After several months trodding and tearing up your feet in sandals, I think we can all agree that our feet need a little bit of extra TLC. From running around in gritty sand to 5-mile-long hikes in the wilderness, our feet take a lot of abuse in the summer — more abuse than a single pedicure can fix. And with the end of the summer weeks away, there’s no time to waste in a salon. For that reason, we have some of the best foot masks on deck to make our self-care sesh a lot more convenient, but equally effective. They’re easy to throw in your carry-on, so you can even take them on vacation with you.

Like hand masks, foot mittens aren’t exactly necessary. You can always slather your skin in Vaseline or some other heavy ointment when flaking and ash become an issue. It’s also way more affordable than investing in a special treatment. But that’s just it: they’re not special. And as far as we’re concerned, you deserve special things…like a nourishing foot mask that forces you to put your feet up and stay hydrated from head-to-toe, literally.

There are peels that take days to kick in, but ultimately shed skin beyond belief. You’ll feel like a snake. The foot peels are so effective that you’re going to want to wear socks for a few days—trust us, it’ll mean less mess and be less gross that way. If you want something a little less intense, there’s heavy-duty lotions that work best with overnight use. Ahead are options for both.

Our mission at STYLECASTER is to bring style to the people, and we only feature products we think you’ll love as much as we do. Aliver and Target are STYLECASTER sponsors, however, all products in this article were independently selected by our editors. Please note that if you purchase something by clicking on a link within this story, we may receive a small commission of the sale.

Courtesy of ALIVER.

Lavender Foot Mask

Our feet might be one of the most under-appreciated parts of our bodies. Give your feet their own self-care moment with this lavender foot mask set. You leave the mask on for 50-90 minutes and then wait 5-7 for the magic peeling to happen. You’ll be able to slide across the floor Risky Business-style with your newly smooth feet.

Buy: Foot Peel Mask 3 Pack $9.99

Amazon.

TikTok-Famous Foot Peel

This Amazon top-seller has long held cult-favorite status for its ability to literally strip the foot of every and any flake. The magic sauce is a mix of 17 botanicals—all naturally-derived—that work over a period of days to shed the skin.

Buy: Baby Foot – Original Foot Peel Exfoliator $25

Tony Moly.

K-Beauty Pick

Like the Baby Foot Peel, this K-beauty, liquid-based mask uses vegetable ingredients to remove keratin, flakes and dryness after 7 days of use.

Patchology.

Chemical Peel Option

Proof that chemical acids aren’t just for the face, this next-level foot mask includes a mix of AHAs and BHAs that work together to exfoliate both top and deep layers of the skin.

Karuna.

2-in-1 Foot Mask

A face mask and serum, but for your feet. This option also includes an AHA blend for gentle exfoliation—aka getting rid of flakes—and floral extracts for smoothing.

Buy: Karuna Exfoliating+ Foot Mask $38

Courtesy of Sephora.

Budget-Friendly Foot Mask

Affordable and effective? We can’t think of a better combo. The coconut in this footie will soothe dryness and nourish your skin.

LUSH Cosmetics.

Clay Foot Mask

If like us, you’re obsessed with the purifying properties of kaolin clay, this all-natural, part-pumice foot mask is definitely for you. It also contains a gang of other nourishing food-grade ingredients, including papaya, lemon juice and tomato.

Kocostar.

 Botanical-Packed Mask

Besides the super-sized mix of 33 botanical extracts that’ll go to work on your poor, tired feet, the mint scent makes for an ideal pick-me-up too.

Buy: Kocostar Foot Therapy $10

Sol de Janiero.

Coolest Foot Mask

Complete with a smoothing board for minimizing stubborn calluses, this cream is infused with coconut oil, acai and cupuaçu butter, a water-soluble Brazilian super fruit, that makes application non-slippery.

ThisWorks.

Soothing Rescue Balm

In addition to lemon and lavender for light exfoliation and treating irritation, the cotton thistle—another deeply-penetrating moisturizer—also disguises odor.

Buy: thisworks perfect heels rescue balm $26

Sally Hansen.

Super Moisturizing Mask

Want relief for your dry feet? Reach for this single-use mask. Infused with nut butters and Vitamin E, this mask will chase away dry skin.

This story was originally published in 2019.

Have you talked with your elderly parents about their financial situation yet? They may have initiated a conversation, or you may have, either way it can feel awkward. But it is helpful to ensure our parents’ well-being, safety from scammers, and comfort level both physically and emotionally.

Turning the Tables

We’re probably all tired of hearing about Covid; however, one of the things it has made very clear is that life can change in an instant. And aging creates a higher risk for many things, so how about a little role reversal: let’s think about how we can be helpful to our parents after all the years they were helpful to us when we were younger.

A Touchy Subject

One of the most common questions I get asked in my workshops when talking to people about estate planning and helping their elderly parents is “How do I even bring up the topic?” Finances, estate planning, and end-of-life wishes are difficult subjects for most families to talk about.

We want to be respectful but also helpful. And given the high incidence of fraud among family members, it is definitely understandable if someone is hesitant to discuss their personal finances and estate planning situation.

Best Interests

In the financial industry, we are especially vigilant about confidentiality and also serving as a double check on what is going on with seniors’ financial accounts. It can be helpful to have a non-family member who is a fiduciary to be involved as a gatekeeper as well as an advocate for all of the things that should be in place.

Identifying a Trusted Contact person has become an additional way to get permission from clients to identify someone to notify when there is a reasonable belief that there may be possible financial exploitation going on.

If you are listed as the personal representative or successor trustee of a parent’s estate and will be involved in acting as a power of attorney now or settling their affairs after they’re gone, it really behooves you to be sure you understand not only what they have in place but what their wishes are as well.

So, for all of those reasons, it is crucial to have a conversation with our parents to express our love, concern, and willingness to help for everyone’s benefit in the end.

Having “The Talk”

Before talking to a parent, it’s best to think about what aspect of estate planning the parent may be most open to discussing. Is it more appropriate to approach it from thinking about their health, or a financial perspective, getting records organized or just from a general overall estate planning standpoint?

It’s also a good idea to think about your parents’ preferred way to communicate. Does your parent prefer to dive right into a conversation or read about a topic first or hear about an experience you had or perhaps hear a story about someone you know?

Once you identify the sub-topic of the estate planning conversation that you feel will make for the best initial discussion, think about how you will approach the subject.

Initially, it can be helpful to throw out what I call a “floater” question. You may share with your parents an experience you had or something you read about or heard on the news or found interesting. Then you can mention how it made you curious about your parents’ opinion on that topic.

A Different Approach

Or, instead of a question, it may be helpful if you approach it by asking for advice. Maybe you personally are working on getting your records organized or updating your estate planning. You may find it helpful to complete a checklist, net worth worksheet, or bill paying grid and maybe use that exercise to start up a conversation with a parent.

You may ask for their advice on what you are working on. An upcoming surgery is another time to take advantage of the moment to bring up the subject of estate planning.

These Unpredictable Times

Or it would be very appropriate in today’s Covid world to make a comment that it has all really made you wonder what would happen if you, or a parent, ended up in the hospital.

Are all the bills paid automatically? Who is authorized to make medical and financial decisions (power of attorney documents)? How long has it been since a will/trust has been updated/drafted? Is there long-term care insurance in place in the event that care is needed for a prolonged period after the hospital?

No matter how you approach the subject, be sure you listen and be persistent if it didn’t go as deep as you wanted it, yet. Ask again or share a resource another time. Don’t give up, this is important for everyone.

Have you helped an aging parent with their finances? What suggestions do you have for others in the same situation? What do you think is the best way to broach the subject? Let’s have a discussion!

Surprise! Olivia Rodrigo just dropped her music video for “Brutal” and we’re drooling over all the hair and makeup looks. Like “Good 4 U”, it was directed by Petra Collins but that’s where the similarities end. In this video, Rodrigo plays eight different characters, including a pop star, an influencer, a newscaster and a ballerina. It makes perfect sense for a song all about the pressures of social media and being a teenager in 2021.

Rodrigo’s usual glam team was on set. Clayton Hawkins was responsible for the hair and Molly Greenwald did the makeup. There’s no shortage of bold hair and makeup looks: a blonde bob when she plays a newscaster and magenta-tipped pigtails while being an angsty teen in the car. “Brutal music video is out now! had the best time ever making this,” the pop star wrote on Instagram. “so so so grateful for @petrafcollins who constantly inspires me and who directed this video so incredibly. hope u guys love the vid and all my teen angst lol.”

Below, check out our favorite looks from the video and watch the entire thing, above. Keep an eye out for actor Lucas Gage and some famous model faces. This might be our favorite video she’s done yet.

YouTube.

Light Teal Bob With Bangs

YouTube.

Slicked-Back Ballerina Bun

YouTube.

Blonde Bob With Bangs

YouTube.

Long Braided Pigtails

YouTube.

Orange Bob

YouTube.

Space Buns

YouTube.

Long Blonde Hair

YouTube.

Magenta Ponytails

I’ve had so many patients, friends and colleagues ask me this simple question: “Why, with the obesity epidemic running wild, are we so unsuccessful at finding solutions for it, and preventing it or solving it? Can it really be that it’s just our fault as humans, and this is all just about fallibility and lack of personal responsibility?”

I always have to take a big deep breath and say, “No, it is not about personal responsibility and lack of discipline,” although clearly that plays a small role, as it has done throughout time.

But if one backs up and has a wider lens to look at the epidemic of obesity and diabetes, we realize that it’s negatively impacting life expectancy and quality of life across the globe, and that the underlying propensity of humans to lack willpower or discipline has not changed over the decades or centuries.

So, What Has Changed?

What has changed dramatically in these recent decades that correlates closely with the obesity and diabetes epidemics is the environment, and the inputs that are directly intersecting with our genetic makeup. Those would include several things, but of course the number one factor would be the changes in the food supply.

There is a great deal of research describing the change in the genomes of many food staples, including wheat, soy, rice, and corn, in ways that we don’t truly understand and have not fully examined. There may be beneficial effects of some of these changes, some of which came about from hybridization techniques and some from GMO techniques.

I’m not offering blanket opposition to GMO techniques or improvements in agriculture, but it’s clear that key properties of food have changed that are intersecting with our biology, causing unintended consequences of runaway obesity and type two diabetes. And we’ve yet to have a well-organized, galvanized research effort to understand exactly what the mechanisms are that have led to those changes.

My hunch is that the genomic properties of the key food supply ingredients are driving the epidemic, but food science-driven manipulations of our brain chemistry with fantastic flavors, food engineering, advertising, calorie density, and portions likely also contribute to the problem.

There may be many other culprits too. The antibiotics that are used in agriculture and in human and animal treatment are also associated with obesity. There are other factors involved in the food supply, such as the chemicals in pesticides, and our cultural changes, such as more screen time and less outdoor exercise.

My reading of the best research is that screen time is contributing a minority amount compared to the more profound changes of food supply, plant genetics and biochemistry.

Identifying the Real Problem

What’s sorely lacking is a Manhattan project effort at trying to understand why millions of people are suffering and dying unnecessarily from an epidemic that ought to be understandable, solvable, and preventable.

With effort, real science, scholarship, laboratory investigation, and dedicated scientists together with people who can help frame the questions, we ought to be able to get to the bottom of this problem. We need to understand what the precise environmental changes are that are causing runaway obesity, among not just adults and people who are thought to be lacking the necessary willpower, but kids and young adults too.

Certainly, this problem is not a result of humans lacking personal responsibility. This is a problem of environmental biology interacting with our genetic biology through a rapidly changing environment, producing very negative effects in terms of obesity and diabetes.

We don’t hear about it. It’s not a big priority among the major governmental institutions and research arms to understand the number one problem causing death and disease in the US. We have much, much larger research efforts organized at diseases that are affecting a tiny fraction of the humans afflicted with morbid obesity.

That is in part due to the poor understanding and the tremendous bias against people with obesity. The view of those people that it is their fault, and they are the ones who brought this on themselves. It’s a total lack of awareness by most scientists and policy makers.

But when it happens to an entire population, you can’t blame the individuals anymore. You have to begin to look at the factors that are causing it to the whole population.

Taking Responsibility

So, yes, we all need to take greater responsibility. Yes, we all need to eat better. Yes, we all need to exercise more. And we need to do so much more now that there’s a dreadful threat and a new environmental assault on human biology that’s causing obesity and diabetes.

But we also must have a much more organized, much more effective research endeavor to understand the factors causing this terrible epidemic amongst the people in this country and abroad. Everyone deserves better.

That’s my answer when someone asks me that question. It’s a mouthful; I usually lose them somewhere in there when I assert it is a classic environmental disease.

What I hope is that with greater outreach and understanding we will create the public space and resources for a more organized research effort to tackle the number one health problem in this country and around the world. I hope that adding my voice will make some small difference.

Do you think obesity comes from a person’s own behavior? Is each of us responsible for our own weight? Do you think factors such as changes in the environment and food technology may be causing obesity? What’s your take on this global issue?

Despite our wildest hopes and dreams, there’s simply no such thing as filler in a bottle—I mean, if there was such a thing, we’d all be using it, right? There are, however, plenty of skincare products that work LIKE filler to defy gravity and restore volume when you’re feeling a bit…sunken.

Dermal fillers and injectables are obviously the only sure-fire in-office treatments that give you instant results, but these alternative skincare treatments and beauty tools will give you a similar effect with continuous use (consistency is key). For me, skincare is self-care and frankly, an act of self-love, so why not take to at-home treatments to keep your skin looking bouncy and supple and your confidence at its peak?

To get the low down on the best OTC skincare products for plump and supple skin, we went straight to the experts to get their suggestions. After all, as someone who performs dermal fillers, Botox and lip injections on the daily, who better to ask for the next best thing to going under the needle? “I swear by consistent microcurrent treatments. This is going to retrain your facial muscles to go back to where they once were when you were younger. For example, brows will be lifted, cheeks will regain shape and life, and frown lines will be lessened. It’s truly the best alternative to fillers! Nuface has a great at-home option you can use in between treatments,” advises Rachel Liverman, CEO and Co-Founder of Glowbar.

Generally speaking, these plumping skincare products work by causing the skin to temporarily swell up, and therefore fill in lines and texture. It’s kind of the similar effect you experience when you apply a plumping lip gloss—but without the tingle. Aside from beauty tools and facial massagers, moisture-retaining hyaluronic acid and elastin-boosting collagen are your next best bets.

“As we age, we lose our hyaluronic acid and collagen that keep our skin looking youthful,” says Nurse Nancy Pellegrino, (aka Nurse Nancy), RN, MN, NP, owner and operator of NP Aesthetics Inc, and co-founder of THE ROUTE Beauty.

Hyaluronic acid is able to hold up to 1,000 times its weight in water, which allows the humectant to restore moisture levels in even the most parched skin, as well as promote firmness and soften the look of fine lines over time. While topical collagen can be controversial when it comes to its effectiveness, reaching for a product that contains both the naturally-occurring protein, as well as other anti-aging actives, will help give “fill in” fine lines and restore fullness. Below, are some of our favorite skin-plumping products for a juicy, glowing complexion without the needles.

Our mission at STYLECASTER is to bring style to the people, and we only feature products we think you’ll love as much as we do. d’Alba is a STYLECASTER sponsor, however, all products in this article were independently selected by our editors. Please note that if you purchase something by clicking on a link within this story, we may receive a small commission of the sale.

Courtesy of d’Alba.

d’Alba White Truffle Anitoxant Vitamin C Cream

This rich yet weightless day and night cream is infused with a slew of anti-aging and skin-enhancing active ingredients, including illuminating vitamin C and brightening niacinamide for an even, plumper-looking complexion without the needle.

Buy: d’Alba White Truffle Face Cream $54

Courtesy of NuFace.

NuFace Advanced Facial Toning Kit

While a contouring device may sound like a counterintuitive choice if your ultimate goal is getting plump skin, this next-level device works to not only lift and tone, but its motions also help promote accelerated collagen production.

Buy: NuFace Trinity Toning Device $339

Courtesy of Sephora.

Tane-Luxe Super Glow Hyaluronic Acid Self-Tanning Serum

Not only does this HA-infused serum help boost moisture and promote a plump complexion, but it also deposits a glow courtest of the build-in self-tanner. I’m simply in love with this multi-tasking product.

Amazon.

Bio-Oil Skincare & Body Oil

This multiuse face and body oil provides skin with a surge of moisture for a youthful, plumped-up appearance. It also improves texture and discoloration over time. The more hydrated your skin is, the plumper and line-free it will look.

Buy: Bio-Oil $16.49

Courtesy of BeautyBio.

BeautyBio GloPRO Regeneration Tool

Microneedling helps boost collagen (and the plump factor) by slightly wounding the skin, which causes your skin to produce more collagen as a line of defense to the self-induced “injury.” It also helps open your pores, allowing your serums to serums to penetrate more deeply.

Buy: BeautyBio Microneedling Tool $199

Skinstore.

Skinceuticals Triple Lipid Restore Moisturizer

If you’re looking for a solid skincare splurge to treat yourself to bouncier skin, this pricey product is your go-to. This lightweight moisturizer contains a blend of lipids (2 percent pure ceramides, 4 percent natural cholesterol and 2 percent fatty acids) along with a cholesterol-dominant ratio to restore facial fullness and lock in moisture all day long.

Courtesy of Ulta.

The Route Girlfriend Skin-Loving Glow Primer

This multipurpose skincare-prime hybrid is my go-to for when my skin looks a little less stellar and a bit sunken in. It smooths out texture and fills in fines lines, leaving skin looking plumper, hydrated and even-toned. It’s also an excellent option for sensitive skin.