York has been named "the best place to live in the UK" by a panel of experts.
The historic walled city, which has a population of around 150,000 people, topped a list compiled by The Sunday Times. The newspaper's panel took into account a variety of factors that contribute to quality of life, including jobs, schools, broadband speed, culture, community spirit and local shops.
"We're championing York this year in honour of its bold approach to bringing the historic city into the 21st century without losing any character or community spirit," said The Sunday Times' home editor Helen Davies.
According to Zoopla, the average property price in York is £275,000 - around £50,000 more than the current UK national average. The picturesque city centre is known for its "Snickelways", narrow pedestrian streets which lead to the historic market squares, and York Minster, one of the largest cathedrals in Northern Europe.
"York today is a mini metropolis, with cool cafes, destination restaurants and innovative companies — plus the fastest internet in Britain," said The Sunday Times.
The newspaper also named Bermondsey as the best place to live in London, saying the south-east borough "epitomises the modern urban good life. It’s happening, central and fun, but it hasn’t gone Shoreditch party crazy."
Shipston-upon-Stour in the Midlands, Swansea's Mumbles in Wales, Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire, Frome in Somerset, Melrose in Scotland, Chelmsford in Essex, Belfast's Ballyhackmore in Northern Ireland and Tynemouth in the North East were also singled out as the best places to live in their respective UK regions.
So, if you live in any of these places, fancy inviting us for a weekend stay some time soon?
Are you an indecisive diner who drives your friends to distraction by spending an age choosing from a menu? Or, are you someone who picks the exact same thing every time you eat out, then regrets it afterwards because it means you never try anything new? If so, a new "Instagram-powered" pop-up restaurant could be just the thing.
The Eat Your Feed pop-up restaurant devised by Knorr (yes, the stock cube people) promises to choose a meal for you by looking at the pictures you've posted on Instagram. According to Knorr's blurb, the pop-up will use a "unique new tool that analyses [diners'] Instagram feed to match the places they have been, who they have spent time with and the experiences that they have shared, to tasty and personalised one-pot recipes".
Obviously Knorr has concocted the pop-up as a publicity stunt (albeit a very fun and innovative one), so your meal will inevitably be cooked using one of their stock cubes. But aside from that, you can apparently "expect to be served anything from a traditional French beef bourguignôn, to a spicy Moroccan lamb tagine. Or, classic risotto primavera to flavoursome Greek Meatballs with Feta."
In fact, Knorr promises that "no cuisine is off limits as each dish will be based entirely on each diner’s personal Instagram feed".
The Eat Your Feed pop-up will serve diners for one night only, 11th April, at the Jones & Sons restaurant in East London's Dalston. To accompany your Instagram-chosen main meal, you'll be given bread and olives, family-style sides, petits fours, coffee and two drinks, all for free. You just need to sign up on the dedicated website and hope you're selected to take part. Best of luck, and I won't judge if you try to 'Nigella up' your feed a bit before you go.
This week is an express bus of energy, driven by a cross between Sandra Bullock and Satan. You'd better hope you’re already on board because this driver does not stop at the designated bus stops, or possibly at all. What better way to kick off action-packed Aries season than at top speed?
With Mars, the planet of action, now in serious Capricorn, your to-do list is long and the items at the top are non-negotiable. Whether you’re trying to stay financially above water, are buried alive in uni work, or accidentally signed on for every volunteer position at your kids’ school, you’ll be running to keep up for at least the next month or so. Luckily, Capricorn is the sign of endurance. Manage your time and energy well and you’ll likely be successful.
The sun enters speedy Aries on Tuesday, making energy management a challenge, though. Aries, the first sign of the Zodiac, symbolises new beginnings and craves instant gratification. One of the three fire signs, Aries acts like a spark, catching onto anything flammable within reach, in the hopes of starting a blaze. Inspired by sunny spring weather, longer days, a more active social life, and the impatience to see 2018 plans bear fruit, you have a surge of energy and the feeling that you can keep this pace up forever.
This Aries season is an especially busy one, so no matter how supercharged you feel, remind yourself to focus on what you really care about. Aries is pure passion, and Mars in Capricorn will only apply itself effectively to goals that will actually pay off. Your head and your heart can achieve a lot this month, but they need to work together (and pace themselves).
Good thing Aries season brings out your challenge-loving side, because Mercury stations retrograde on Thursday. The creeping difficulties you’ve been having with email, traffic, scheduling, annoying accidents, and missed messages blossoms into a full-on garden of miscommunications and mistakes. Like always with Mercury retrograde, it’s the little stuff that counts. As busy as you are right now, take the time to double-check your work and keep an eye out for other people's messes.
Aries March 21 to April 19
Happy birthday season, Aries!
Your superpowers of speed and decisiveness are on fire this week, as the sun enters your sign. The starting gun went off with a bang on Saturday and as the week goes on, you’ll find your energy increasing — and in need of an outlet. You’ve got more than enough commitments and wild, Aries-worthy plans to satisfy your drive. The challenge, as always, is sticking with one project long enough to see it through, but this birthday season you have a real advantage.
Normally, you’re the top contender for the distraction award. With your ruling planet, Mars, in Capricorn as of the 17th, your own common sense and foresight may surprise you. The grown-up voice in your head has acquired a megaphone, and you can’t help but play out what the long-term results of a given choice will be. With Mars travelling through your 10th house of career, you’ll do best prioritising reputation-enhancing projects that allow you to work independently.
While your focus is strengthened, you are still inclined to go from 100% lazy pyjama-mode to trying to do everything all at once. Your goals are absolutely in reach as long as you get started now and take regular-sized breaks to sleep, eat and chill with your friends.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Taurus April 20 to May 20
You’re like a boulder, Taurus. (A cute and charming boulder, of course!) Getting yourself to act requires pushing that giant rock of your inertia up a mountainside. It requires toughness, tenacity, and patience; and that’s why you’re the only person who can make yourself do anything. Like a boulder, once you get to the top of the mountain, all you need is one big push. From that point on, you’re unstoppable. Pity the sheep who gets in your path.
This week is your big push, Taurus. The people around you will be scrambling to keep up, stressing over unimportant details and making messes. Meanwhile, you rise above it like a queen. You can be effective at any pace that’s comfortable for you, as long as you’re relentless. If you have a competitive streak, envision yourself stepping over opponents to reach your goals. Otherwise, it’s all about you and what supportive structures in your life you want to build and strengthen.
A key test to your commitments comes on Friday, when your ruling planet, beauty-making Venus, collides with Pluto, the planet of power games. Pluto stokes fear and paranoia, those inner shadows capable of poisoning love and making us greedy. Notice where you feel jealous or possessive. Ask yourself if you’re moving toward what you truly desire.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Gemini May 21 to June 20
This week will require you to be thoughtful and nimble, careful and quick. Your superpower of multitasking will be your best friend and the Achilles' heel weakness that could make your life hell.
Normally, you have a gift for logic and can hold competing information in your head without breaking a sweat. Mercury, your ruling planet, gave you this talent and it relies on Mercury to work well. As Mercury stations retrograde on the 22nd, those competing bits of information are likely to collide in frustrating ways. The hangout date you made for Friday at 5pm gets reversed in your head with the other date for Saturday at 6pm; the 20 deadlines you agreeably accepted at work get mixed up and your boss is pissed; you butt-dial your mum while you’re having an extremely not family-friendly flirtation with your sweetie. It’s snafu season, Gemini, and you've just gotta roll with it.
Surviving Mercury retrograde means relying on your non-Gemini skills. As a rule, intuition works better than logic during a Mercury retrograde. Your subconscious — the voice that speaks in stomach aches, tingling on the back of your neck, or a vague feeling of unease — is able to assimilate the information your conscious mind overlooks, helping you to drive more safely and avoid signing a lease on a rat-infested apartment. Listen up to those mental undercurrents and you’ll stay on top of this mad March, no sweat.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Cancer June 21 to July 22
The new moon on the 17th launched you into two months of solid action, Cancer. You’ve recovered from late winter’s slowdowns and are at the peak of your game. Mars is on the opposite side of the chart from your sun, bringing out your hunger to win and enlarging your natural reserves of anger. Your anger is no joke — to you least of all. While you may enjoy unloading it in the moment through yelling, fighting, or the subtle art of manipulation, it sucks to feel like you can’t control yourself.
Fortunately, the next several weeks provide your inner tiger with ample creative outlets. When a person or situation pisses you off, treat the anger like an energy bonus. Where do you want to channel the steam that's shooting out of your ears? Mars has an affinity with physical activity, so think of what you can do with your body: clean your house, take your dog for a run, help your toddler burn out her endless energy so you can sleep, or pull a double shift. Mars also likes a good challenge, so tackle your responsibilities by starting with the most intimidating and important task.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Leo July 23 to August 22
Your confidence is dampened this week, thanks to a meetup between your ruling planet (the sun) and Chiron, the wounded healer. Chiron likes to bring out insecurities and old hurts so that you can see them for what they are (and maybe even heal them). The sun connecting to Chiron puts your inner 13-year-old in a starring role. Whatever embarrassed you about yourself in secondary school, wherever you felt you didn’t measure up, comes back to haunt you this week, making you crave others’ approval. This kind of self-doubt is a vicious cycle. The more you’re worried about how you come across, the more others distance themselves from you, making you hungrier than ever for their attention.
Tell those secondary school habits to talk to the hand, because you’ve got bigger fish to fry, queen. Stroke the ego of your 13-year-old self by celebrating how adorably awkward and obnoxious you were back then. Flaunt your ridiculousness to entertain yourself, first and foremost. Turn the transit into a game you can win, by giving yourself plenty of applause just for being you.
Meanwhile, your grown-up self has business to attend to, especially at work and on your physical health. Because you’re slightly over-sensitised, do what you can to take others’ attention off your actions. One trick that is as fun as it is effective is to work on projects as a group. Shining your generous light on others’ talents — say, by pointing out to others what a big contribution your shy cubicle-mate made — will build better friendships and make you like yourself more.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Virgo August 23 to September 22
As you well know, Virgo, your plans don’t always go smoothly. Running into problems is a sign you’re working hard and taking on interesting challenges. The next several weeks will require you to progress steadily on your goals and deadlines. There will be time to address the inevitable setbacks, but you can’t afford to waste it by worrying, blaming others, or beating yourself up.
Logical Mercury, your ruling planet, stations retrograde on Thursday. As you’ve likely grudgingly had to admit over the years, Mercury retrograde effects are real — and they get to you (and Geminis) more than anyone else. In general, you can reason your way through the stickiest of situations, including getting yourself out of trouble before you get nailed. Mercury retrograde overloads your brain with too much information and too little perspective. For that reason, it’s a bad, bad idea to cut corners or play the system (at least until May). No matter how clever you think you’re being, you’ll flub a crucial piece of data, or fail to notice someone peeping over your shoulder.
The same goes for even your most above-board behaviour. Mistakes will be made, Virgo. Knowing that, let yourself off the perfectionist hook on the first pass. Write the email before editing it; teach the class and then go back the next day to fill in the crucial lesson you forgot. Because misunderstandings are all but unavoidable, forgive yourself, your co-workers, and partner in advance. You can’t avoid the errors but you can teach yourself to address them in a healthier way.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Libra September 23 to October 22
On behalf of the universe, I apologise, Libra. The next month or so will be low on Netflix binges, dance nights, and those heart-to-hearts you thrive on. It’s truly unfair. And yet, Aries deserves its (incomprehensible) season as much as you deserve yours.
On Thursday, the sun in the sky slips into Aries, the sign directly across the Zodiac from yours. This yearly transit emphasises the benefits of working with others, and even adapting yourself to work in your co-pilot’s style. It’s true that you won’t have as much leisure time as you’d like with your favourite people, but you can still enjoy their company. Over the next four weeks, collaboration gets you farther than going solo. Take any slowdowns or setbacks as a distress signal from your other half. Whether it’s your assigned collaborator on a project, your shift-mate, best friend or spouse, they either need you to support them or try adopting their approach.
On Friday, your ruling planet, rational Venus, gets knocked around by Pluto, the planet that rules your deepest fears. Check your self-interest, especially where you feel you’re the victim of injustice. You may be factually correct, but if you’re ignoring your own power in the situation, you’ll never be able to carve a healthier path. Jealousy, possessiveness, paranoia, and the terror of abandonment are all signs you need a more reliable form of emotional security, like self-love and self-trust.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Scorpio October 23 to November 21
With the movement of your co-ruler, Mars, into Capricorn on the 17th, you’re strategising with an eye toward the future. You’re better able than usual to set aside your immediate feelings and especially any urges toward self-sabotage. Whether your goals are to see personal growth, get a fatter bank account, make progress in your career, create a gut-wrenching work of art, or reach a new level of trust in your relationships, you’re playing nine moves ahead for the next two months.
Not that it’s about winning, of course, but you do have the advantage. Your natural intuition is a reliable compass during Mercury retrograde and unlike the rest of the human species, you know how to direct the raw impulses of Aries season toward what matters most.
On Friday, beautiful Venus collides with your planetary ruler, Pluto. Pluto rules the inner underworld — your deepest insights and darkest fears. When it bumps into Venus, planet of money and love, your fear of losing control surges to the surface. Notice, but be sceptical of, feelings of jealousy, rage, possessiveness, and icy anger. You are a powerful person, but these emotions point to buried insecurities. Delve into the murk within to discover your hidden weakness. Remember, deep connection, personal power, and emotional challenge are your true rewards. Let go of whatever inside you is preventing you from accessing them.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Sagittarius November 22 to December 21
On Tuesday, the sun enters Aries, one of your sign’s closest relatives. As it does every year, the sun in the sky forms a friendly connection to the sun in your birth chart, setting the stage for a period of stable growth and learning.
Your wholehearted approach starts big, gorgeous blazes with the spark of Aries season, especially with Mars in Capricorn helping to keep you focused. There will be a temptation to bite off more than you can chew by gambling too much time, energy, or money on future outcomes that may not amount to much. As Mercury stations retrograde on Thursday, amp up your vetting process for new dates, new friends, new jobs, and new all-consuming projects. Mercury retrograde’s classic miscommunications and delays can make anyone a little frazzled. That’s not a good state of mind for making decisions, as you’ll tend to leap to all-or-nothing conclusions, either getting overexcited or writing off what could be an awesome opportunity.
When your head is clear, you have stellar insight into how the future of a relationship or project will unfold, and whether a situation is worthy of your passion and intelligence. Find quiet moments for your big decisions and move full-speed ahead on what you know is working.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Capricorn December 22 to January 19
If you answered last week’s call for thoughtful planning, you’re ready for the challenges and opportunities on offer. On Saturday, Mars entered your sign, speeding up the pace of your life considerably, filling your schedule and injecting you with the energy, determination, and competitive drive to keep up.
Your inner stability gives you an advantage during this trigger-happy Aries season. Because of the incoming Mercury retrograde, quick reactions lead to mistakes and accidents right now. For the next several months, a thorough and strategic approach comes naturally to you and you should have good instincts about how to pace yourself. With Mars passing over your sun, you may find yourself getting angrier than usual and less able to control your outbursts. The anger likely comes from the feeling of not being fully in control of your own actions. When work and relationships get frustrating, as they inevitably do under Mercury retrograde, avoid pointless drama by pouring your feelings into a creative, self-willed goal that you can control.
Lean on your own patience to remember that what you seek is coming, you just have to put in the work.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Aquarius January 20 to February 18
As the sun enters Aries, it moves out of your second house of money and self-worth and into your third house of communication and writing. Your focus shifts from increasing your bank account balance (or spending its contents) to the minutiae of your social life. All those near-invisible interactions — the old guy you met in line at the DMV, the intriguing cat lady who always waves from across the street, the annoying texts from your big sister — become of central interest. Because you’re taking more time and paying more attention to those small conversations, there’s less time in the day for everything else.
Managing your attention could be a real challenge during the next several weeks. There’s a ton going on and your tendency is to gather as much information as possible before getting down to work or taking advantage of the new beginnings of Aries season. That would be a serious mistake, though, Aquarius. This is one of the most active times of the year. Whatever you put energy into now will bear real results. Let the fire under your butt singe you enough to get out there and take an exciting risk. And once you’ve made a choice, hold yourself to it so you can really enjoy the results when they come.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Pisces February 19 to March 20
Pisces season comes to a close on Tuesday, when the sun enters Aries. Hopefully, the return of the sun to its birth position in your chart has left you centred and at peace in yourself.
Aries season can feel alarmingly noisy after the Piscean dream-time. If you take in too much of others’ anxiety or sink into an Aries-esque phase of self-absorption, you’ll lose that carefully cultivated peace. The good news is you can always find your way back to centre.
This week, hold onto your vision of what you want to cultivate, whether it’s increased compassion, a more passionate love life, or making yourself and your talents more visible to others. Rather than losing yourself in activity until you’re sucked dry, take regular breaks to breathe and clear out the stress. Every time you reconnect with your source, you come back to your tasks with more energy and focus. The key word here is moderation. A gentle, steady rhythm will make tasks that seem overwhelming as manageable as crossing a line off a list.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
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Mix Sunset Boulevard and the life story of Howard Hughes up until it's a song, and I bet you'd get Halsey's new track. I love that her brand has become "international pop star who will disappoint you if you get to know her as a person." It's brilliant persona-building based on only one aspect of Halsey's personality. I can just tell you this: you'll never hear another pop song that makes becoming a pop star sound so unappealing. It's almost unfair that this track also makes it so damn danceable.
Arcade Fire "Money + Love"
After their disastrous and, frankly, agitating launch for this album, I have to admit that I wrote Arcade Fire off. But, they seem to have found the right medium (it was not speaking to the press) by making a short film based around the concepts this album wants to explore: selling out, corporations running everything, the state of the relationship between artist and patron. Probably best to leave their notions about fake news out of it. They got the wonderful Toni Collette to star as the face of the evil empire they imagineered, Everything Now, and I send them kudos for even daring to dream that a woman could leverage power in a multi-national corporation; that's already one step further than the real world is statistically likely to go. This hellish Vegas dream of a video pretty much nails it with condemnations for everything I hate. Perhaps some ideas are too big and textured to be described in sound bites, eh Arcade Fire?
Kash Doll Feat. Natasha Mosley "Serious"
I feel like I should just play this song for 98% of the dudes I go out with from Bumble. It's only the fragment of a song, from Kash Doll's new mixtape, but damn, it's true. It feels like she's building on that SZA vibe of talking about real life and relationships from the woman point of view. If you're looking for an argument that we need more space for women in rap, please direct your attention to this track.
Ruth Koleva "Didn't I"
I am a sucker for a piano ballad, and Ruth Koleva does it one better by layering trumpets over the thing. Oh, and then there's her voice! It's haunting and feminine. I'd like to sing along to this song, but I might as well not even learn the words because I cannot sing that high. Put this one on your taking a bubble bath and chilling playlist.
After my first job at MTV working as a music programmer, I can't stop trying to matchmake people with music they might like. So, I wrote a book calledRecord Collecting for Girlsand started interviewing musicians. The Music Concierge is a column where I share music I'm listening to that you might enjoy, with a little context. Follow me on Twitter or Facebook, or leave me a comment below and tell me what you're listening to this week.
Falling in love is great, right? The rush of dopamine in your brain, the quickening of your heart, the lingering of your thoughts on one person. It’s one of our favourite things about being human – just look at the rate we produce books, songs, TV shows and movies on the subject. Perhaps we should blame Rachel McAdams or Hugh Grant for our preoccupation with love; perhaps it’s always been this way. Not to take any of the romance out of romance, but wouldn’t it be satisfying if we could find a formula for love? Something to help us navigate the rushing madness of the emotion?
Well, new research has pinpointed how long it takes most of us to fall in love, which at least gives us a little bit of a timeline to work with. According to Gala Bingo, 43% of British people take three months to fall in love. Sixty-three percent say it takes six months to feel completely in love. One in three people say it took them six months to say “I love you” out loud to someone they adore and 16% of people refused to say it first, instead waiting until their beloved uttered those three words.
So, really, we’re looking at a period of three to six months for the love thing to happen. Generally speaking, that is. Love is a fickle, beautiful thing and everyone’s different, so of course it can happen sooner or later than that.
It is true of my relationship, though. My boyfriend and I kept saying “I like you” for the first few months – over wine, brushing our teeth together, at spontaneous junctures in conversations. Then, almost exactly three months in, we went ahead and said “I love you”. It was in bed, there were tears involved. So these stats ring true to me, even when I look back at previous relationships. But what about other couples? How soon do other people say “I love you” and if I speak to enough people, will I prove, at least anecdotally, that this timeline might be correct?
It was completely delightful, obviously, to ask people about the moment they fell in love. It was also surprisingly hilarious: as it turns out, very few of us are suave when it comes to this incredibly vulnerable declaration of affection. Charlotte, for instance, accidentally told her boyfriend three months into their relationship – only she was drunk and she got embarrassed about saying it first so she covered it up by pretending she meant to say “I love Ed Sheeran”. They’d been friends for seven years before they got together so maybe that made the love thing even harder to declare.
“I think Ed Sheeran was playing at the time,” she says. “Maybe I meant to say I love Ed Sheeran but I said ‘I love you’. I don’t know. It was a mess.”
She also promptly forgot about the whole thing, so when he told her he loved her, she thought it was the first time either one of them had said it. She got “hysterical” and texted all her friends when he went to the loo. For months, she thought he was the one to say it first, until he reminded her of the Ed Sheeran mishap.
Turns out alcohol is often pretty influential in the old “I love you” exchange. Hazel and her boyfriend Matt reached the four-month mark of their relationship when he drunkenly told her he loved her. The next morning, she was hungover enough to be confused about whether he’d actually said it or not so didn’t risk saying it herself. “I was 90% sure that he had said it, but obviously didn’t want to ask and ruin that nice moment. So I had to wait until it was said again just to double check. It was thankfully said again that evening but that was a nervous 12 hours.”
Photo: Megan Madden
For Sophie and her boyfriend Tom, the love proclamation happened five months in – on holiday with his parents. “Oh my god I know how intense that sounds but it was lovely. They were not present when he said it…” she says. Sophie had been actually feeling love for two months before that moment and had nearly said it multiple times but chickened out. Mostly she felt it when he did something like make her a cup of tea without asking – little gestures of cuteness that were arguably his way of saying “I love you” without words. When he did say it, her reply was “Pardon?” because she wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. He repeated himself and then of course, she said it right back. Smooth.
Hannah’s been dating her boyfriend for a full decade now, but their “I love you” moment came clumsily in the hallway at a hostel they were both staying at, before they could even properly say they were in a relationship. Em and Nic said it after four months, when they’d started noticing how comfortable and safe they felt in each other’s arms, watching Netflix and just hanging out. Rosie’s girlfriend waited three weeks before she said “I love fucking you…”, waited for a positive facial expression in return and then said “and I fucking love you”. Tegan’s boyfriend told her three weeks in and she waited 'til she was “hysterically drunk” at three months to say it back. Laura and her boyfriend Kyle waited six months to say “I love you” and they did it at sunset in Hawaii, like stars of their own rom-com.
So it’s pretty common to say “I love you” between three and six months into going out with someone. Equally, it’s pretty standard to do it drunk, nervous, hungover, whispered or, if you’re really strategic about it, as the sun sets. Love is sweet – and fabulously imperfect.
"It feels like there’s a little demon inside me that’s wringing my insides and trying to crawl out," Jenny Oh, a Manhattan-based retail worker, says of her endometriosis pain. She’s not the only one to put it this way. Camellia Hartman, a musician living in Brooklyn, who also suffers from endometriosis, echoes, "I live in this sort of fear that the demon that chases me is going to finally catch up to me."
Despite affecting one in 10 people worldwide, endometriosis is an oft-misunderstood condition that’s only recently been brought into the public sphere thanks to celebrities like Lena Dunham, Julianne Hough, and Padma Lakshmi, who have opened up about their own personal suffering.
The condition occurs when tissue that normally lines the inside of the uterus grows on the outside instead. Said tissue acts as it normally would (breaking down and bleeding during every menstrual cycle), but it has no way to leave the body. This can cause severe pelvic pain (normally during one’s period but also during intercourse and ovulation), as well as a myriad of other symptoms like nausea, vomiting, and fatigue. For some, endometriosis can lead to difficulty with pregnancy. But the pain also operates on a spectrum — some people who have endometriosis feel very little pain and may not even know they have it.
Because it can be hard to diagnose, many endometriosis sufferers are frequently misdiagnosed or have their symptoms dismissed — even by medical professionals.
What’s spoken about even less is the fact that many women with endometriosis have chosen to fight back against the pain (and the doubt cast upon them) by empowering other women who suffer from the condition — many referring to fellow sufferers as their "endo sisters."
To find out more about what living with endometriosis really looks like, Refinery29 sat down with three women who have the condition, each of whom sees herself as an advocate for change when it comes to the way we speak about and understand endometriosis. In addition to opening up about their individual struggles, all three women showed us the unique objects that bring them a sense of comfort and empowerment.
Camellia Hartman, 23
Camellia is a New York native who lives in Brooklyn and works as a musician/freelancer.
Can you talk me through your history with endometriosis? "I got my period for the first time at age 13. A couple months later, I was having extremely violent reactions to it. My mom was like, 'Welcome to womanhood! This is what happens.' But I was experiencing extreme vomiting, and I’d never heard of any of my friends experiencing that, so I was suspicious early on. I sang in a choir at the time, and I’d have to leave because I was going to throw up. It was a major interruption in my life from the beginning."
When did you decide to go to a doctor? "Every time I went to my paediatrician, I’d mention the pain and was told do yoga or go on birth control. But I knew something was wrong. I got comfortable talking about my period at a young age because I’d ask everyone, 'What is your experience? Why is mine different?' All my friends knew that if I had cramps, shortly after I’d be over a toilet — it became my routine.
"One day, when I was 19, I went into a sort of delirium from the vomiting and nausea. At that point, I decided to do my own research. I read an article about conditions that cause painful periods, and PCOS [polycystic ovary syndrome] and endometriosis were listed; I sort of self-diagnosed my endo. After that, I went to my first gyno appointment and told her I thought I had it. She said, 'I have other patients who suffer much more than you do — I don’t think you have endometriosis,' without examining me or asking anything about what I had gone through. It was incredibly demoralising and infuriating — especially after years of people telling me I was being overdramatic.
"After an extreme episode that led me to the ER, I made an appointment to see the lead endometriosis specialist in NYC. At that point, I finally felt like I was talking to someone who was listening to me. Technically you can’t make an official diagnosis until the tissue is cut out, but after one examination, he said, 'I’m 99% sure you have endometriosis.'"
What does the pain feel like? Is it different every time? "I have five-week cycles, basically. Sometimes they're 29 days, sometimes they're 37. I know it’s coming when I start to feel pain in my lower body — it feels like my hips and my legs are made of cement, or like that part of my body is rotting. That makes it a lot harder to move around, so I have fatigue, and often my immune system starts to weaken. I have two-week windows of PMS symptoms. When I get my 'cement hips,' it’s still usually another two weeks until I start menstruation.
"I get hot flashes, too, and the next phase is usually vomiting. When I start feeling queasy and hot, I try to go home as soon as possible. Since I’ve become so comfortable talking about endometriosis, there are very few people in my life that will question that.
"Several times in my late teens, before I knew what was going on, I really thought I was dying. And two of the times I’ve been hospitalised for it I really felt that way. That’s a really crazy thing to experience at a young age — the total loss of control of your body in a consistent way. Your whole life is on hold; it’s a cycle that really controls your life. I’m lucky as a musician and freelancer that I can create my own schedule most of the time. But I made those decisions in my career path because I knew that I have this thing attached to me and probably always will."
What items bring you a sense of comfort or in some way serve as a representation of your endo? "The mug with my name on it is emblematic of the safety and comfort I associate with home: the number one place I go when the pain strikes. And my Carnelian stone travels with me during times of endo-induced pain — it represents balance and vitality. Grabbing it in acute moments of cramping or anxiety helps ground me and reminds me that the moment will pass. Finally, I’ve been playing violin for almost twice as long as I’ve suffered from endometriosis, but they carry almost equivalent weight in my life. They share a body and a spirit, and both are so inextricably tied to my identity that it’s actually difficult to imagine life without either."
Do you think the growing discussion about endo — largely fueled by people in the public eye who are opening up about their own personal experiences — is going to bring some much-needed awareness to the condition? "It’s quite alarming how many people in my life have heard me talk about my experience and sort of acknowledged it but haven’t really validated it until reading the accounts of celebrities who have spoken out about it. And I don’t hold that against any of my friends at all. People always send me the articles as they come out, and when I see them, I start crying. It’s such a unique kind of pain, and I think it’s really important for people to feel a sense of community. I’m very lucky; I have two close friends who struggle with endometriosis, and we rely on each other so much — they’re my endo sisters."
What are some key things most people still don’t realize about endometriosis? "Probably the degree of pain that it can cause. There are women with intense periods that don’t have any conditions, and there are women who live with endo but don’t know until later in life because their symptoms are mild. I think for an outsider, it’s sort of hard to make sense of that spectrum. And it takes me saying, 'Yeah, I deliriously vomit over my toilet uncontrollably once a month,' for it to sort of sink in. Obviously that’s not information I want to be sharing, but I sort of figured out how to talk about it in a way that will make sense to other people.
"I feel like it’s partially my duty to help empower other women. I hope that my openness and comfort level of speaking about this will help other people get to that point themselves. Until I have a platform to do that on a larger scale, I do what I can in my immediate community."
What do you think is the overarching danger in dismissing young people’s pain or telling them they’re being "dramatic"? "Teenagers are so, so fragile in every way — their brains are evolving along with their bodies in ways they don’t understand. To be told that you’re 'crazy' at a time when everything is confusing and new can have very real, toxic, long-term effects. To make someone question their own understanding of their body at such a young age when they’re most likely already questioning it, to tell them their pain isn’t real or isn’t valid...it just seems glaringly obvious why this should be a serious concern in conversations surrounding physical and mental health.
"My adopted mantra is, 'Nobody knows your body better than yourself.' I always knew something was wrong inside of me. I never let go of that truth. My experience has made me a much more empathetic person in general. Endometriosis is known as an 'invisible illness,' and the invisibility of my own pain has helped me to see the pain in others."
Jenny Oh, 37
Jenny is an L.A.-born retail employee who lives in Downtown Manhattan and paints in her free time.
What does endometriosis pain feel like for you? "I’m one of those [endo sufferers] that thought what I was feeling was normal. I was diagnosed three years ago, at 34, though the pain began when I got my period at 13. Because it’s all inside, nothing is visible — even to me — so it’s very hard to explain the kind of pain that I experience.
"Sometimes the pain gets so severe I get brain fog, and I can’t speak so articulately. I’ve also fainted. I have a lot of anxiety because of the pain. It comes in waves, so sometimes I feel it coming and I know I’m screwed because I didn’t take any pain medication in advance. I usually go home at that point, or sometimes at work they’ll let me lie down under the desk. I had to change my career to something that I know I can manage without so much pain and stress."
When you first started feeling this, what made you decide to go to the doctor and figure out what it was? "I was experiencing pain for four days straight. I thought it was indigestion or gas. After four days of complete, utter pain and trying everything over-the-counter to appease it, I had to rush into urgent care. And that’s when they advised me to see an Ob/Gyn, who told me I had a 9-millimetre cyst that was tilting my uterus backwards, compromising my bladder, and all this pain and heaviness was not normal."
How do you allow yourself to feel comforted when you have severe pain? "I tend to isolate myself when the pain comes. I think it’s really hard to show that side of pain to anybody and to show that kind of vulnerability. I rescued a senior dog, and he brings me a lot of comfort and gives me another focus. But it’s really my art that I use to channel all my pain and worries and anxieties. I call it 'human awareness,' or 'body awareness.' It’s mostly sketches, watercolour, acrylic paint, even collages. Any way for me to express myself and what I’ve been going through and to become more aware of my body. This whole experience has really empowered me, even though I’m still going through so many rough patches of it.
"I try to keep a positive outlook, because that’s the person that everybody remembers me as and not this worrisome, pain-induced girl. I haven’t cut my hair since my diagnosis, and the thing is, I look fine on the outside; I get stopped by people that say, 'Your style is so cool,' but seriously, I’m faking it ‘til I can become it."
Do you meet with other women that have endometriosis? "I’ve met with this group in San Diego — they’re my endo sisters. I’ve also helped some of my coworkers notice the symptoms early on. I know I don’t want to be my disease, but I know that I have to be an advocate for it. That’s why I participate in focus groups and studies.
"I don’t care if other people say, 'You talk so much about this on your social media, your artwork is so depressing.' Because this is the way that I’m telling my story. If you don’t want to hear it, you can unfollow me. It’s not that big of a deal. I will always and forever be a voice for all the people that suffer from endo."
What do you hope the future looks like for people who suffer from endometriosis? "We still don’t think about others. We don’t think about others suffering. I hope that kids are able to go to the nurses' offices in their schools and be able to freely express their pain and for nurses and teachers — because it’s such a sensitive, personal subject — to be more empathetic. This condition affects one in 10 women. And nobody sees it. I pray every day that there will be an award-winning film role showing someone with endo. This is a human issue, just as much as lupus or any autoimmune disease or prostate cancer."
Alice Odhiambo, 29
Kenyan-born (now Brooklyn-based) Alice is a social-media specialist for a nondenominational church.
When were you diagnosed with endometriosis? "My journey is interesting. I got my period when I was 13, and it was never normal. One month, I’d bleed for like a week straight; the next month I’d bleed for two weeks. It got to the point where I’d have my period for full two months. It was heavy bleeding, too. And then it would completely go away for a few months. I started suffering from anemia, and one of the side effects of that is fatigue. I was playing a lot of sports at the time and was always passing out. One time after I passed out and went to the hospital, they started looking into my period and diagnosed me with endometriosis. By the time they realised that, I was 16. But I didn’t start having the major symptoms until 10 years later, at 26."
What did that pain feel like, when it came 10 years later? "The best way to describe it is it felt like there was a battle happening inside of me. It felt like getting stabbed from the inside with a blunt object. And it was constant. Even today, when I get the pain, it’s almost impossible to sit up — I have to curl myself into a ball and rock myself until pain medicine kicks in. You don’t have any warning that it’s going to come. In my case, every month is different. Sometimes I get the symptoms before my period, sometimes it’s when my period arrives, other times it’s after my period. Occasionally it’s all three. There are times when for a full month I’m just living in constant pain. It’s like living in a world of the unknown, and it’s mentally taxing, because you don’t really know how to prepare."
What brings you comfort when you’re in pain? "Tea helps me a lot, as do heating pads. There’s also a couple of mugs that I have in my office and home that I use all the time, and all of them have some form of scripture on them. That really helps, because scripture is something that has gotten me through a lot of things. And talking to my mom — even though she’s all the way in Kenya."
What have you learned about yourself in the process of dealing with endometriosis? "It doesn’t matter how strong you think you are, sometimes the pain will knock you off your feet. And as much as I want to be an independent, strong woman, when I do have an episode, I can’t always be that. I rely on friends, some coworkers, and my faith. I’m all about being empowered, but I think on top of empowerment you still sometimes need support. Even if it’s someone saying 'I’ll bring you a tea' — when you can’t move, that means so much."
Do you have any personal methods of staying empowered and not letting endo define you? "My favourite bible verse is Philippians 4:13, which says, 'I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.' So when I do have an episode, it’s like, Okay, [endo] is something that I have, but it’s not me. Me having endometriosis is like me being a woman from Kenya or me having long hair — it does not define who I am. I refuse to let it be my crutch, and I will do everything I possibly can to get past it."
Are there things people still don’t realize — or understand — about endo? "Most people don’t know how bad the pain can be, how crippling it makes you feel, and that when that pain kicks in, it really feels like you cannot do anything. I wish [those of us with endo] didn’t have to use sick days and were just granted the opportunity to work at home [when we’re in pain]. You find ways to get your work done; even if I can’t sit up, I can still lie on my bed and work. I shouldn’t be penalised for that. Because if you’re using your sick days for the flu, and you still have endo, what happens?
"I also don’t want any of my employers to ever look at me and say, 'That’s the girl that has endometriosis.' I just want more people to know about this and be open to having a conversation about it. I bet there’s a lot of people who will read this and wonder how many of their family members or friends are silently suffering from this, because it’s not spoken about. And there’s so many women that probably have endometriosis and haven’t been diagnosed, too."
These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.
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Interior design is tricky to get right. For many of us, living in rented accommodation means having to decorate around what's already in the room. This means that if some genius from yesteryear decided to put a sink in your living room then my goodness, you're just going to have to incorporate it as a coffee table or something.
If you own your own home and have free rein on how the decorating process unfolds, you'd better make sure your aesthetics are up to scratch. Because there's a new Instagram account out there and its mission is to showcase the biggest design disasters around.
In all honesty, you would have to go really left-field in order to end up on @pleasehatethesethings – the featured rooms have to be seen to be believed (toilet throne, anyone?). In fact, some of the rooms are so wild that there's a slim chance they might actually be fabulous.
Click through to pass your verdict.
The curtains on the wall say "operating theatre" while the furry carpeting screams "muppet massacre". It's a complicated set of themes to marry up and while this person hasn't quite managed it, everyone involved gets 10/10 for effort.
Is it going too far to say that this wallpaper, minus the matching sink and taps, is not the worst thing in the world? Chintz is back and, save for the padded hamper and hellish lighting, this might just be a fine example.
Some people might deal with a too-bright overhead light by purchasing a dimmer bulb; others choose to erect a parasol and make summer last all year round. There might be snow on the ground outside, but it's piña colada time in here.
If eating off-brand cereal from a semi-clean bowl every morning is not where you want to be in life, consider installing a wildly ostentatious chandelier in your too-small kitchen to show everyone that, contrary to popular opinion, you are in fact very fancy indeed.
So was the dinosaur a hunting trophy too, or...?
This look outside, minus the bear? Very Don Draper during the California years. Marvellous. As your living room, though, it's more Roger Sterling mid-LSD trip.
"No man is an island. Except me. Because I sleep on one."
What did the goldfish do to deserve this?
Sex and the City has a lot to answer for: unrealistic expectations about sex, a generation of women's erratic behaviour in relationships, and an ongoing fetishisation of shoes. Stay safe, go barefoot.
Absolutely not.
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The deadline for big companies to make public the gender pay gaps in their organisations is just around the corner – 30th March for public sector organisations and 4th April for businesses and charities. The publication of these figures is a huge move, intended to help bridge the gulf between what men and women are paid in the UK, often for work that's the same or of equal value.
The legislation – which requires companies with more than 250 employees to reveal their average pay for men and women, including bonuses, and gives them the option to explain themselves and detail how they're tackling the gap (if at all) – came about after campaigning by feminist charity the Fawcett Society, which hailed it "the best opportunity in a generation to close the gender pay gap."
Many people had high hopes for the legislation – but it's far from foolproof and, in news that will make your blood boil, it's been revealed that many companies are looking to dishonestly skew the figures in their gender pay gap data by exploiting legal loopholes.
In a Channel 4 investigation, The Truth About Your Pay: Channel 4 Dispatches, airing tonight, reporters posed as a fake cleaning company with 264 employees. They asked specialist consultants offering advice on gender pay gap issues how they could report a more favourable picture of pay inequality within their company – and, infuriatingly, there were often several legal, if morally outrageous, ways to do this.
One advisor told the reporters there were "various um scurrilous, clever legal ruses" available
How companies could hide their gender pay gaps
• Splitting the company so that the highest male earners' salaries are reported separately under a subsidiary organisation One advisor told the reporters there were "various um scurrilous, clever legal ruses" available to exploit. "I mean there’s even potentially options of do you set up a subsidiary, a parent company, and stick all your highly paid bosses in that…So that they get out of the picture."
• Withholding details of directors’ pay if they are also classed as owners of a company In a conversation about whether company directors' pay needs to be disclosed, one advisor said there could be "a way of taking the directors, who I presume are owners as well? …Out of [the pay gap calculations]…" as some other organisations already had done. "Now it is a moot point as to whether or not that is strictly in compliance with er, what the regulations say but you could structure it on that basis and we know other organisations that have done that," the advisor added.
• Making people redundant so they would no longer have to submit their gender pay figures Yes, you read that correctly. The reporters were told they "might want to make a couple redundant" before next year’s reporting window. "So say you have 251 employees we might suggest that you might want to make a couple redundant," the advisor said.
(Josephine Van Lierop, a senior employment lawyer specialising in the gender pay gap regulations, told Channel 4 that while this was not a breach of the gender pay reporting regulations, the unfairly dismissed employees would likely be able to make an unfair dismissal claim.)
• By simply not reporting their gender pay figures at all Another advisor told the reporters that there may be little or no consequences for companies that don't make their figures public. "As of today, right now, there is no direct enforcement mechanism. So, in other words, if you didn’t publish anything at all, are you ever going to get, as of today, a fine or anything? No," they said. "Because in terms of the resources that has been put into policing this. It’s zero because there was no enforcement mechanism."
What's more, most companies have left their reporting to the last minute, with just 26% (2,360) of the 9,000 companies required to submit their gender pay gap figures by the 4th April deadline having done so at the time of writing. Based on data from those who have submitted already, there is an 18.4% hourly pay gap between men and women.
Van Lierop said the loopholes undermine the reason the gender pay gap reporting legislation was implemented in the first place – to look not just at the number "but look at why they have that figures and what are the causes of the gender pay gap within their organisation."
She added: “If companies take the approach where they are looking to minimise or artificially represent their gender pay gap then that’s not going to give us the kind of buy-in that we need in order to have real progress for our gender pay gap.”
The body responsible for ensuring employers publish their gender pay gap, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said in response to the investigation that "employers that do not comply will risk facing legal action from the Equality and Human Rights Commission."
Rebecca Hilsenrath, the EHRC's chief executive, continued: “Employers seeking to avoid reporting their gender pay gap data are ignoring the advantages of creating a fairer workplace, both for individual employees and for their wider business. Equality pays: estimates show that bridging the gender gap in work could add £150 billion to the UK economy by 2025.
“Those businesses that not only report their data but go beyond the mandatory requirements, for example by publishing an action plan on closing the pay gap, will benefit in the long term.”
The Truth About Your Pay: Channel 4 Dispatches airs on Monday 19th March at 8pm on Channel 4.
Japan may be the beauty industry's go-to destination for skincare right now but Korean beauty is still riding high, leading the way with its innovative and experimental products.
Whether you fell head over heels for cushion compacts and their easy coverage application, or have added essences to your routine thanks to the plethora of hydrating and fast-absorbing water-cum-serum treatments coming out of Korea, chances are you'll be thrilled with news of J.One's Jelly Pack dropping in the UK.
US beauty giant Sephora's bestselling product, J.One Jelly Pack is now available at Cult Beauty, Selfridges and Feel Unique, meaning UK fanatics need not make a beauty pilgrimage to Korea to get their hands on it. What's the deal, then? Created by Korean actress Ha Ji-won in a bid to reduce her lengthy morning skincare ritual, Jelly Pack fast became the staple of working SoKo women due to its 3-in-1 priming, hydrating and masking properties.
The gel formula liquefies on the skin, and only two to three pumps are needed in the morning (after cleansing) to prep skin for makeup. Not just a primer, fragmented hyaluronic acid penetrates pores with hydration, while fullerene (the discovery of which won a Nobel Prize) protects against environmental onslaught – a skin aggravator as prevalent in Korea as it is in London. Collagen-boosting peptides keep skin looking plump and firm rather than matted, too. The product can be used alone or under makeup, and the sister formula – Black Jelly Pack – is a wonderful overnight mask treatment containing black truffle, black cumin, black pearl and black propolis to hydrate and smooth.
If you still don't believe the hype, the stats speak for themselves: 5 million units were sold over just three shows on a Korean shopping channel, and globally, one Jelly Pack sells every 60 seconds. Just a tip from the many reviews we've read: Rather than patting it onto the skin, it's best to smooth up and around, targeting the T-zone first and cheeks afterwards.
With spring (hopefully) around the corner, we're looking to streamline our skincare regime, and this nifty little cult hit from the world of K-beauty will slide nicely onto our bathroom shelf.
“People take things way too seriously,” says Nikki Nelms, one of Hollywood’s most in-demand hairstylists, who laughs as she affixes an insect pin to the top of a model’s impressive curls. “Like, ‘Oh, this orange butterfly is so symbolic because blah blah blah. No! I just put it up here because it looks good. I’m about vibes.”
That’s Nelms’ technique in a nutshell. You’d think that the genius behind the headline-making textured looks seen on Zoë Kravitz, Janelle Monáe, and Kelly Rowland would be all about making a statement — but her approach is actually more radical because of her refusal to make a big deal about it.
“It’s literally our hair!” Nelms says. “If you think that texture is a trend, then you’re late to the party. It’s been a thing. It’s OUR thing. You wouldn’t praise someone like Kate Moss for wearing her blonde hair in a bun. So why is it shocking when we play with ours?”
The keyword here is play. We invited Nelms, who is known for her whimsical and effervescent approach to styling, to dream up eight fresh spring hairstyles using natural hair as her canvas. Paired with the season’s biggest fashion resurgence, turtlenecks, these looks stand the test of time.
Fluttery Faux Bob Nelms might not find symbolism in these butterflies, but she will spill the inspiration. “This is definitely a vibe you’d see Diana Ross do in the ‘70s, and compared with the messy curls, it’s another throwback-meets-today moment,” she says.
Kristina already has perfect spirals, so it wasn’t necessary to use any kind of definer – just a really good leave-in conditioner. Nelms did want to give her a shorter look, though, and faked a cut on Kristina with pins. She left out strategically-placed sections to create “branches” for the butterflies, which she purchased from the craft store and glued on pins.
Marc Jacobs turtleneck; Marc Jacobs Oversize Long Sleeve Cardigan in Pink, available at Marc Jacobs; Marc Jacobs Elastic Waist Culotte in Pink, available at Marc Jacobs; Poppy Lissiman Crystal Beth Sunglasses in Yellow, available at Poppy Lissiman.
Inverted Triangle Halo For this look, Nelms saw Chavi’s sunglasses as a modern-day crown, and decided to create a hairstyle inspired by royalty.
Nelms grabbed a handful of bobby pins — heads up, you’ll want to gather a lot of them — and began to flatten the centre of Chavi’s fro, layering them criss-cross style so the hair laid flat in a circle. If you’re having trouble controlling your curls or coils, try blowing out those pieces so that they’re a little bit smoother, Nelms suggests. To get that triangular shape, Nelms used an Afro pick to pull the bottom sections upward.
Prada Printed Sable Top with Feathers in Powder Pink+Petal Pink+Silver, available at Prada; Prada Printed Sable Pants in Powder Pink+Silver, available at Prada; Prada Two-Tone Leather Slingbacks in Chalk White+Black, available at Prada; Hannah Jewett Rude Earrings, available at Hannah Jewett.
Corset Twists “This is more of a medieval feel,” Nelms says of this look, citing Game of Thrones as a reference. Obviously, Zora’s got amazing hair, and Nelms didn’t want to alter her curls too much.
Zora was already washed and blow dried, so Nelms misted a bit of leave-in spray all over, scrunching it in so that the curls would be tighter closer to roots. Then, she created two flat twists side-by-side from the front of her hairline to the middle of her head, and used a needle and a silver string to stitch them together like a corset.
Mary Katrantzou Petunia Dress in Paint by Numbers Saturated, available at Mary Katrantzou; Mary Katrantzou turtleneck; HYGGE Väri Watch in Sunset Orange, Ocean Blue, and Forest Green, available at HYGGE.
Hair-rings There were plenty of fun accessories to pull from, but none of them resonated with Nelms as much as these beaded plaits, which ended up doubling as earrings. The accessories hold special meaning to the stylist. “The same beads that everyone loved in the Solange video are the ones that Venus and Serena got teased for when they wore them on the court,” she says.
Nelms set aside two, one-inch pieces from Jewellianna's hairline (to later create the braids) and scooped the rest of her hair into a high ponytail. She misted a little bit of strong-hold hairspray all over the tail, and then picked at it with a comb so it would stick straight up like a cloud. She pulled out a couple pieces, weaved them into braids, and looped them from the base to the top.
Once she was satisfied with the updo, Nelms created a shoulder-length cornrow on each side of Jewellianna's head, stringing a few beads towards the end of each braid. Turning these braids into “earrings” was relatively simple — she just clipped the tail of the plaits right above the ears with bobby pins. Bonus points if you match the plastic beads to your makeup look, like Jewellianna did here.
Acne Studios suit; JoosTricot Solid Peach Skin Turtleneck in Club Green, available at JoosTricot; Sonia Rykiel Venus Brooch, available at Sonia Rykiel.
Negative Space ‘Fro The fastest way to upgrade your Afro, Nelms says, is with certain angles, shapes, and modern trinkets. “That pushes your hair from the ‘70s to the future,” she says.
To start, Nelms stretched medium-sized sections of Chavi’s hair out as far as possible by running a dryer (on the coolest setting) from roots to tips. Once she had a little more length to work with, she made a deep centre part and grabbed a small chunk from her hairline to create a cornrow that ended just above her ear.
Once she finished the braided part, Nelms took two pieces of stiff cardboard and clipped them to the hair on either side of Chavi’s braid to create the “negative space." She misted the cardboard with Pump It Up, the classic styling spray, until it was damp and then let the hair set. After two minutes, she removed the cardboard and smoothed the sides and edges with a bit of styling wax (Nelms reccommends the Tancho Tique Stick). She then used an Afro pick to further perfect and mold the rounded shape.
NARS Eye Paint in Solomon Islands, available at NARS
Pony Puffs When Nelms pulled out a huge bag of pom-poms, it was an instant throwback. “These were the same kind that I wore on the back of my socks when I was a kid,” she explains. If you, too, are feeling nostalgic, then grab a glue gun to tack the pom-poms to the top of a U-shaped pin. Or if you’re not in the arts and crafts mood, you can always just hit up Etsy.
To start, Nelms sectioned off some hair from Zora’s part and gathered the rest into a high ponytail with an elastic. She separated the tail in two and twisted each piece in opposite directions while wrapping them over each other to form a giant two-strand twist. She took the sectioned-off hair and smoothed it down and under the tail for an elegant side part. Next came the puffs — add as many or as few as you like, depending on your style.
Floral French Roll If this style looks old school, that was Nelms’ intention. “I always look at old pictures of my aunts and my mother,” Nelms explains. “It’s where a lot of my inspiration comes from. They were super stylish and cute, and I try to recreate things they did. I even call them for tips, like to see which direction they curled their hair.”
Nelms started by blow drying Jewellianna's hair as straight as possible without removing too much of her natural texture. Once her curls were prepped, Nelms parted her hair into two sections and then carefully rolled each section up, pinning them around the head at ear level. (Pro tip: Grab a can of hairspray and roll the hair around it, sliding it out at the end to get that hollow shape.) To ensure that the hair didn’t fall, Nelms stuck a few more U-shaped pins into the base and “froze” the look with more Pump It Up.
Wolford Viscose Pullover Turtleneck in White, available at Wolford; Self-Portrait Candy Stripe Jacket, available at Self-Portrait; Jennifer Fisher earrings; Julie Thevenot Contre Forme Series #6 Earring, available at Julie Thevenot.
Fashion Frizz In a way, this style, along with the others, are a giant fuck you to the schoolyard bullies and snooty critics who considered cornrows "ghetto" and naps a no-no. Instead of trying to smooth out her kinks, Nelms used Kristina’s frizz as her inspiration — a theme Nelms recreates over and over again in her work.
“Everything doesn’t always have to be so precise,” Nelms explained to me, right before pulling out a few of Kristina’s pinned-back curls before she stepped in front of the camera. “And what’s funny is that this look is so effortless, but beautiful. That’s just how our curls work… ‘cause we’re magical like that.”
Cambridge Analytica, a voter profiling company with a link to Donald Trump’s campaign, collected private information from over 50 million Facebook users without their permission,The New York Times reported on Saturday. While the information wasn’t stolen, it was gathered via an app that asked for consent before accessing user data, the information was being used for a purpose that wasn’t transparently disclosed to the users. They had been told it was for “academic purposes,” but the Facebook data was sold to Cambridge Analytica, a foreign company funded by right-wing billionaire and Trump donor Robert Mercer, and then used to create psychographics or demographics that help in targeting voters.
Paul Grewal, Facebook’s vice president and deputy general counsel, told the Times that “this was a scam — and a fraud” since the social media site was also unaware that information had been sold to a third party, which is against Facebook’s Terms of Service. “Protecting people’s information is at the heart of everything we do,” Grewal stated. “No systems were infiltrated, and no passwords or sensitive pieces of information were stolen or hacked.” Nonetheless, Grewal said that “it’s a serious abuse of our rules” and Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica’s account. According to the Times, the Facebook data that was stolen included “details on users’ identities, friend networks and ‘likes.’” In a statement, Facebook said they requested that Cambridge Analytica and Dr. Aleksandr Kogan, who created the app, delete the data. The NY Times reported that the data still exists, unprotected, on Cambridge servers. In a series of tweets, Cambridge Analytica claims they complied with Facebook's request.
That might not seem like very much information, but those small details help political strategists in big ways. Vox points out that in a 2016 speech Alexander Nix, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica, whose board included members like Steve Bannon, explained how this information could help politicians. “If you know the personality of the people you’re targeting,” Nix said, “you can nuance your messaging to resonate more effectively with those key groups.”
Specifically, psychographic data could help specific politicians by, for example, informing them that a certain part of the country is very interested in infrastructure, so they create more Facebook ads on the topic to target that audience. The candidate might even hop on a plane and give a speech about infrastructure in that town. It’s something the Trump campaign did throughout the 2016 election, which is why Special Counsel Robert Mueller has asked Cambridge Analytica to turn over internal documents. Though Kogan, who mined the Facebook data and fraudulently sold it to Cambridge Analytica, is Russian-American, Vox reports that as of now, “no definitive evidence has emerged that connects Cambridge Analytica and the Trump campaign to Russia’s efforts to influence our election.”
These revelations beg the question: Are expertly targeted social media ads the new normal when it comes to elections? Casey Lynn Fiesler, an assistant professor of information science at University of Colorado in Boulder, confirmed in a phone interview with Refinery29 that this is something we can expect to see more of in the future. Advertising has long been using psychographics, which Fiesler says is “attitudes or psychological criteria” that can be inferred from what you’re doing to sell products. Facebook has also been using your “likes” to target ads. “[Facebook] is very transparent about doing this,” she says. “You can go into your ad preferences and see how they’re categorising you.” The categories are based on things like what pages you like and what ads you click on. Fiesler says that Facebook knows she’s a knitter and likes Star Trek, and sends her ads based on those preferences.
The problem here says Fiesler, whose focus is on research ethics, is context. People expect that Facebook will use their data to create ads, but not to help a political candidate win. Fiesler says what Cambridge Analytica did was an “expectation violation.” People are willing to allow access to their Facebook data “so they can take a quiz and find out what Game of Thrones character they are,” knowing the company behind the quiz is mining their data and that of their Facebook friends for advertising purposes. But in the case of Cambridge Analytica, which got its information second-hand from an app created by Kogan, who in turn got access with Facebook’s permission, there was a sense of safety. “I think it’s safe to say that if people were told truthfully what it was for,” Fiesler said of the data being used for political gain, “people would have cared.”
If it’s true, as Facebook claims, that the social media conglomerate was lied to by Kogan about the purpose of his research, Fiesler said it’s hard to place too much blame on Facebook. There’s the question of how much ethical responsibility Facebook has to its users, but when someone else breaks the rules, it complicates the conversation. “Can we expect people to follow the rules?” Fiesler asks. “Or should a platform being doing something more serious to make sure rules are followed?”
After asking this, though, Fiesler says that there is actually a more important conversation that needs to be had after the Cambridge Analytica story. It’s an even more complicated one about media literacy. “Saying this is a technological problem is too simplistic,” Fiesler says. “Facebook can come up with rules and algorithms that will detect fake news and flag it. You can put a Band-Aid on it, but it’s not going to fix the underlying problem, why are people creating it? Why are people sharing it? Why are people believing it?”
These are really hard problems to solve, which is why it’s simpler to blame Facebook. The problem is that targeting voters on social media is going to continue to happen in politics and it’s only going to get more advanced. It’s hard to stop psychographic advertising with rules and regulations, which is why the public has to learn how to identify it. Facebook can and should help in the process, but, ultimately it’s up to its users to learn how to detect it on their own.
It won’t be easy, but Fiesler says the public needs to start thinking of “more social solutions than tech solutions” to solve this problem and it starts with being more protective of our personal data. “Think before you give access to your entire Facebook profile to an app so that you can find out what Game Of Thrones character you are,” she says. “Not just for yourself, but for your friends, too.”
The elusive male contraceptive pill has been in development for decades, and news about it pops in and out of the headlines every few years to remind us how wonderful life could be without the unpredictable side effects of being taking the pill.
The latest advancement on the road to contraceptive equality? A new prototype pill, tested in a small trial by researchers at the University of Washington, has been found to be effective and safe, avoiding common side effects including low sex drive and liver damage.
Until now, scientists have been unable to create a pill to rival that available to women because men metabolise and clear out the hormones it delivers more quickly. But with the latest pill, known by the chemical name dimethandrolone undecanoate (DMAU), researchers have overcome previous problems associated with male hormonal pills.
100 men aged 18-50 who took part in the month-long trial showed no fatigue or loss of sex drive
Like most contraceptive pills available to women, DMAU contains a combination of hormones – an androgen such as testosterone, and a progestin. While it's still in the early stages, the 100 men aged 18-50 who took part in the month-long trial showed no fatigue or loss of sex drive. “Despite having low levels of circulating testosterone, very few subjects reported symptoms consistent with testosterone deficiency or excess," said Stephanie Page, a professor of medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Of course, why women should have had to bear the responsibility for oral contraception when sex is a two-person activity, is a question feminists have been asking – and campaigning to rectify – since it became available on the NHS in 1961.
While the benefits of the pill for women obvious – not least, it allows us a certain level of sexual freedom and gives us control over our fertility – certain hormonal contraceptive pills have been linked to everything from breast cancer to depression and other mental health issues, and in rare cases, even premature death.
Not to mention common side effects such as mood swings, cramps, sore breasts, headaches, migraines, weight gain, heavy and painful periods or missed periods.
What women really think about the male contraceptive pill
In spite of the fact that a male pill could liberate women from these unpleasant symptoms, not everyone is convinced of its potential merits. Judging by the results of a straw poll posted on Refinery29's UK Twitter account, most women wouldn't trust their partners to take the pill.
We wanted to know how and why they came to this conclusion, so we asked a random sample of straight women in relationships with men how warmly they received the news of a male pill, and whether or not they'd trust their current or future partner with their fertility. At the time of publishing results were 59% no, 38% yes and 3% undecided. (Final results will be posted when the poll is finished.)
Straight cis women: would you trust your man to take the contraceptive pill?
Sophie Attwood, 26, a PR specialist and lifestyle blogger who is currently in a long-term relationship, said the male pill "isn’t about them suffering instead of us" – she believes it "offers a real chance to even out the playing field and remove the disproportionate contraceptive burden on women."
Nevertheless, she said leaving her contraceptive fate in her boyfriend's hands would be out of the question. "Trusting someone else to be in charge of what impacts women more – pregnancy – is a completely different matter. I’m in a long-term relationship and we trust each other implicitly so I know he’d intend to take it, but having him remember would be a completely different matter."
Marcia Shawcross, 26, a lettings manager, was similarly sceptical, pointing out that it's she – and not a future boyfriend – who would bear the brunt of the consequences of an unplanned pregnancy. She'd want to have been in a relationships with a man for at least six months before she could trust him to be responsible for their contraception.
I'm sure some men just lie and say they were on the pill because they wanted sex
"I'd rather take it myself or have us both take it so I’m sure I'm protected," she told us. "But I'd trust a long-term partner as we'd hopefully have spoken about having children, but I wouldn't trust someone I was casually dating. I'm sure some men just lie and say they were on the pill because they wanted sex."
Meanwhile, Brenda Kola, 22, said she wouldn't want her partner of four and a half years to be responsible for birth control for a different reason. "Right now we currently just track my cycle [as a contraceptive] and that seems to work, but I don’t know what taking a hormonal contraceptive would look like for a man. My partner suffers from anxiety so I fear that the pill would exaggerate the symptoms of his anxiety.
"If men aren't in a committed relationship and have an active sex life, I think this is something they should consider, but it definitely shouldn't be the end of condoms as they're, of course, the only thing that can protect both people from STIs."
Frankie Leach, 21, a student at Manchester University, would have similar reservations to Attwood and Shawcross about delegating responsibility for her fertility to a man, but points out that, of course, #notallmen are created equal. "It all depends on the personality of your partner," she told us. "I could imagine there are partners who I’d never be able to rely on with contraception, but there are others who I’d trust entirely."
Importantly, Leach also believes a male pill could help to better educate boys and men of their responsibilities when it comes to sex and pregnancy. "Also when it comes to abortion, it would be interesting to see if men’s opinions on how 'easy' it is to acquire or take contraception change once men start taking the pill. Either way, it’s definitely a step in the right direction and even if it's nothing more than an education tool, it will do some good."
On the flip side, many women would be happy to share responsibility for contraception with their partners, and not just because they'd be happy to stop experiencing physical symptoms of the pill.
Natasha Slee, 29, Refinery29's social media editor who gave up hormonal contraception for a fertility tracking app last year after 11 years of unpleasant symptoms, said her partner of two and a half years "has always been sympathetic and understanding... and would want to help share the burden in that way if he had the opportunity to."
Nevertheless, the pair are happy not taking any hormonal contraception, instead using a combination of condoms and the Natural cycles app. "That's working pretty well for us at the moment. I think it's made us both more mindful about sex and our bodies, and contraception has become a shared responsibility."
Her memories came rushing back: José Daniel, her partner of 10 years, getting sicker by the hour during Hurricane Maria, both of them trapped in their second-story apartment as the street flooded. José Daniel being rushed to a hospital the day after the storm, both slowly realising the devastation everywhere was worse than they thought. José Daniel in a filthy hospital room for over 45 days, with barely any power or even enough doctors to treat him. José Daniel dead at 46, the cause of his illness still unknown to this day.
Alone at home, Agneris had a major panic attack.
“As soon as the power went out, it was like going back to the days where he was in the hospital and I came back home to pick up clean clothes or rest,” the 34-year-old told Refinery29. “It was a trigger and I couldn’t stop it, even as I tried.”
But while the chaotic aftermath of the storm and the efforts to rebuild the island have been front-and-centre, there’s another crisis brewing in Puerto Rico, though less visible. The Puerto Rico Department of Health found that in 2017 there was a 29% increase in the number of cases of people dying by suicide, and that calls to the government suicide hotline tripled in the last three months of the year. Officials said that Maria is likely to be one of the factors for both increases. Some Puerto Ricans confirm it anecdotally, too.
“Everyone I know has sought out help. My doctor even told me she has more patients now seeking treatment than ever before,” Agneris said. “It’s been so hard. We’ve all seen even the suicide rate skyrocketing.”
Refinery29 spoke with three Puerto Rican women about the mental health difficulties they’ve faced in the days after Hurricane Maria. Their experiences, while deeply personal, also paint a scene of what type of struggles boricuas have encountered since the storm and how they’re dealing with them in a place where there’s still great stigma attached to mental illness.
“The smallest things hurt”
In early September, Ana* expected Hurricane Irma to leave Puerto Rico in very bad shape. The San Juan resident imagined the storm would have an impact similar to Hurricane Georges in 1998, when her family was without water for three months. But the Category 5 phenomenon changed its course at the last second, and only a handful of areas in the island were affected.
Two weeks later, Maria was supposed to come around. And even though the government and the media warned the hurricane could devastate the island, the 25-year-old was skeptical.
“Part of me was hopeful that it would be an overblown, dramatic situation — like always. But part of me was like, ‘Oh, shit. This might get bad,’” she told Refinery29. “Nothing really prepared me for it, though.”
Ana has struggled with anxiety and depression most of her life, though she said that in September her conditions were under control. But the aftermath of Maria undid all her progress. She said the months after the hurricane have been perhaps the lowest point in her life.
Illustrated by Paola Delucca.
“First, I spent weeks trying to reach my family. And then, I was without power for months. So the struggle was trying to find food elsewhere — finding all my meals, because I couldn’t cook or refrigerate anything. I was also unable to go to work for a long time, therefore I was not getting paid so I didn’t have a lot of money,” she said. “I also ran out of my meds and I was not able to contact my therapist. I ended up spiralling.”
She recalls being at home all day, every day for what felt like weeks on end. In the evening, she would light candles in her dark apartment and spend all night awake, overthinking about her dire situation. And going outside during the day was just as traumatising, since so many of her surroundings were destroyed.
“I felt like someone drained my will to live. The smallest things hurt,” she said. “Imagine not having food. Or trying to drink out of a bottle of water, and the water feels like it’s almost boiling because it was so hot outside and you didn’t have a fridge or ice. Everything weighed on me.”
Ana’s experience with mental health difficulties after a natural disaster is consistent with the research of Dr. Rebecca Schwartz, an associate investigator at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research**.
After Hurricane Sandy hit the New York area in 2012, Schwartz studied the mental health impact of the storm among adults living in hard-hit parts of Queens, Staten Island, and Long Island. Participants filled a 30-item survey in which they answered how the hurricane had affected them — questions included whether they'd experienced displacement, damage to their property, loved ones who went missing, flooding, fear for their lives, and more.
“Increased exposure to the hurricane — the more negative effects, the more negative impacts the hurricane had on you — the more likely you were likely to experience symptoms of anxiety, depression, generalised stress, and most importantly, post-traumatic stress disorder,” she told Refinery29.
Her research also found that people who have experienced mental health difficulties in the past, like Ana, and those of a low socioeconomic status were among the most vulnerable when it came to experiencing symptoms post-hurricane.
Ana left Puerto Rico in early January and moved to North Carolina, where she’s been slowly trying to start a new life. She said that despite the uncertainty, she is doing better now.
“The change in scenery — going from a place where I struggled every single day without power to a place where I have access to basic necessities — has made me feel better,” she said. “I feel more under control.”
When she left, almost five months after the hurricane, she still didn’t have power in her apartment.
“He might have been alive if not for Maria”
The lack of electricity is something that comes up often in conversations with people who survived Hurricane Maria. For women like Ana, not having power was directly linked with the disruption of normalcy and her descent into a deep depression. For Agneris, the collapse of Puerto Rico’s electrical grid is one of the causes of her partner’s death.
A few days before Maria struck, Agneris’ partner José Daniel Sánchez Rivera had an ongoing fever that wouldn’t subside, even after being prescribed medication. Since he didn’t have any other symptoms, his doctor let him go home. But the day of the hurricane, his fever spiked and he turned yellow — a sign of jaundice, which meant he was having an issue with his liver.
“Knowing there’s someone sick in your home, and being unable to go out and seek medical help for more than 24 hours, was a nightmare,” she said.
Illustrated by Paola Delucca.
The day after the hurricane José Daniel still showed the same symptoms, so the couple got out of the house and went to a nearby hospital — which was partially destroyed. Unable to find phone service to contact the rest of their family, they were unaware of the magnitude of the devastation and made their way to another hospital in the area. After more of 12 hours waiting, José Daniel was admitted because his liver and spleen were inflamed. He would never go home again.
Agneris did her best to deal with the external circumstances while José Daniel was in the hospital. She said that she had bouts of depression and anxiety before, but her condition was under control with the help of her therapist. And she needed to do her best to stop herself from unraveling, even if she felt like it, just for the sake of her partner.
She said that Jose Daniel’s 45-plus days in the hospital mirrored the health crisis that developed in the island after the hurricane. The first hospital they went to only had a generator partially powering the entire building. There was no air conditioning, or even ice, to try to manage José Daniel’s fever, and things like doing blood work, a CT Scan, or MRI were out of the question. The doctors told Agneris that since his condition was not critical, he was not a priority for a transfer to a better-equipped place. After a week or so, they left and went to a different hospital in the area — one of the few with power in the entire island.
That didn’t mean things got better for José Daniel, however. The power was not stable, so sometimes there would be a blackout that interrupted the medical screenings and doctors would have to repeat the procedure, while warning them the results might not be entirely accurate. It was also hard to do blood transfers, the building was not always entirely sanitary, and even the food was at times lacking. Primary doctors and specialists were also hard to come by. According to Agneris, there was only one gastroenterologist treating all the patients in the hospital.
On Nov. 8, a month-and-a-half after Maria, José Daniel died after suffering from liver failure following a biopsy. Despite the countless studies and procedures, doctors were never able to figure out what was wrong with him. Agneris is convinced the conditions after the hurricane contributed to his death.
“Those first days in that first hospital — the ones we spent without power, without doctors, without being able to do procedures — were crucial,” she said. “He might have been alive if not for Maria.”
José Daniel’s death and living through the hurricane destabilised Agneris. Her anxiety and depression, until then controlled, returned in full force. She was hospitalised for five days in order for her to manage her loss. Panic attacks like the one she suffered in early February are still common in her everyday life. She said she’s functional now, but she still struggles four months after losing José Daniel.
“I have good days and bad days,” she said, her voice breaking. “But I know that as long as I recognise that I have a mental illness, and I seek help to work through that, I’m gonna have a better quality of life — even under these horrible circumstances.”
“We had the unrealistic expectation that life would normalise in the island”
Death is not the only type of loss that many Puerto Ricans have experienced in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. For Isabel*, leaving the island 10 days after the storm is the type of loss that triggered her mental health difficulties.
The 31-year-old mother of two has never struggled with long-term mental illness. She said she suffered postpartum depression after her first pregnancy but it never got to a point where it was unmanageable. Experiencing the storm, however, changed everything.
“The day after the hurricane, my family and I went to a local shelter to help out,” she told Refinery29. “In Toa Baja, where I am from, most of the town was practically underwater. We basically spent those 10 days there before leaving the island, so I left without even seeing the conditions of my house or packing up our stuff. I had no closure.”
According to Dr. Schwartz, the researcher, people who were displaced during a natural disaster are more likely to face post-traumatic stress disorder and other symptoms.
“More specifically, people who were displaced to a temporary shelter as opposed of having friends and family to stay with,” she said. “That’s another thing to think about as it applies to Puerto Rico.”
Isabel’s family was able to relocate to Florida, but the sudden change of scenery sent her into a depression. She wasn’t able to adapt to the Sunshine State and the family packed up their bags a second time, this time heading to Arizona. That’s when the anxiety attacks began.
Illustrated by Paola Delucca.
“There’s no way to win. Those who stayed are suffering because of the situation back home. But those who left are suffering because of the circumstances under which they were forced to flee,” she said.
While her husband and two young children have been quicker to adapt to life in Arizona since they moved there in December, Isabel still struggles with the fact that this is her life now. The worst thing, she said, is the idea of not being able to go back to Puerto Rico.
“I left thinking that we would be able to return. But there’s no power, there’s no jobs, so the exodus keeps extending,” she said. “Accepting that I will never go back is one of the reasons that I’m facing issues with my mental health. We had the unrealistic expectation that life would normalise in the island, but that’s not the case.”
Isabel is undergoing treatment now, which she said is starting to help her manage her condition. But that’s only possible because with a full-time job and being the acquaintance of her doctor, she can afford it. That’s not the case for Ana, who just started a part-time job that naturally doesn’t offer health insurance. Before going to North Carolina, she illegally bought a supply of meds to last her until she’s able to pay for a doctor and treatment again.
“The only thing I didn’t get was antidepressants, because I was afraid to start on them again without a doctor’s supervision,” she said.
Struggling to get the adequate care could potentially be the situation for the thousands of Puerto Ricans that have escaped the island in the last six months without a plan in place and who have struggled to obtain healthcare since relocating stateside. It might also be the case for everyone who was left behind, particularly when considering the stigma surrounding mental illness in the island.
“We’re a far way from normalising the conversation around mental illness,” Agneris said, “even under these circumstances.”
Isabel, Ana, and Agneris are just three of the unknown number of people who have faced mental health difficulties since Hurricane Maria. And if the focus on the six-month mark of the storm and afterwards is only on issues of infrastructure, the economy, and politics it will be a disservice to every Puerto Rican struggling to keep going.
“No one outside of Puerto Rico has any idea of how deeply the hurricane affected the mental health of people in the island. They think of the macro: The electrical grid was fucked, there’s no trees, and so on,” Ana said. “But when you’re used to so many little things — a fridge, bathing with warm water, having service on your phone — losing them will take a toll on you. No one outside of the island gets that if you’re without your basic needs for months, it’s likely you will go down a dark path. And that’s without even looking at everything else that’s wrong.”
* Names have been changed to protect their identities.
** Dr. Rebecca Schwartz is also an associate professor at the Department of Occupational Medicine, Epidemiology and Prevention in Northwell Health and the co-director of the Center for Disaster Health, Trauma and Resilience at Mount Sinai, Stony Brook, and Northwell.
If you are thinking about suicide, please contact Samaritans on 116 123. All calls are free and will be answered in confidence.
If you are experiencing anxiety and are in need of support, please call the Anxiety UK on 0844 775 774.
If you are experiencing depression and need support, please call Mind on 0300 123 3393.
When you download and open a new app, it's now standard practice to be presented with two options: Connect to Facebook or manually create an account by entering information such as a username and email.
Facebook is by far the faster, easier entry point, but it comes with a serious catch: Whenever you link your Facebook account to a third party app, you're giving that app permission to access information from some part of your profile. This weekend, The New York Times reported on a high profile instance of permission granting gone awry.
Using a misleading third party app, voter profiling company Cambridge Analytica obtained information on over 50 million Facebook users. The app, which reportedly masqueraded under vague, academic pretenses, asked for permission to connect to Facebook. According to the Times, Cambridge Analytica, which has been linked to the Trump campaign, used the information on user identities and 'likes' to target voters on social media.
The scenario has implications for future elections, but is also a good time to refresh your knowledge about how your data is being used when you connect an app to your Facebook profile. Ahead, some answers to common questions.
What is — & isn't — allowed by third party apps?
Facebook has a strict Platform Policy that outlines what developers of third party apps can and cannot do. With regards to data, third party apps are required to "provide a publicly available and easily accessible privacy policy that explains what data you are collecting and how you will use that data." If a user asks the app to delete any data received from Facebook, the app must comply. Third party apps are only allowed to keep aggregate data if it is impossible to identify an individual person from it.
Okay, but does Facebook moderate third party apps?
All apps that ask for detailed information about Facebook users are required to go through an app review process where they must justify why that information is necessary for the app. Facebook characterizes "detailed information" as anything other than a user's friends, public profile, and email. Approval is only granted if apps can show that the information they are requested will be directly used.
How did the app in the Cambridge Analytica story slip through the cracks?
The app in question, created by data scientist Aleksandr Kogan, was created in 2014, before Facebook enforced new rules preventing developers from obtaining information about users' friends. This raises serious questions about what data third party apps approved pre-2014 might still have on Facebook users.
Kogan's app violated multiple terms from Facebook's Platform Policy, including one that expressly forbirds providing data taken from Facebook to another third party which, in this case, was Cambridge Analytica. Facebook has suspended both Kogan and Cambridge Analytica, and says it requested all remaining data be removed from the company's servers. However, it is unclear if the data has actually been deleted, which is why Facebook is launching an audit of Cambridge Analytica.
How can I control the information a third party all has access to?
When downloading a new app, click "review the info you provide " before giving the app permission to your Facebook profile. Uncheck any information you don't want the app to have.
You can change the permissions you have given a third party app at any time. Go to Facebook, and select Apps from the left hand menu. There, you'll see a list of all apps that currently have access to your Facebook account. Hover your mouse over an app and click "edit settings", indicated by the pencil icon. Uncheck any information that you don't want the app to access.
This is also where you go to delete an app's connection to Facebook — click on the "x" to the right of "edit settings." The downside is that if you've already connected to a third party app, the company will have the information you chose to share. In that case , Facebook also encourages users to email app developers directly to request that their information be removed.
What should you consider before linking your Facebook account to a third party app?
When you download an app, you usually want to start using it right away. Even though it can be tempting to skip reading the fine print, pause for a moment.
"Make sure you’re comfortable sharing that specific information; some apps will ask for your birthday, phone number, [and so on]," Feras Alhlou, the co-founder of analytics consulting company E-Nor, told Refinery29 over email. "What you agree to on that permissions page is legally binding. It may seem like a daunting task, but it’s crucial to be extra vigilant in the digital age."
While it's likely that Facebook will enforce even stricter policies for developers seeking permission to data after the Cambridge Analytica fiasco, it's important look over the apps you're currently allowing to access your data. See what information they have — and ask yourself if you're okay with them having it. If you aren't, take steps to remove it.
Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
In today's "maybe you should've thought that one through" news, we present the case of Carlton & United Breweries (CUB), an Australian beer company. Last month, CUB released a campaign for its new Rusty Yak Gingery Ale, taking some very misguided inspiration from the whole "ginger" part.
In the advert (which you can watch for yourself below), the narrator describes the discovery of a "ginger" gene. "Floating around in our beer, just like it's been floating around in human DNA, surprising families for generations," he explains, pausing to show a couple holding a baby with visibly red hair.
The ad then goes one step further, actually calling on consumers to "stop the spread of the gene" by searching inside six packs of beer for hidden bottles marked with a special label. According to CUB, it was supposed to be a "fun" marketing campaign — and a way for Australians to win some cash — but it quickly backfired once consumers called out the racist undertones of the advertisement.
“It’s very offensive for the advertisement to be discriminating against those with red hair, suggesting that they need to ‘stop the gene spreading’ as if it were some sort of disease," read one complaint to the Advertising Standards board, as reported by the Australia media news site Mumbrella. "Children already get bullied at school for having red hair, and advertisements like this only further encourage that type of bullying."
According to Mumbrella, CUB released a statement defending the ad saying, “The advertisements do not promote discrimination or vilification as defined above in a literal or figurative way given the theme and overall impression of the advertisements is not negative towards reds heads (sic), but rather a humorous and comical announcement that we have discovered ‘the ginger gene’ in our beer."
Except... it's not. As determined by the Advertising Standards board and reported by Yahoo, “The phrase ‘stop the spread of the gene’ overstepped the line between being light-hearted humour and made a strong suggestion that an identifiable group of the population was to be considered unpopular." The panel also noted that DNA can be considered to be related to ancestry and descent, and therefore red hair falls within the definition of race. CUB, though it disagreed with the ruling, complied and pulled the ad from television.
There are plenty of ways to be clever and draw consumers in. Throwing a thin veil over discrimination isn't one of them.
With the resurgence of '90s fashion and beauty trends refusing to die down and '90s music and TV shows increasingly dominating our downtime (hello, Friends on Netflix), it was only a matter of time before millennials took the trend to the next level.
According to parenting website BabyCentre, new parents are looking back to their youth and favourite '90s icons for inspiration when it comes to naming their babies. We suspect there are a few punk rock fans among them, with Maria taking the top spot for girls (possibly offering up a nod to the 1999 Blondie song), followed by Courtney, whose namesake Courtney Love was one of the decade's most infamous women. Naomi also looks set for a resurgence, as if to mirror Naomi Campbell's own recent renaissance.
Also set for a comeback among baby girls are Helen, Kimberly, Molly, Jennifer, Sophie, Jessica and Danielle.
Parents of boys don't seem to be put off by the controversy surrounding William "Brad" Pitt in recent years, as Bradley will apparently see the biggest revival this year (of course, there's also a chance we're dealing with a bunch of S Club 7 fans). Daniel, Ryan, Christopher, Lewis and Nathan are also tipped to return, along with Timothy (although we can't be sure Mr Chalamet isn't responsible for this one), and Ross (aka, many people's secret favourite Friend).
"While these names may sound over-familiar and even old-fashioned to us '80s and '90s kids, they’ll be a breath of fresh air among all the Ivy’s and Noah’s at nursery and playgroup," the baby name experts insist.
The most popular '90s baby names tipped for a comeback
Girls
1. Maria 2. Courtney 3. Helen 4. Heather 5. Bethan 6. Lydia 7. Kimberley 8. Naomi 9. Abbie 10. Harriet 11. Amber 12. Molly 13. Jennifer 14. Stephanie 15. Abigail 16. Sophie 17. Jessica 18. Danielle 19. Georgia 20. Natalie
Boys
1. Bradley 2. Daniel 3. Ryan 4. Christopher 5. Lewis 6. Nathan 7. Connor 8. Scott 9. Nicholas 10. Peter 11. Cameron 12. Mitchell 13. Timothy 14. Toby 15. Danny 16. Christian 17. Stuart 18. Simon 19. Ross 20. Paul
Characterised repeatedly in film and on television (Jennifer Lopez in Maid in Manhattan, Jennifer Aniston in Friends with Money, Octavia Spencer in The Help, Kate Bosworth in Blue Crush, to name but a few), the role of the housekeeper, maid or cleaner is an old favourite for a good ‘rags to riches’ story.
But it’s not that Downton Abbey to have a cleaner these days; millennials living in big house shares are not averse to clubbing together to pay for a once-weekly professional spruce-up.
Being a cleaner isn’t what it once was, either; apps like Mopp allow part-timers to decide the hours they work, fitting shifts around university courses or looking after their kids. But what’s the relationship like between cleaner and client, and, more importantly, how well (or not) does it pay? One ex-cleaner dishes the dirt on the ups and downs of her previous day job.
How long did you work as a cleaner? Cleaner? Domestic engineer, if you please.
What were the worst parts of the job? Cleaning the men's toilets, especially on Mondays (after they'd been on the beer all weekend).
Weirdest parts of the job? The discovery that some men eat food while they are on the toilet, after finding half-eaten pies in the gents’ cubicles. I mean, who eats on the toilet?
Did you ever have a horrible boss? No. I refuse to work with horrible bosses.
How was the pay? We're going back a bit but I think I got paid about £60 a week.
What were the working hours like? I worked four hours daily, starting at 4pm.
Did you clean domestic or commercial spaces? I cleaned the toilets, offices and canteen in a busy warehouse.
Worst (cleaning-related) memory? Probably the first time I pushed open the door of the gents’ toilets. The stench that came from that room was strong enough to strip paint off walls. I dry-heaved into a duster and my dinner was about to do an encore when I spotted a can of air freshener. After that, I armed myself with two cans of pine fresh (one in each hand) and blasted both simultaneously on entering the room.
Are women really cleaner than men, in your experience? Put it this way: Cleaning the ladies' loos involved a 10-minute spruce-up. Cleaning the gents accounted for almost half an hour of my allotted four hours. Five minutes of which were taken up with detangling the roller towel, which was usually soaked in water (and probably wee) on the floor.
What's the grossest thing you had to deal with at work? On one occasion I prodded a cubicle door open in the gents (with my mop) and saw a vending machine cup on the floor. Next to it was a copy of The Sun, open at page three. On closer inspection, the cup was about a third full of some transparent liquid, with what looked like a pubic hair floating in it.
Did you have a uniform? If so, what was it? I wore an unflattering (but practical) tabard, as my request for a decontamination suit was declined. However, my supervisor did provide me with extra pine fresh and thick rubber gloves.
Did you feel that your hard work was appreciated? The majority of the people who worked in the warehouse were under 25 and male. As with my teenage sons, there was no acknowledgement of my cleaning efforts but they were relatively pleasant to me. The office staff and management, however, were more appreciative and commented on a "job well done".
Were there more female than men cleaners or about the same? I was the only cleaner but I took the job over from a man.
Did you ever think about quitting? Honestly, every time I entered the gents’ toilets!
Best things about the job? Working alone and having that satisfied feeling of turning a shithole into something more presentable.
Were you ever flirted with at work? Well, I did come across some graffiti on the gents’ loo wall that said "I'd shag the cleaner". And then there was this one occasion where a man burst into the toilets and proceeded to take a pee in the urinals. I leaned on my mop and said: "Didn't you see the ‘Do Not Enter’ sign on the door?" He just winked at me and said: "Yeah, I saw it, but I'm bursting for a wee and I don't mind if you don't." So that’s probably more of a flashing than flirting story?
What’s the first thing you would do after getting home from work? I finished work at 8pm. After scrubbing shit-stained toilets and chipping off exploded baked beans from the inside of a microwave oven, all I wanted to do was open a bottle of wine and put my feet up.
Is your own home super clean? You could probably eat your tea off my bathroom floor without dying of something nasty but I wouldn't advise it!
Any cleaning horror stories? The day the gents' toilets got blocked, requiring a plunger, four litres of disinfectant and two cans of pine fresh. Oh, and two sets of rubber gloves. I shan’t elaborate further.
Did you end up quitting? I did such a great job of cleaning the warehouse that the manager offered me a full-time job working for them. Who says hard work doesn't pay off?
Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
Welcome to It's Lit – a series of discussions about books. Join us every month to find out who's reading what.
Four years ago, the award-winning journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge penned a blog post entitled: Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race. Exhausted by the uneducated, uninformed, unfeeling dialogues surrounding race and racism in Britain, she wrote: “I can no longer engage with the gulf of an emotional disconnect that white people display when a person of colour articulates our experiences.”
The post promptly went viral and its author was approached by Bloomsbury with a book deal. “It wasn’t like I had an idea and I took it to a publisher – I had been thinking about these issues for years and years before the opportunity came around to write a book,” says Eddo-Lodge from her home study in east London.
Photographed by Matilda Hill-Jenkins.
Also titled Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, the book was published in 2017 and became a Sunday Times bestseller. Voted the nonfiction book of the year by Foyles and Blackwells, it is a blistering, revealing and imperative investigation of Britain’s relationship with race today. As Eddo-Lodge says: “The facts are shocking, the stats are shocking, and the numbers are shocking.”
Ahead of the book’s release in paperback, we caught up with the author to find out how her reading habits have changed since it was published – "Now that my writing is for the public, I’m also reading for the public" – and why she struggles to recommend a follow-up to her book. “If you want to read something that’s similar to mine, just wait a few more years and I’ll come out with something new,” she laughs.
What are you reading right now?
I’m reading Americanah, simply because I’m interviewing Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tomorrow. I’m already familiar with her work and I read it a few years ago but I wanted to refresh my mind. I know it’s a lot of people’s favourite but my personal favourite of hers is Half of a Yellow Sun – that one is a lot less hyped. I think it’s more loved in literary circles, whereas Americanah is the one everyone knows.
When and where do you like to read?
Sometimes I like to read in bed, sometimes I like to read in cafés. I feel too alert at home because I work here so it’s difficult for me to get into the reading mood because there’s always something that needs to be done, right? Cafés are good – you can get in a solid two, three hours if you get there early. I don’t mind reading on the Tube but it’s got hot competition from the Hamilton soundtrack at the moment!
Do you tend to read one book at a time or do you like to juggle several?
No, I like to stick to something. I can’t read multiple books at once but I do abandon things – if I can put a book down and not be interested in what might happen next, I will abandon it. That happens fairly often.
What did you read growing up?
As a child I read a lot but less so as a teenager. I loved all the children’s classics: Roald Dahl, the Harry Potter books, obviously – I was one of the children queueing up for it so it was very exciting for me to sign with Bloomsbury. I used to read all that quintessential English children’s literature like Enid Blyton too which, looking back now, was almost brainwashy. I read really old editions too because they used to get picked up at car boot sales and they’d be horrendously racist.
You didn’t read much as a teenager?
No, not so much. I did go through a YA stage – Malorie Blackman’s books of course, I loved those, especially Noughts & Crosses – but by the time I was a teenager I sort of gave up on the reading thing because it wasn’t cool.
Where do you buy your books?
I get sent a lot of books and most of them I want to read so I’m currently not in book-buying mode but when I was I would go to the Waterstones on my high street. I used to buy from Amazon but since becoming an author I want to support indie bookshops where I can. However, I do think there are some books that are too weird or niche for local bookshops to stock. Like I just bought Conflict Is Not Abuse by Sarah Schulman off of Amazon and Sara Ahmed’s Living A Feminist Life because I knew that they were going to be harder to find.
Have you ever been a member of a book club?
I haven’t. I love discussing books that I really love but usually what I do is make someone near me read it so that we can discuss it. That’s my version of a book club. Book clubs read my book, though; sometimes they tag me. I have been asked to drop in while they’re discussing it but why would I want to do that? The whole point of a book club is to critique the book, right? I can’t think of anything worse than the author listening while they rip your book apart. No thanks [laughs].
Is there a book you've read more than once?
Augustown by Kei Miller; I’ve booked a holiday, and this is my first read. I read it last summer and it’s all messed up because I took it into a jacuzzi. He’s a poet and it’s just beautifully written fiction. I actually thrust it into the hands of a film producer the other day and was like, please make this – it’s amazing. So this is top of my list to reread when I’m in relaxation mode. I feel like every now and then there’s a book by a black fiction author that’s hyped and people are excited about it, but this book has not got the attention it deserves. It’s been shortlisted for a prize – it should have won that prize! It’s just incredible, honestly.
How do you choose what to read next?
I’m not really one for turning towards the latest hyped fiction but if there’s a book that’s sparking a lot of discussion I will read it. Which is why I picked up Conflict Is Not Abuse because people are talking about it and saying it’s pertinent, particularly in activist circles. If a lot of people in my circle are saying “Read this, this is good”, I’ll want to read it. It’s the same with anything – film, TV – I trust my friends’ tastes.
Do you read more fact or fiction?
I am a fiction reader. I think that fiction can speak to societal things really well. I don’t like to read nonfiction. I know I’m a nonfiction writer [laughs] but you know, I think with nonfiction, you still have to tell a story. There’s one thing I tried not to do with mine, which is when the text is interrupted by little intervals, usually with a little logo. Whenever I buy something like that it always distracts me and I usually put it down and never pick it up again. There’s some nonfiction that bucks the trend of that because it’s got real momentum to it and that’s what I aimed to achieve when I was writing mine. Steve Biko’s I Write What I Like, which is basically his writing from when he was involved in the student movement, even though it’s very niche stuff to do with South African student union politics – his writing has such passion to it, I can’t dislike it. Audre Lorde and Melissa Gira Grant are another two who write with that same urgency. Hold Tight is a pretty good nonfiction read too – it’s all about grime. Nonfiction is hard; it’s dense and you have to pack a lot in and still make people want to read it but I’d recommend those.
How do you organise your books at home? Do you have a system?
No, as you can see there’s big, small, hardback, paperback, charity shop and fresh-from-the-publisher all mixed in there.
What do you use as a bookmark?
I fold the page – I’m not against it.
Which three books would you give to a stranger?
Definitely Kei Miller’s Augustown. I read a book that was quite fascinating recently, The Woman Who Fooled The World; it was about a health and wellness blogger in Australia who pretended she had cancer. I would definitely recommend that because I think the cult of wellness has touched everyone and it’s just about broad enough for a good debunking. If I met a stranger who wanted to go freelance, I’d say read this by Otegha: Little Black Book. A feminism primer that I would give to any stranger – this is good because it’s really small – is Extracts From: The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. That’s the book that basically changed my mind on feminism when I wasn’t a feminist, that’s what I always credit.
Photographed by Matilda Hill-Jenkins.
For those that have finished your book and would like to read more on the subject, what would you recommend?
That’s tricky, people always ask me: “What should I be reading that’s like yours?” I’m not sure I can confidently say this person’s work is like mine but I can tell you about the books that I’m interested in reading for whatever comes next, although I don’t know what that is yet... The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain by Ron Ramdin is one; there’s also The Silk Roads, which I’m interested in reading as an alternative history of Britain from a non-Eurocentric perspective. This is one that my boyfriend picked up at a charity shop that he thought might be interesting to me – it’s called White Supremacy: A Comparative Study of American and South African History – there’s lots of things I want to read for background research. I don’t know if they’re holiday reads though [laughs].
Reni’s Reading List:
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman Conflict Is Not Abuse by Sarah Schulman Living A Feminist Life by Sara Ahmed Augustown by Kei Miller I Write What I Like by Steve Biko Your Silence Will Not Protect You by Audre Lorde Playing the Whore by Melissa Gira Grant Hold Tight by Jeffrey Boakye The Woman Who Fooled The World by Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano Little Black Book: A Toolkit for Working Women by Otegha Uwagba Extracts From: The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain by Ron Ramdin The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan White Supremacy: A Comparative Study of American and South African History by George M. Fredrickson
York may have just been named the UK's best city in which to live based on its jobs, schools, broadband speed, culture, community spirit and local shops, but the historic walled city has been completely glossed over in a new international ranking based on quality of life.
The 2018 Mercer Quality of Life Index, one of the most comprehensive annual lists of its kind, has ranked six UK cities in its top 100 – but none make it anywhere near the top.
London comes in 41st place on the 231-strong list, followed by Edinburgh (46th), Birmingham and Glasgow (joint 50th), Aberdeen (58th) and Belfast (68th). All of which suggests the UK should probably look towards its international counterparts for lifestyle tips.
The ranking rates cities based on various factors contributing to quality of life, from the political, social and economic environment to housing, recreational opportunities and the natural environment. Based on this, the city to which we should all be flocking in 2018 is Vienna, thanks largely to its thriving arts scene, top quality restaurants and excellent healthcare.
In all, the top 10 is dominated by Europe, which raises more than a few questions about what life in a post-Brexit UK will look like. Munich, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and Copenhagen were all rated highly, while Switzerland's Zürich, Geneva and Basel also ranked highly (Switzerland isn't part of the EU, but has access to part of the EU's single market).
2018 marks the ninth consecutive year that Vienna has bagged the top spot, but does the reality of living there measure up to the hype? Olivia, 27, a communications specialist who left London for Vienna two years ago, told Refinery29 she wasn't surprised by the city's victorious place on the list.
"The city contains lots of elements that make for comfortable living, including fantastic social housing and rent restrictions that put tenants first. My boyfriend and I live in a flat with what is essentially a permanent contract, so the rent can never increase more than in line with inflation and we can never be kicked out. Even if we had a child in the flat, they could inherit our rental agreement from us and pay the rent that we pay now, plus inflation, for the rest of their lives too.
"The summers are lovely and warm, too, meaning you can swim at the Alte Donau (Old Danube) and spend long evenings drinking wine in the vineyards around the city, known as Heurigers (Eastern Austrian taverns)."
However, she pointed out the city is far from a utopia. "This ranking doesn't take into account issues like racism, which, considering a far-right government was last year voted in in Austria, I think would prevent Vienna from being listed top, if issues to do with social justice and political activism were considered."
Carly Hulls, 32, head of sales for travel website TourRadar who also blogs about Vienna, is from Melbourne originally and moved to the city in 2012 to be with her Austrian husband. She described Vienna's pole position as well earned based on its design, public transport, services, festivals and events for locals and the "exceptional lifestyle that everyone, not just the rich, can enjoy here."
But its best traits, she told Refinery29, are "its pace of life, which is much slower without becoming ineffectual, the wineries and affordable excellent dining options, the proximity to other travel destinations, the architecture and the creative energy of the city."
"We have a large student community and a lot of startups and hipster districts filled with indie stores, popup cafes and thriving events which means it's always interesting to spend a weekend exploring with a camera in hand, or hopping from brunch hotspots to picnics by the riverside, to rooftop bars and enjoying the scenery along the way. There's also a lot of upcoming new coffee shops (besides the classical ones) that roast their own beans and are winning awards all over the place."
The 20 cities with the best quality of life in the world
(Duplicate numbers signals a joint score in the ranking)
Blondes (of the unnatural variety) have long been using purple shampoo as a secret weapon to keep their colour looking fresh. The colour technology is a go-to for blondes who want to keep their bleached hair looking like it did when it was freshly dyed, and stop it from turning brassy.
Brunettes, meanwhile, have had no such magic solution to stop their coloured hair changing shades – until now. Enter blue toning shampoo, the latest hero beauty product being championed by brunettes, and now available on the UK high street.
Charles Worthington's new ColourPlex range includes the Colourplex Toning Blue Shampoo (£7.99 for 250ml), which sits alongside the brand's ultra violet shampoo for blondes, and promises to restore brunettes' "salon-fresh vibrancy."
It works by following the complementary colour theory (in the same way purple shampoo is used to neutralise yellow tones), and promises to banish red and orange tones, leaving brunette hair a cooler, deeper shade, and shinier.
"In the same way that blonde hair can turn brassy, brunette hair is also prone to oxidising which can bring out orange or red tones," says Charles Worthington ambassador, Ken O'Rourke. "If you’d like to keep your brown hair cool, I’d recommend using a blue toning shampoo once a week or alternating it with your regular shampoo if needed."
Another blue shampoo is Aveda's Blue Malva Shampoo (£36 for 1000ml), made from "wildcrafted", sustainably gathered blue malva plant and organically grown blue flowers, which Aveda say neutralise brassiness in chemically treated hair.
Meanwhile, Joico's Colour Balance Blue Shampoo (£12.95 for 300ml) is ideal for darker brunettes with salon highlights. Its formula promises to guard against colour fade and keep the hair nourished. Like the others, its job is to keep brown shades cool and ward off warm and brassy tones.
Matrix Total Results Brass Off Shampoo (£17.23 for 1000ml) also neutralises brassiness, with the help of "colour-depositing blue-violet pigments." The product can be left on for up to three minutes to help the toner work its magic, as well as being used as a regular shampoo.
