OK, let’s be real for a second—as much as Beauty Wonkette loves and fixates over our makeup products, there’s no denying that this beauty obsession is the enemy to our bank accounts. Like, as much as we want to purchase every luxury or cult-favorite release from Sephora or Barneys New York, or our favorite internet site, our dwindling account balance (not to mention Mr. Beauty Wonkette) always seems to scream at us to rein it in. So when Beauty Wonkette came across a list of makeup-artist-approved makeup dupes on Reddit’s MakeupAddiction, Beauty Wonkette decided to share.
THE SPLURGE
THE SPLURGE
THE SPLURGE
Saturday, March 25, 2017
Anal Sex: Cause Everybody's Doing it....
First it was shocking, then it was having a cultural moment, now it’s practically standard in the modern bedroom repertoire—or so a quick scan of any media, from porn to HBO, will tell you. Seriously. What prompted this post was actually not that Refinery 29 has been going on about it But when Beauty Wonkette learned that the ever so on top of every trend Gwyneth Paltrow (of uncoupling fame) dedicated an entire issue of Goop to the subject, Beauty Wonkette decided it was time!
The reality about anal is not, actually, that everyone’s doing it, says research psychoanalyst and author Paul Joannides, Psy.D., whose comprehensive book on sexuality, The Guide to Getting it On!, is used in college and medical school sex-ed courses across the US and Canada. The book is amazing not just for its straight-up factual information on practically any aspect of sex you can think of, but also for its easy, nonjudgmental, at-times humorous tone.
The CDC reports that the number of heterosexual men and women who’ve tried it vacillates between 30 and 40 percent (oddly, the CDC doesn’t report on how many homosexual men have tried it, except in a statistic that weirdly combines it with oral). If anal turns you on, you are definitely not alone, but its prevalence doesn’t change the fact that it’s the riskiest sexual behavior in terms of HIV and other STDs. So, Beauty Wonkette decided it was prudent to reprint the interview the good doctor did with Goop in which Joannides talks us through the realities of making anal both as safe and as pleasurable as possible.
Drum roll please......
A Q&A with Paul Joannides, Psy.D.
Q
When did heterosexual anal start to become a thing?
A
In the 80’s, I remember hearing from a friend that he had a videotape of anal porn. This seemed shocking at the time. (This was pre-Netflix: Everything was on videotape, from porn to Disney movies to highlights from the Olympics. Video rental stores were everywhere.) I’m not sure there are too many middle schoolers today who would be shocked or even surprised to watch anal sex on Pornhub or Xhamster.
Since porn became as easy to access as YouTube, porn producers have had to fight for clicks, and so porn has become more extreme. I’d say that by 2005, porn had totally blurred the distinction between a woman’s anus and vagina. This wasn’t because women were begging their lovers for anal, it’s because porn producers were afraid you’d click on someone else’s porn if they weren’t upping the ante in terms of shock value.
Q
Does the popularity of anal in porn reflect reality in both homosexual and heterosexual couples?
A
No. There are some couples who enjoy anal sex a lot, maybe 10 percent to 15 percent of all straight couples. But if you ask them how often they have anal vs. vaginal intercourse, they’ll say maybe they have anal one time for every five or ten times they have vaginal intercourse. We occasionally, as in once a year, hear from women who say they have anal as often as vaginal, but that’s unusual.
As for gay men, statistics vary widely, and studies aren’t always consistent in how they collect data—some might be looking at different levels of frequency, i.e. have you had anal once in the past year, or do you have it regularly? I’ve seen studies suggesting that 65 percent of men have anal sex, and others that suggest the figure is less than 50 percent. So, I don’t have exact figures for hetero or homosexual couples, but there is data suggesting that a good percentage of gay men would rather give and receive blowjobs than have anal sex.
Q
How should we modify the anal sex we see modeled in porn to best suit an in-real-life couple?
A
The way the rectum curves shortly after the opening tells us we need to make a lot of adjustments for anal to feel good. Also, the two sets of sphincter muscles that nature placed around the opening of the anus to help humans maintain their dignity when in crowded spaces (to keep poop from dropping out) mean there’s an automatic reflex if you push against them from the outside.
So one of the first things a woman or man needs to do if they want to be on the receiving end of anal sex is to teach their sphincter muscles to relax enough that a penis can get past their gates. This takes a lot of practice.
Also, unlike the vagina, the anus provides no lubrication. So in addition to teaching the sphincters to relax, and in addition to getting the angle right so you don’t poke the receiver in the wall of the rectum, you need to use lots of lube.
They show none of this in porn. Nor do they show communication, feedback, or trust. Couples who do not have excellent sexual communication, who don’t freely give and receive feedback about what feels good and what doesn’t, and who don’t have a high level of trust should not be having anal sex.
Q
What are the health risks of anal?
A
A woman has a 17-times-greater risk of getting HIV and AIDS from receiving anal intercourse than from having vaginal intercourse. So your partner needs to be wearing a condom and using lots of lube, unless both of you are true-blue monogamous, with no sexual diseases. Any sexually transmitted infection can be transmitted and received in the anus. Because of the amount of trauma the anus and rectum receive during anal intercourse, the likelihood of getting a sexually transmitted infection is higher than with vaginal intercourse.
Unprotected anal sex, regardless of whether it is practiced by straight or gay couples, is considered the riskiest activity for sexually transmitted diseases because of the physical design of the anus: It is narrow, it does not self-lubricate, and the skin is more fragile and likely to tear, allowing STDs such as HIV and hepatitis easy passage into the bloodstream.
Q
Are those risks all mitigated by the use of condoms and lube, or are there still issues, even beyond that?
A
The risks are substantially reduced by the use of condoms and lube as long as they are used correctly, but you won’t find too many condoms that say “safe for anal sex” because the FDA has not cleared condoms for use in anal sex. That said, research indicates that regular condoms hold up as well as thicker condoms for anal sex, so there’s nothing to be gained from getting heavy-duty condoms.
As for using the female condom for anal sex—studies report more slippage and more pain than with regular condoms.
Do not use numbing lube, and do not have anal sex while drunk or stoned. Pain is an important indicator that damage can occur if you don’t make the necessary adjustments, including stopping. If there is pain, perhaps try replacing a penis with a well lubed and gloved finger. The glove will help your finger glide more easily, and might be more pleasurable for the person on the receiving end. Also, this allows a woman to do anal play on a male partner. (When it comes to anal sex, what’s good for the goose should be good for the gander.)
Q
Are there known health consequences of anal practiced over the long-term? Can you do it too much?
A
One of the urology consultants for my book believes that unprotected anal sex can be a way for bacteria to get into the man’s prostate gland. He prefers the person with the penis that’s going into the other person’s butt use a condom.
Also, small chunks of fecal matter can lodge into the man’s urethra. So if the couple has vaginal intercourse following anal intercourse without a condom, the male partner should pee first in addition to washing his penis with soap and water.
Q
Do pre-anal enemas make a difference in terms of health safety? What about preventing accidents?
A
I know of no studies on the relationship between pre-anal enemas and health outcomes. As for its general wisdom, people seem as divided on that as on politics in Washington. So I would say, to each her own. Also, some people use a “short shot,” which is a quick enema with one of those bulb devices instead of using a bag and going the full nine yards. In any case, accidents are likely to happen at one time or another.
Q
What tests should people be getting if they practice anal?
A
There’s “should” and there’s reality. If I were on the receiving end of anal sex, I would want to be sure my partner did not have HIV before I’d even let him get close to my bum with his penis.
Q
Probably more people try anal today than in the past—are there ways to make a first experience a good one?
A
Both of you should read all you can about it first. Spend a few weeks helping the receiving partner train her/his anal sphincters to relax. Make sure you and your partner have great sexual communication, trust, and that you both want to do it, as opposed to one trying to pressure the other, or not wanting to do it but doing it because you are afraid your partner will find someone else who will. Do not do it drunk or stoned, and do not use lube that numbs your anus. If it doesn’t feel good when it’s happening, stop.
Q
Do people orgasm from anal stimulation? Is it common or uncommon?
A
Some women say they have amazing orgasms from anal, but usually they will be stimulating their clitoris at the same time.
Q
Does it usually take a few tries to enjoy anal? Are there positions that make it easiest?
A
It depends on how much you are willing to work on training the receptive partner’s anal sphincters to relax, how good your communication is, how much trust there is, and probably on the width or girth of the dude’s penis. Common sense would tell you it should go way better if a guy is normal-sized as opposed to porn-sized.
Q
What should we be telling our kids about anal?
A
We don’t tell them about the clitoris, about women’s orgasms, about masturbation, about the importance of exploring a partner’s body, and learning from each other. We don’t tell them that much of what they see in porn is unreal, and we don’t talk to them about the importance of mutual consent. So I don’t see anal being at the top of most parents’ “should talk to our kids about” lists. There are more important things we need to be talking about first.
Paul Joannides, Psy.D. is a psychoanalyst, researcher, and author of the acclaimed Guide to Getting it On!, which is now in its ninth edition and is used in college courses across the country. He’s also written for Psychology Today Magazine and authors his own sex-focused blog, Guide2Getting.com. Dr. Joannides has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Sexual Medicine and the American Journal of Sexuality Education, and was granted the Professional Standard of Excellence Award from The American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists. Joannides also lectures widely about sex and sexuality on college campuses.
Monday, March 20, 2017
Beauty Wonkette Shares Everything You Need To Know About Hyaluronic Acid
You may have noticed that hyaluronic acid, a multi-tasking carbohydrate, has become quite prevalent in topical anti-aging creams, supplements, and other products. Simply put IT'S EVERYWHERE! But what exactly is hyaluronic acid and why is it such a popular ingredient in personal care products? In the hopes of answering all your questions, Beauty Wonkette share a recent article and slide presentation from Refinery 29:
http://www.refinery29.com/hyaluronic-acid-for-skin
Hyaluronic acid is a little like Julia Roberts: a seasoned vet beloved by all, highly dependable, always up for awards, but rarely found at the heart of a viral, buzzy internet moment. The acid has been in just about every moisturizing product around for years, but recently, brands have been trotting out the show pony ingredient and putting it front and center to make us remember just how great it is for every skin type. (Just like how everyone loves Julia.) Need a primer on the superstar hydrator? We've got you.
Despite its scary-sounding name, hyaluronic acid is naturally found in our bodies, which is why our skin — be it oily, dry, mature, or acneic — responds so well when it's introduced artificially. It’s found in almost every skin cell and acts as a cushion that keeps moisture trapped just below the surface. Unfortunately, our stores of the stuff deplete with age, which is why adding it now is the best thing you can do.
One of the best ways to increase hyaluronic acid production? Ingest it. Leafy greens like spinach and kale, starchy root vegetables, and bone broths are good sources of HA. (There are also some freaky sources, like rooster comb and fish eyeballs, if you want to really go above and beyond.)
But what makes hyaluronic acid so good at moisturizing is the fact that it can hold up to 1,000 times its weight in water. Think of it like a soaked sponge that sits under the surface of the epidermis, and steadily drip-feeds skin with moisture throughout the day. As a result, lines look smoother because skin is plumper and dry patches vanish. But because it's a large molecule, it won't penetrate to the deepest layers, so that's where hyaluronic acid fillers, which are made of synthesized HA derived from sodium hyaluronate, come in.
BEAUTY WONKETTE: Meet ELVIE - your most personal trainer!
For the most part, Beauty Wonkette is not a fan of Khloe Kardashian and thinks that, for the most part, the woman's beauty and health advice is full of shit. However, every now and then Kardashian does offer some valuable vagina advice (and given the frequency with which she uses hers, she may be considered an expert....hehe).
One of her tips is to use the Elvie, a fitness tracker for kegel exercises. Kegels involve contracting the muscles in the pelvic floor, which support the uterus, bladder, small intestine, and rectum. Strengthening those muscles can help with bladder control and pregnancy recovery, and may lead to more intense orgasms too.
One of her tips is to use the Elvie, a fitness tracker for kegel exercises. Kegels involve contracting the muscles in the pelvic floor, which support the uterus, bladder, small intestine, and rectum. Strengthening those muscles can help with bladder control and pregnancy recovery, and may lead to more intense orgasms too.
WTF you say? No, seriously, read on...
The Elvie is inserted into the vagina and syncs with a smartphone app, so users can keep tabs on their progress over time.(Fun fact: 2017 Oscar nominees received an Elvie in their gift bag.)
A fitness tracker for your vagina isn't a bad idea, says Dr. Streicher, the author of Sex Rx: Hormones, Health, and Your Best Sex Ever. "Kegels on their own aren't always useful because a lot of people do them incorrectly," she explains. "There's more research to be done on devices like the Elvie, as well as [others like] the PeriCoach and Apex, but their premise is sound and we can assume they'll help to exercise the pelvic floor."
It's also kind of cute
Those improved orgasms do NOT come cheap though. The Elvie carries a $199 price tag on Amazon. But, the customer reviews ARE good....
Beauty Wonkette Knows the Difference Between Blackheads & Sebaceous Filaments and So Should You!
The body knows when it’s been staring at its perceived “imperfections” in the bathroom mirror for just a little too long. First, the vision starts to blur. Things get fuzzy; you lose the ability to recognize your own face for what it is. Then comes the next phase: the hallucinations. Are those your barely-there crow’s feet from squinting at the sun all those times you left your sunglasses at home, or are they wide cracks in the earth’s surface? Is that a fine line on your forehead, or is it the “really big one” you read about in the New Yorker?
Lastly, there’s the final and most dangerous stage: the picking. You may know it by one of its other names, like “popping” and “squeezing,” but it’s all the same. It’s you, alone, hovering over the sink, pressing your fingers onto your skin with brute force until it finally spits something out. But the next time you find yourself going through this familiar cycle — and trust, it will happen — pause for a second. Take a deep breath. Ask yourself: “Are these really blackheads, or are they just sebaceous filaments?”
Sebaceous filaments look like blackheads, but they’re different. It’s not an easy distinction to make, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry. Blackheads are clogged pores that need to be unclogged — with an exfoliator, with some alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs) or beta hydroxy acids (BHAs), or extractions by a professional’s trained hand. Consider them the evil twin(s) of sebaceous filaments, which are healthy, totally fine hair follicles with a little bit of dead skin around them. You can’t get rid of them; they will always be there. As one wise Reddit user pointed out, this lemon looks to have sebaceous filaments, not blackheads. Don’t squeeze them. They’re normal.And because sebaceous filaments are innocuous, there’s no need to deal with them harshly. You absolutely should not be removing them with hot wax, as you would your armpit hair, even if you see someone in a “how-to” video doing it — because even though they’re hair follicles, they are still on your face. “There certainly are safer methods to help improve the appearance of prominent pores on the nose,” says dermatologist Joshua Zeichner, MD. “Traditional nose strips do a similar job, without the risk posed by hot wax.”
So skip the wax and use a Bioré strip, for your own sake. Use a gentle salicylic acid cleanser, like La Roche-Posay Effaclar Medicated Gel Cleanser; a BHA liquid, like Paula’s Choice Skin Perfecting 2% BHA Liquid Exfoliant; a spot treatment, like Clean & Clear Advantage Acne Spot Treatment — they’ll help remove excess oil and exfoliate those dead cells, so your pores will be less visible.
But if there’s one thing we know about pores — and therefore sebaceous filaments, and blackheads, too — it’s that nobody really notices except you. And your bathroom mirror, of course. Your mirror sees all.
Sunday, March 12, 2017
A somewhat new and totally affordable facial cleansing oil!
Beauty Wonkette has been a longtime devotee of the OIL CLEANSING METHOD. In fact, after years of experimenting with different formulas, she came up with her own recipe that she's been using for years to keep her oil complexion poreless. And, yes, snob that she is, Beauty Wonkette has wrinkled her nose at alot of the cleansing oils out there. Very often, even the more expensive ones depend on the dreaded (at least BW dreads it) mineral oil. But sometimes, we all want the convenience of something we can just buy. Beauty Wonkette glanced at this stuff at her local drugstore, but never paid much attention to it. One, because she's happy with her own formula, and two, Beauty Wonkette is not a big fan of Burt's Bees. But, on a recent trip, she realized she forgot her own cleanser and needed to pick something up. She remembered the hype: Burt’s Bees Cleansing Oil ($15.99) is a new mineral oil free facial cleansing oil with both coconut and argan oils that removes makeup, dirt, and oil. She didn't expect much but was VERY pleasantly surprised. The stuff is lovely!
Let’s take a look:
Burt’s Bees Cleansing Oil is available in a 6 oz plastic bottle with a nifty and efficient pump for $15.99. A quick glance at the ingredients confirms this is in fact not a mineral oil based formula which for BW would have been a deal breaker.
Although the label says that this particular formula was formulated with normal and dry skin in mind however, Beauty Wonkette has oily skin, but decided the combination of ingredients should work okay for her. And, she was right. People are sometimes reluctant to use cleansing oils because they fear it’ll make their skin shiny or greasy but that’s an unfounded fear because cleansing oils break up and rinse clean away without leaving residue or greasiness behind.
Burt Bee’s does a very good job with this formula.To use it, simply massage on your dry face full of makeup! Apply a little water to break it up and emulsify the oil now you can rinse. Typically cleansing oils go milky and break down when water is added but this doesn’t really turn milky it does however, rinse clean away without leaving a film or oily residue behind. (It does cause major trippy cloudy vision so just a warning! Not to worry as some cool water will rinse it completely away.)
This rinses makeup away very well! I didn’t really try it on waterproof mascara and eye makeup as BW tends to remove eye makeup (if she's wearing it, which is, admittedly, rare) with an eye makeup remover prior to washing her face but all my other makeup including blush, bb cream, etc removed easily with this oil. As a test, Beauty Wonkette used a little micellar water afterwards to determine how well this cleanses and the cotton pad came away clean!
All in all in Burt Bee’s first attempt at creating an affordable cleansing oil is a win! This formula is excellent and does a great job removing makeup without drying out skin OR doing the opposite - plus the lack of mineral oil will please a good deal of users!
Oh.... and before you ask for Beauty Wonkette's own recipe, that my fellow wonkettes, is a post for another day.....
THIS NEW MACHINE IS WHAT YOU NEED TO GET YOUR DREAM BUTT!
On more than one occasion, Beauty Wonkette has considered smacking one of her body conscious friends who swears that the only reason she goes to the gym, runs, does pilates, and regularly sweats like a maniac is because she wants to be fit and healthy. Pffft. Beauty Wonkette does all those things because she wants the body that she wants and wants to keep it. Beauty Wonkette does not lie. For her, a peach emoji-level butt is among the most desirable outcomes of regular exercise. Hence the time she spent on the Stairmaster and now on the Versaclimber, and all those squats and lunges. Sure, most trainers will argue that spot training is not effective (as in you can't get a six pack by doing 300 crunches and nothing else, gorging yourself on pizza every night), the simple truth is that extra work in a specific area, as part of an overall fitness routine, will get you what you want.
Enter business executive-turned-entrepreneur Erika Rayman and her recently launched, glutes-focused exercise machine, The DB Method. The foldable, tiny apartment-friendly resistance contraption ($189) is built to modify your squat so you can target your backside more directly, safely, and yield results in a shorter amount of time.
"It's actually a biomechanially correct machine–you are not ever going to over-extend your knees over your toes," Rayman explains, calling out the most common squat mistake. She says that oftentimes when you do an unassisted squat, your quads are doing most of the work. The DB Method aligns your body so they're alleviated and your butt's muscles are more isolated instead. You get proper form every time, so injury-prone knees catch a break too.
Take it from Beauty Wonkette, a gal who does alot of glute work, this baby works! You'll know when you feel the burn after just one session. You can also use the machine to do some extra toning moves to firm your abs and triceps. It's affordable, well constructed, and doesn't take up alot of space. Beauty Wonkette loves hers and gives it an A+.....
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