conversion therapy’ for all lesbian, gay, bi, trans, and gender diverse people, of all ages. Until you do, torture will continue to take place on British soil.”Last month, Truss said that she “will shortly be bringing forward plans to end conversion therapy”, though she hasn’t said what these plans are likely to involve.Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?How The Pandemic Affects Queer Women Who Want KidsGay Women On What Conversion Therapy Did To Them9 Women Who Changed The World For LGBTQ+ People
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