As we approach the final month of the NBA’s regular season, there’s little drama regarding who will come out on top of the Eastern Conference, as the Boston Celtics have created a huge gap between themselves and the rest of the pack.
In the West, though, it appears like it will be a race all the way to the end for the No. 1 seed, as well as battles throughout the standings for playoff and Play-In positioning. With the Phoenix Suns, Dallas Mavericks, and Oklahoma City Thunder all playing on TNT on Thursday night, the Inside the NBA crew discussed those standings and who they thought would come out on top, as the Thunder are fighting with the Nuggets and Timberwolves for that top spot.
Charles Barkley started his thoughts on the matter by taking some shots at TNT’s “sister network” ESPN, calling out the “idiots” over there who keep talking about the Lakers and Warriors “like they got a chance” when they are in 9th and 10th.
That led to Shaq pointing out they do technically have a chance because of the Play-In, which Barkley called “not real” and compared it to the CBI in college basketball. He said they should be thanking Adam Silver for making it up “so the Lakers and Warriors can get in.” It’s a great Chuck rant, because it is both funny and pretty accurate. The Lakers and Warriors do take up an awful lot of conversation on the four-letter’s shows, which is both unsurprising as they’re two of the league’s most popular franchises and a bit frustrating to fans of other teams. Barkley always loves when he can take a jab at another network, and in this case he got to do that and get in a brief Play-In rant thanks to Shaq.
Bullying is a huge problem. According to DoSomething.org, 1 in 5 students ages 12-18 in the United States are bullied during the school year, and approximately 160,000 teens have skipped school because of bullying.
So when Randy Smalls of South Carolina discovered that his teenage daughter was making fun of a classmate over her clothes and makeup, he took swift action.
Smalls instantly felt sympathy for Ryan Reese, a seventh-grader at Berkeley Middle School, having been bullied in his youth. So he took money meant for his daughter and went on a shopping spree with Ryan to get some new clothes and a makeover.
Smalls’ wife and Ryan’s mother Richauna Reese are friends, but they weren’t aware of the bullying until recently. The families got on the phone after speaking to Ryan, and Smalls asked if he could take Ryan to buy new clothes and get a makeover at the beauty salon.
Smalls used money initially intended to buy his 13-year-old daughter some new clothes, but after learning about her bullying, he decided to spend the money on Ryan instead.
“I say, ‘When you laugh along, you’re co-signing the bullying,” Smalls told Yahoo News.
“My daughter was upset, especially because she is into fashion,” he said. “So she came with us and helped pick out Ryan’s new clothes.”
While his daughter was at church, Smalls took Ryan to the beauty salon and paid for twice-a-month appointments until the end of the year.
After hearing about the good gesture, local salons have also offered to keep Ryan looking stylish for the next few months.
Richauna, Ryan’s mother, told Yahoo News that her daughter was struggling after the recent deaths of her father, grandfather, and aunt, as well as non-epileptic seizures caused by the stress.
The shopping trip has helped Ryan immensely. “I wasn’t expecting it. I just started to cry. It (the bullying) was really sad for me because I had lost my grandpa, father, and aunt, and it really took me deep down in my depression,” Ryan explained.
“This is the first time I have seen a parent take such a stance on bullying,” Richauna added.
Smalls was overwhelmed by the response and says that it’s helped his daughter see her mistake.
“I didn’t expect for this to get big but I’m glad if other parents [can learn from it],” Smalls said. “My daughter learned her lesson.”
“As parents, we have to take responsibility for what our children do,” Smalls told ABC’s Strahan, Sara, and Keke. “We can teach our children, but when they go and are around other children they can veer off a little bit. When situations like this happen, we have to take action and be the parent and not the friend.”
And the pair seem to be getting along better for the experience. “They’re cool now,” Richauna said.
Watch to young girls break down the story in this adorable YouTube video:
For a while, the fifth season of Stranger Thingsseemed like an unattainable pipe dream. The show first centered on a bunch of 13-year-olds who are now in their twenties, and after extended breaks in between seasons, fans have been growing impatient. Luckily for them, season five isfinally underway, and it seems like they are going back to the basics.
Finn Wolfhard told The Hollywood Reporterthat the cast is “getting back into a lot of the dynamics of season 1″ for the upcoming fifth and final season. This means that the cast will actually interact with each other, as opposed to season four, which was filmed during the height of COVID-19.“Even when I finally watched the show, my favorite part was watching the other guys in Hawkins. I just liked that storyline so much,” he said. “So, yeah, not being around everyone all the time was definitely a bummer about filming 4, but 5 is the opposite. We’re all together all the time.”
Wolfhard also hinted that his character Mike will take on a leadership role during the final season, which is expected to hit Netflix sometime next year. “There’s some ‘leader Mike’ moments, and it’s a very grand season, obviously. Every season has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger, and this season is huge, but it’s also kind of isolated as well.”
The actor, who stars in the upcoming Ghostbusters sequel, has mixed feelings about the final season. “We’re about three months in, and it’s really crazy. You think about how to be as present as possible, but then at the same time, you’re conflicted that this is the last one. So I’m trying to find that balance of staying present while also knowing that this is going to be the last season. But it’s been great.” Fellow castmember Millie Bobby Brown has confirmed that the cast still has nine more months left of filming, so he’s got time before he has to get nostalgic.
When asked about the delays over the years, Wolfhard says that it has only made him more grateful for Stranger Things. “You spend so much time on a show that it’s all-encompassing, and it’s something that means so much to me. It’s the thing that made my career, and it really shaped my life. So as far as the show not coming out yet, the only frustrating part is wanting to see it and having to wait. I just want people to see it and I want to be able to see it. But the rest of it? No. I’m indebted to Stranger Things, and it’ll take however long it’s going to take. There’s no way to control that, so you might as well just ride it.” The same thing could be said about the Ghostbusters Ectomobile.
Meanwhile, all Gaten Matarazzo wants is for a ton of people to die in the finale. We’ll just have to wait a little longer to see if that happens.
A couple of weeks back, we pitted bottles of tequila under $50 against bottles over $100 and while that wasn’t a completely fair face-off, we got some interesting results. Generally (as you might’ve guessed), the pricier bottles faired much better but there were at least a couple of bottles that punched above or below what their price tags might suggest.
I don’t mean to sound like a total nerd, but as a hardcore tequila drinker, that’s exciting to me. When brands outkick their coverage it’s a big deal!
This week we decided to narrow the scope a bit by taste-testing budget bottles $20 and under against bottles in the $50 range. Does paying double the price always get you a better bottle? We’ll find out!
Methodology
Dane Rivera
It was a bit tough finding bottles that perfectly hit this price point but we got it pretty close. Our eight bottles cover blanco, reposado, and añejo expressions. Six of our selections hit our price target, but two bottles strayed out of the price range slightly.
Here is our tasting class, along with the prices from low to high.
Astral Blanco — $16.99
Jose Cuervo Tradicional Plata – $19.99
Lunazul Reposado — $20.99
Espolon Reposado — $24.99
Lalo Tequila — $46.99
La Caza Reposado — $49.99
Flecha Azul — $49.99
Chamucos Anejo $52.99
Once we collected the bottles, my girlfriend shuffled them and served me a pour at random. I took a few sips of each pour and jotted down my first impressions. Here is how each performed.
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Tequila Posts Of The Last Six Months
Nose: A bit like nail polish remover. A heavy sniff will bring out the slightest hint of green pepper
Palate: Roasted agave and chocolate dominate the palate with the slightest spearmint coolness.
Finish: That mint takes over on the finish. The mouthfeel here is a bit sticky and the flavors linger very strongly on the tongue.
Taste 2:
Dane Rivera
Nose: Surprisingly fruit-forward with notes of caramel and chocolate. This comes across as very dessert-like and inviting. Truly a joy to inhale.
Palate: Gentle spice and tropical fruits. I’m getting mango and pineapple kissed with cinnamon, some slight vanilla, and roasted agave.
Finish: Oak with earthy cracked peppercorns. Really nice and pleasing.
Taste 3:
Dane Rivera
Nose: Maple syrup with floral jasmine flower petals and a touch of hazelnut.
Palate: I’m getting a heavy dose of oak and cinnamon mixed with butter and caramel. The flavors deepen in intensity on a second taste.
Finish: Spicy and oaky with an oily mouthfeel.
Taste 4:
Dane Rivera
Nose: Warm roasted agave with gentle notes of geranium.
Palate: Zesty orange peel, agave, and a pleasing vegetal quality.
Finish: The finish kind of ruins this. It has a strong ethanol burn with a salty aftertaste that needs to be washed down.
Taste 5:
Dane Rivera
Nose: Warm roasted agave with a kiss of warm citrus and vegetal notes.
Palate: A nice crackling chile de arbol quality with rich caramel notes and a bit of wet grass.
Finish: Green pepper on the finish with orange zest and a bright fruity citrus quality.
Taste 6:
Dane Rivera
Nose: Vanilla and sugar with a bit of roasted agave and a slight hint of alcohol.
Palate: Very peppery and spicy with some minerality and rich caramelized agave.
Finish: A strong oak character on the finish. A bit bitter to my taste buds.
Taste 7:
Dane Rivera
Nose: A nice bouquet of caramel, chocolate, vanilla, and roasted agave.
Palate: I’m getting juicy tropical fruits, wet grass, caramel, and black pepper. There is a heaviness here that I really like.
Finish: A bit harsh with some oak character and a distinct burn.
Taste 8:
Dane Rivera
Nose: Really nice and inviting. Agave forward with a sweet caramel quality, but it comes across as very natural and not artificially sweetened.
Palate: Way more peppery than the nose would suggest, with a bit of vanilla and bitter grapefruit.
Finish: Very oaky on the finish. There is a nice buttery quality to the mouthfeel that waters the mouth. The experience here really ping-ponged around from sweet to earthy.
This Plata from Jose Cuervo is from its mid-tier Tradicional series. The tequila is made from estate-grown blue agave and undergoes a special bottling process that is designed to conserve its flavors at freezing temperatures. Because of this, Cuervo actually suggests you keep the bottle chilled in the freezer and serve it in a frozen shot glass.
We didn’t do that. Did it hurt its performance in the blind taste test? We doubt it, but it is ranking last for us so maybe. But a tequila that needs to be chilled to be palatable is probably not the best tequila.
The Bottom Line:
Good for Jose Cuervo, but it can’t compete with what else we have here.
Astral is produced at NOM 1607, Grupo Solave, home to Kendall Jenner’s 818, and similar to that brand, Astral shares easy drinkability that makes for a smooth and bright tequila.
Astral’s Blue Weber agave is tahona extracted, utilizes agave fibers during fermentation, and is copper pot still distilled.
The Bottom Line:
A minty tequila that is easy to drink but not exactly what I look for when I’m sipping tequila.
Lunazul’s blanco tends to surprise me in blind taste tests so I was eager to see how the reposado would perform. While I think I like the blanco better, this one held its own against the competition. For its price, I think it’s a steal, but it’s not quite the best in its range.
Produced at NOM 1513, Tierra de Agaves, where it is one of two brands produced, the agave here is sourced from the Los Valles region of Jalisco and cooked in a high-pressure autoclave before being roller mill extracted and two-times distilled in a stainless pot with a copper coil.
It is aged for 6 months in ex-bourbon barrels to reach the reposado state.
The Bottom Line:
Oak forward with some vanilla sweetness. For its price, I think it’s a good reposado despite not performing the best in this particular lineup.
Does music have any effect on the flavors of tequila? We’re pretty sure it doesn’t, but that doesn’t stop La Caza from cooking its agave and fermenting the juice for over 90 hours to “the sounds of Mozart.” At least the staff at NOM 1414, Feliciano Vivanco y Asociados, have something nice to listen to.
The classic music-infused agave is cooked in stone brick ovens, roller mill extracted, and aged in American white oak barrels for four months.
The Bottom Line:
Well-balanced and full-bodied. A damn good tequila that lives up to its price point.
I’m not sure if Flecha Azul is on sale right now or what, but usually this bottle tips into the above $60 range, so it’s a welcome addition here even if it didn’t take the top spot.
Flecha Azul is produced at NOM 1110, Tequila Orendain de Jalisco, using agave cooked low and slow in stone ovens before being roller mill extracted. The juice is then fermented in stainless steel tanks and twice distilled in a stainless pot with a copper coil.
To reach the repo state, Fleca Azul is rested in six months in ex-bourbon American oak barrels.
The Bottom Line:
Spicy and sweet and a steal at this price. This bottle usually retails for more so if you can find it for under $50, pick it up without hesitation.
Espolòn is simply a great budget buy, for the price you’re not going to find another tequila that is this deep in flavor and complexity. Having said all that though, this still ultimately tastes like a budget bottle. It has aspects to it that can turn tequila snobs away.
There is a prominent alcohol aroma and flavor to this repo. It’s not quite as mellow or agave-rich as what we’ve ranked higher.
Produced at NOM 1440, Campari Mexico, Espolòn cooks its agave in a low-pressure autoclave before roller mill extracting the juice and twice distilling it in a stainless pot with a copper coil. The tequila is then rested in American White Oak barrels to reach its reposado state.
The Bottom Line:
The biggest surprise of this tasting. Espolòn is well known for being a good tequila for its price (it just edges over $20, but it’s worth it), and it beat out some of the more expensive bottles in this tasting — that’s a testament to just how good it is.
Chamucos is a brand that started with a reposado expression, so I had high hopes for this añejo tequila because I think the brand knows its stuff when it comes to aged tequila.
Chamucos is an additive-free tequila produced at NOM 1586, Destileria Casa De Piedra, where the agave is cooked slowly in stone brick ovens before being roller mill extracted. To reach the añejo state, Chamucos is aged for one to three years in French Oak barrels.
The Bottom Line:
A great additive-free aged tequila. Not quite as complex as more expensive bottles, but for its price, it’s kind of a steal.
I’m not surprised by this one taking the top spot. My love for LALO is well documented on this website, it’s just what my taste buds are geared to. Because of that, we might have to stop including it in blind taste tests, but I wanted to take this one on as a personal challenge to see if it’s really the flavor that charms me. It is.
LALO makes a single tequila expression, blanco (my favorite), made from agave sourced from the highlands of Jalisco and cooked in stone steam ovens for 20 to 32 hours before being rested for an additional 18 hours, then roller mill extracted.
The Bottom Line:
An agave-forward and complex additive-free tequila. It easily outperforms everything else in this price range.
A classic Ted Cruz fumble is springing back up thanks to Texas following through on a state-wide ban of Pornhub. Back in 2017, the senator was roasted on social media after users discovered porn in his Twitter likes. Since then, Cruz has mostly been mocked for infamously feeling to Cancun while residents of his state literally froze to death during an historic winter storm. So it’s a change for the classic Cruz scandal to re-enter the mix.
The Pornhub ban is a result of the state demanding age verification, which the pornography site has refused to comply with. Access to the Pornhub site is now disabled for Texas residents.
“Until the real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in Texas,” the message read.
The Republican-majority state Legislature passed the age verification law, HB 1181, last year. It requires companies that distribute “sexual material harmful to minors” to confirm visitors are over 18 with an online system that verifies users’ government-issued identification or another commercially available system that uses public or private data. The sites are not permitted to retain identifying information.
With Pornhub now banned in the state, social media leapt at the opportunity to dunk on Cruz and wonder how the poor senator will survive without ready access to porn. “Thoughts and prayers” has been a common refrain.
Below are the more safe for work reactions that don’t include the infamous screencap from Cruz’s Twitter likes. However, there are plenty of those floating around, so be warned.
With PornHub pulling out of Texas I’d like to offer thoughts and prayers to Ted Cruz.
It’s real. I went there to test it out. The only Texas residents who are allowed to use it now, are people who created an account previously. Like it won’t let you create one now. You had to have already had one before.
Christina Hunger, 26, is a speech-language pathologist in San Diego, California who believes that “everyone deserves a voice.”
Hunger works with one- and two-year-old children, many of which use adaptive devices to communicate. So she wondered what would happen if she taught her two-month-old puppy, a Catahoula/Blue Heeler named Stella, to do the same.
“If dogs can understand words we say to them, shouldn’t they be able to say words to us? Can dogs use AAC to communicate with humans?” she wondered.
Hunger and her fiancé Jake started simply by creating a button that said “outside” and then pressed it every time they said the word or opened the door. After a few weeks, every time Hunger said “outside,” Stella looked at the button.
Soon, Stella began to step on the button every time she wanted to go outside.
They soon added more buttons that say “eat,” “water,” “play,” “walk,” “no,” “come,” “help,” “bye,” and “love you.”
“Every day I spent time using Stella’s buttons to talk with her and teach her words just as I would in speech therapy sessions with children,” she wrote on her blog.
“Instead of rewarding Stella with a treat for using a button, we responded to her communication by acknowledging her message and responding accordingly. Stella’s voice and opinions matter just as our own do,” she continued.
If Stella’s water bowl is empty, she says “water.” If she wants to play tug of war, she says, “play.” She even began to tell friends “bye” if they put on their jackets by the door.
Stella soon learned to combine different words to make phrases.
One afternoon, shortly after daylight savings, she began saying “eat” at 3:00 pm. When Hunger didn’t respond with food, she said, “love you no” and walked out of the room.
Today, Stella has learned over 29 words and can combine up to five at a time to make a phrase or sentence.
“The way she uses words to communicate and the words she’s combining is really similar to a 2-year-old child,” Hunger says of her blog.
She believes her work has the potential to transform the bond between humans and dogs.
“I think how important dogs are to their humans,” Hunger says. “I just imagine how much deeper the bond will be.”
Soon, Stella began to step on the button every time she wanted to go outside.
They soon added more buttons that say “eat,” “water,” “play,” “walk,” “no,” “come,” “help,” “bye,” and “love you.”
“Every day I spent time using Stella’s buttons to talk with her and teach her words just as I would in speech therapy sessions with children,” she wrote on her blog.
“Instead of rewarding Stella with a treat for using a button, we responded to her communication by acknowledging her message and responding accordingly. Stella’s voice and opinions matter just as our own do,” she continued.
If Stella’s water bowl is empty, she says “water.” If she wants to play tug of war, she says, “play.” She even began to tell friends “bye” if they put on their jackets by the door.
We’re about to wrap up year three of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s been a weird ride, to say the least. These years have been hard, frustrating, confusing and tragic, and yet we keep on keeping on.
Except the keeping on part isn’t quite as simple as it sounds. Despite the fact that COVID-19 is still wreaking havoc, we’ve sort of collectively decided to move on, come what may. This year has been an experiment in normalcy, but one without a testable hypothesis or clear design. And it’s taken a toll. So many people are feeling tired, exhausted, worn thin (“like butter scraped over too much bread,” as Bilbo Baggins put it) these days.
But why?
Psychologist and speaker Naomi Holdt beautifully explained what’s behind the overarching exhaustion people are feeling as we close out 2022, and it makes perfect sense.
“A gentle reminder about why you are utterly exhausted…
No one I know began this year on a full tank. Given the vicious onslaught of the previous two years (let’s just call it what it was) most of us dragged ourselves across the finish line of 2021… frazzled, spent, running on aged adrenaline fumes…
We crawled into 2022 still carrying shock, trauma, grief, heaviness, disbelief… The memories of a surreal existence…
And then it began… The fastest hurricane year we could ever have imagined. Whether we have consciously processed it or not, this has been a year of more pressure, more stress, and a race to ‘catch up’ in all departments… Every. Single. One. Work, school, sports, relationships, life…
Though not intentionally aware, perhaps hopeful that the busier we are, the more readily we will forget… the more easily we will undo the emotional tangle… the more permanently we will wipe away the scarring wounds…
We can’t.
And attempts to re-create some semblance of ‘normal’ on steroids while disregarding that for almost two years our sympathetic nervous systems were on full alert, has left our collective mental health in tatters. Our children and teens are not exempt. The natural byproduct of fighting a hurricane is complete and utter exhaustion…
So before you begin questioning the absolutely depleted and wrung-dry state you are in- Pause. Breathe. Remind yourself of who you are and what you have endured. And then remind yourself of what you have overcome.
Despite it all, you’re still going. (Even on the days you stumble and find yourself face down in a pile of dirt).
Understanding brings compassion… Most of the world’s citizens are in need of a little extra TLC at the moment. Most are donning invisible ‘Handle with care’ posters around their necks and ‘Fragile’ tattoos on their bodies…
Instead of racing to the finish line of this year, tread gently.
Go slowly. Amidst the chaos, find small pockets of silence. Find compassion. Allow the healing. And most of all… Be kind. There’s no human being on earth who couldn’t use just a little bit more of the healing salve of kindness.”
Putting it like that, of course we’re exhausted. We’re like a person who thinks they’re feeling better at the end of an illness so they dive fully back into life, only to crash mid-day because their body didn’t actually have as much energy as their brain thought it did. We tried to fling ourselves into life, desperate to feel normal and make up for lost time, without taking the time to fully acknowledge the impact of the past two years or to fully recover and heal from it.
Of course, life can’t just stop, but we do need to allow some time for our bodies, minds and spirits to heal from what they’ve been through. The uncertainty, the precariousness of “normal,” the after-effects of everything that upended life as we knew it are real. The grief and trauma of those who have experienced the worst of the pandemic are real. The overwhelm of our brains and hearts as we try to process it all is real.
So let’s be gentle with one another and ourselves as we roll our harried selves into another new year. We could all use that little extra measure of grace as we strive to figure out what a true and healthy “normal” feels like.
One of the great things about most healthy families is that people can give to one another without expecting much in return. But, of course, everyone has their limits. How much is asking for too much? Regarding loans, money is different in all families, but what about time? Is spending hours babysitting for a family member without receiving anything in return okay?
Kaitlyn Wilson, 27, recently answered this question on TikTok, and the video went viral, earning over 335,000 views.
“I was telling somebody the other day that I watch my nephew for my sister, once a week roughly or just whenever she needs, and they were so shocked that I did it for free,” she said in the viral video. “Like, are other people’s families out here charging them to watch their kids for a few hours? That’s absolutely absurd if they are.”
She then described why she babysits her nephew for free. “I get the opportunity to create a relationship with my nephew by babysitting him and being around him,” Wilson said. “The fact that other people feel like they would need to be paid to hang out with their nieces, nephews, grandkids is so messed up.”
Warning: Strong language.
I was not even aware that someone would think of charging their family member for babysitting their kid(s) occasionally.
Wilson speculates that people who don’t want to babysit their younger family members are missing out on building a relationship with them.
“And I swear, it will be those same adults at family parties being like, ‘Oh my god, why doesn’t so-and-so want to hug me or talk to me?’ They don’t f***ing know you, dude,” she continued. “I feel like it’s not that hard to show up for and support people in your family, especially if you live near them.”
The vast majority of people who commented on the post supported Wilson. However, some thought that realistic boundaries for how often one is expected to watch a family member’s kids should exist.
“Is it really babysitting? Or is it just spending time with family? It’s just spending time for me,” Joey wrote. “I feel if you’re an adult, do it for free, but if it’s a teen relative, give them some money my uncle used to pay me. Now I do it for free cuz I have a job now,” Ashleyemmell added.
Some believed that having to do it every day meant that it went from being a favor to becoming a job. “Yep. If it’s consistent, I’m not doing a full-time job without pay. If it’s a date night, it’s free. But Monday through Friday? That’s a job,” J wrote.
For Wilson, watching her nephew is all about building a relationship that lasts a lifetime.
“It’s the responsibility of adults to foster relationships with children — I’m a firm believer of that,” she told Today.com. “When kids grow up and they are not close to older relatives, it’s not the fault of the adult child.”
“You can foster [relationships] by just showing up for them,” she added. “Going to [sporting] events … [going] to the park, reading books, baking … and always be the one reaching out.”
Showering is one of those things that you figure everyone has a handle on past the age of ten. It’s a pretty simple process that becomes automatic before people are even old enough to need deodorant. You stand under running water, add soap to whatever item you’re washing with and then commence to washing. Throw in shampoo, conditioner and maybe a razor a few times a week if you’re feeling fancy and you’ve just completed a process that takes about five minutes.
But there seems to be a question that pops up every so often when it’s discovered that in some households, washing your legs isn’t part of the showering process. People’s reactions range from shock on why someone would skip washing their legs, to confusion on why someone would bother washing them.
The argument for those that consistently skip leg day in the shower is that the soap from their upper body runs down their legs, therefore negating a need to clean them.
While those on the other side of the debate ask why would people skip half of their bodies, pointing out the need to remove dead skin. But should we be washing our legs in the shower? Dermatologists attempt to clear up the confusion by weighing in on the hotly debated and entertaining topic.
The original debate on whether people should wash their legs or not in the shower started in 2019, maybe as entertainment during the height of the pandemic. Conor Arpwel, posted a since deleted poll on Twitter, with a simple yes or no questions, “do you wash your legs when you take a shower?” Clearly people had some big feelings because the poll went massively viral and has sparked these offshoot debates since.
“So if you’re not washing your legs in the shower and you don’t have a bath, when the hell do you wash your legs you filthy animals, haha? Or where,” one person replies.
But the lack of taking a wash cloth or loofa filled with soap to your lower extremities didn’t end with random people on the internet. Taylor Swift admitted that she didn’t wash her legs because she considers shaving them to be enough to consider them clean.
Dermatologists seem to be split on this one, and turns out there’s good reason for it. Angela Lamb, M.D., director of the Westside Mount Sinai Dermatology Faculty Practice tells Katie Couric, “Sadly, there has not been a lot of research performed on personal hygiene, so many of the recommendations are anecdotal.” Though she does say that you don’t need to wash your legs daily, only if they’re visibly soiled or overly sweaty.
While Dr. Shari Sperling, founder of Sperling Dermatology shares with The Manual, “Yes, you should wash your legs. They are a part of your body that should be cleansed just like other areas of the body. While the debate discusses excessive washing, etc., there is no need to scrub and use harsh cleansers. You want to avoid that to prevent skin irritation. However, gentle washing daily is okay!”
Since there isn’t much research on the topic, and the method of washing one’s body can vary greatly from person to person, the jury may remain out for a while. But one dermatologist gives a pretty good reason why you should at least physically wash your legs every once in a while.
“Too little washing can lead to a condition called retention hyperkeratosis where a thick layer of built-up skin cells and dust accumulates on the skin over time,” dermatologist, Dr. Anne Allen reveals to The Manual.
So should you wash your legs in the shower? The answer seems to be, you don’t technically have to but it wouldn’t hurt if you did.
This has been a post-3rd wave feminism promise sworn to women. That you can have a big family, a high achieving career, a fulfilling relationship, a never-ending sense of purpose, no bad hair days, healthy lunches that make themselves, and so on and so on.
But many, many women will quickly dispel that myth. There is still measurable inequality between men and women when it comes to being able to advance in their careers and have children. Even the ones who do seem to “have it all” are the exception to the rule, and likely have sacrificed other aspects of their identity.
That goes for pop stars too, apparently. While appearing on an episode of the Radio Times Podcast, British singer Lily Allen spoke candidly about her own experience of not being able to move up in the music industry after becoming a mom.
Allen shot to prominence in 2006 thanks to her hit song “Smile.” Only two years later, she earned a nomination for best alternative music album at the 2008 Grammy Awards for debut album, “Alright Still.”
But instead, Allen followed in the footsteps of celebrities like Rick Moranis, and chose to focus on her children.
“Some people choose their career over their children, and that’s their prerogative,” she explained. “My parents were quite absent when I was a kid, and I feel like that really left some nasty scars that I’m not willing to repeat on mine. I’m glad that I have done that, because I think they’re pretty well-rounded people.”
In other words: “My children ruined my career,” she joked, before adding “I love them and they complete me, but in terms of pop stardom, totally ruined it.”
Though Allen has no regrets, she brought up the story to address how unrealistic it is for most women to be able to do both, and being told otherwise by society is less-than-empowering.
“It really annoys me when people say you can have it all, because — quite frankly — you can’t.”
Between pay inequality, difference in work life balance, corporate attitudes towards pregnancy leave, and already being less likely to advance than their male counterparts even without the factor of children (not to mention the world not fully being set up for two working parents with zero community support) it feels safe to assume that Allen is touching on something fairly universal here.
Though her pop star chapter might have reached a close, Allen seems to still be living a pretty cool life— from her swanky New York apartment with David Harbour to winning awards for her stage acting. So though she might not “have it all,” she certainly has some pretty cool things going for her.
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