While it’s great to opt for natural home-cleaning solutions whenever possible, they’re not always the most effective options. Take baking soda and vinegar, for example. These pantry staples are two of the most common components of natural cleaning products, and if you’ve ever seen a science fair volcano, you have a…

International travel is a beautiful way to experience a new culture. But while I’m almost entirely all for immersing yourself in what’s local and pushing beyond your boundaries, I make an exception for coffee. Blame jet lag or the disorientation of un-caffeinated mornings in a foreign country, but when I’m abroad and…

If you want to expand your skincare routine beyond cleansing, moisturizer, and sunscreen, exfoliation is a good next step. Exfoliating serums and scrubs boast that they can fight acne, clear your pores, reduce fine lines, and make your skin vaguely brighter. Some of those promises are true, but they’re not the whole…

“This Uber/Airbnb/restaurant was really great,” you think to yourself, as you sit down to write a review. You type up everything you loved about the ride/apartment/meal, and then you hover your cursor over the star ratings. “Well,” you think, “there’s always room for improvement!” or “This was great, but not literally…

The reveal of the Obamas’ official portraits earlier this week evoked a lot of strong feelings, aesthetic and political—not to mention a reminder of how the aesthetic and political are intertwined. But my strongest reaction was: Oh damn I need to see these paintings and more work by these artists in real life.

Social media is terrible, and social media is amazing. It inundates us with panic-inducing news and rage-inducing hot takes; it also keeps us connected to our friends, professional circles, and news from around the world. But if you try to drink straight from the fire hose, you’re going to drown—or get your head…

For many couples, Valentine’s Day plans have a solid template: go out for a romantic dinner, come home and have romantic and sexy sex. As long as you don’t mind the societally mandated nature of the evening, it sounds pretty nice.

In the arms race between Amazon and Google, homebodies are the clear winners. (Warehouse workers… not so much.) But Google’s latest parry, Google Express, sidesteps the warehouse entirely, delivering orders from your local stores straight to your home. It works a bit differently than Prime, even with Amazon’s recent…

The one time I really tend to wish my pets could talk is when they’re sick. Pet illnesses can seem so vague and amorphous, sometimes—a little puking here, some weird lethargy there—and it can be hard to tell the difference between a little under the weather and the start of a serious problem.

For some of us, the thrill of the gridiron is enough. But others need a little more than bragging rights for the stakes to feel high. Enter: the friendly Super Bowl betting pool. And since the goal is to make things more interesting, let’s, well, make things a little more interesting!

Football is fraught. You may want to enjoy the Super Bowl—for the sport or the snacks or the halftime show—but also really hate a lot of what the NFL, or your team, stands for. Chronic brain injuries, disrespect and disregard for peaceful protest, the sweeping of domestic violence under the rug, support for…

If you have cable and the full suite of NBC channels, this is easy. But for everyone else, full immersion in the winter sports extravaganza takes a little more planning and savvy. Luckily, not too much.

If you’re really jazzed about the Oscar nominations announced this morning, or if you’re lost and want to catch up, many of the nominees—The Shape of Water, Three Billboards, The Phantom Thread, among others—are still in theaters. But for you homebodies, you can catch several of the nominees from top categories…

Should your dog sleep in bed with you? It’s a contentious question. Even a small dog can take up a lot of bed space, and some trainers will say that having your dog sleep in a crate or in their own bed sets an important boundary that helps their behavior. But on the other hand: the snuggles.

Has it been a year already? Has it only been a year? Yes and yes. And this weekend, marking one year since the inaugural (in more ways than one) Women’s March, cities around the world are hosting an encore. Here’s what you need to know to hit the streets.

To some, it’s a dreaded announcement as you wait to board a full flight: We’re looking for volunteers to gate-check their bags. To others, it’s a relief. But to the truly savvy, it’s old news. Because you can often gate-check your bag even when volunteers aren’t being asked.

There are lots of reasons to keep your phone out of the bathroom, but protecting your phone from germs or potential falls into the toilet are secondary—though, yes, stop putting your phone in your back pocket, that’s dangerous. But the real reason to leave your phone out of the bathroom is mindfulness.

“I’m too busy!” “I don’t have enough time!” “If only there were more hours of the day.” It’s weird how feeling overwhelmed and busy rarely coincides with getting a lot done. Maybe the problem isn’t that you don’t have enough time. It’s that you don’t have enough attention.

We’ve all received the conventional wisdom that filler words like “um,” “uh,” and the especially dreaded “like” have no place in conversation. They make you sound dumb! They diminish your authority! But, according to a linguist, filler words serve an important function, and we shouldn’t be so quick to try to banish…

From its title, The Gifts of Imperfection sounds like a book for perfectionists. And it is, but also so much more. The titular gifts are courage, compassion, and connection. If you’re ready for some deep digging on the way to having more of those qualities in your life, read on.