We’re all about bringing you the latest and greatest innovations in the green shoe world. From Sylven’s vegan, apple-leather creations to Reformation’s fully recyclable sneakers, our environmentally conscious shoe coverage really runs the gamut. Another one of our favorites is the popular sustainable sneaker brand Cariuma. Its OCA Low even won Best White Canvas Sneaker in our 2020 Most Valuable Product (MVP) awards. So if you’ve been impressed with the brand’s offerings in the past, you’re in for a treat! After many requests, Cariuma has officially launched a slip-on sneaker to help you fill in any gaps in your shoe collection.

Slip-On Skate Pro, $85

The Slip-On Skate Pro is a lace-less style crafted with skateboarders in mind;  however, it is totally perfect for casual wear. Rubber reinforces the front of the shoe, creating a unique rip-resistant toe area to protect the foot, while the style is versatile enough to be worn with anything from vibrant, colorful dresses to your go-to pair of blue jeans. Comfort and longevity of wear were clearly priorities, as these kicks were designed with a snug arch fit and 360 cushioning in the sole for extra support.                  

Slip-On Skate Pro, $85

Cariuma’s rise to popularity over the last few years has a lot to do with the brand’s viral OCA Low sneakers, which have over 15,000 reviews raving about their otherworldly comfort and unmatchable versatility. Now with the release of the slip-on style skate sneaker, Cariuma further secures a foothold in the sustainable shoe market.

While it’s nice to have a well-made, sustainable shoe, Cariuma has made a conscious effort to give back to the planet by helping to revive ecosystems by planting trees. The brand pledges to plant two trees for every pair of shoes sold. While this type of offering isn’t completely new in the retail landscape, Cariuma intentionally created its own in-house reforestation program that works with locals and indigenous folks in Brazil.

Slip-On Skate Pro, $85

Whether you want a new pair of sneaks to coast down a seaside boardwalk or just something easy, simple, and stylish for year-round wear, the Slip-on Skate Pro is worth checking out. You can now choose from five go-with-everything colorways in sizes 5 to 13 on the Cariuma site.

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When I chat with Taraji P. Henson, it’s clear from the get-go that she’s a person with initiative. “I’m just sweating from this beating I got from my trainer— he’s trying to kill me,” she tells me. Henson is hosting this week’s BET Awards and actively filming for the musical The Color Purple.

When she’s not busy with acting and appearances (or at the gym), Henson works on the production and design of her beauty brand, TPH by Taraji. The label is more than a passion project, it’s filling a gap in the market: Affordable hair and body products designed to meet the needs of people with natural hair who frequently transition between natural and protective styles.

On the importance of scalp care

I asked Henson why she created TPH by Taraji in the first place. “I saw that what I wanted didn’t exist,” Henson explains. “I didn’t see anything targeting scalp, or any education on keeping scalp clean when you have a protective hairstyle — I didn’t see that audience being targeted. That was important to me.”

When launching TPH, Henson was thinking about the specific challenges facing a woman who wears a protective hairstyle. “When your hair is in a protective style, it’s away,” she explains, “but you have to take care of your scalp, you have to keep it clean. I just knew that education was off. Women didn’t know. I could people-watch and tell that a woman had a dirty scalp — not in a shadey way, just from my own knowledge. I wanted to help people get a clean scalp, and educate on the benefits of [it]. I knew that women were just tucking their hair away, thinking it was going to grow. You still gotta love it. It’ll get matte and brittle if you don’t take care of it.”

So, how do you care for your scalp on wash day? According to Henson — someone who personally transitions between weaves and wigs and her natural hair quite often — it’s with her TPH products. She treats the skin on her scalp like the skin on her face, especially when she’s transitioning out of a protective style and her scalp needs that extra TLC.

“I start with wet hair and wet scalp, section my hair to get to the scalp, and I start with the sugar scrub, Never Salty. It’s an exfoliant for the scalp that gets all the debris, buildup, dandruff, dry skin, all of it off the scalp. Then [I] use the Master Cleanse to get the sugar-scrub residue out of [my] hair. Then I always finish with a conditioner for my scalp as well.”

It’s not until Henson is done with scalp care that she moves to her hair care, like the shampoo, conditioner, and masking. “It’s a different process,” she explains. “I use Honey Fresh Shampoo and Make It Rain Conditioner for my hydration. I might use Mother Earth Mask if I’m coming out of a protective style, because that helps get your curl pattern back.”

Why affordability matters

As you can tell from Henson’s routine, for many women with natural hair, it takes a lot of products to get the scalp clean and the curls healthy, which is why Henson wanted the cost per unit to be as low as possible. “It’s always a challenge, but I’m adamant about it,” she says. “I got a DM the other day and it said, ‘Thank you so much for not forgetting about us and for making things affordable.‘ It’s important. Everybody can’t afford Oribe.”

Inside the celebrity beauty space

Henson is one of many celebrities that are investing in beauty products, with the likes of Tracee Ellis Ross in the hair-care space and of course, Rihanna. But Henson sees it as a very individual experience, because every celebrity serves a different niche.

“When you get into the beauty industry and you’re a celebrity, you really have to know your audience,” Henson explains. “Rihanna’s audience is different. She’s a big mega singing star and her tickets aren’t cheap, so she can drop a product that’s $50 because people are used to that price tag. For me, I’m $20 at the movies. I know my audience and I can’t ignore them. Will I ever come out with a luxury brand? Absolutely, that’s where I’m headed. But you have to start somewhere and I want something for everyone.” 

Moreover, Henson is of the opinion that there’s no such thing as an over saturation when it comes to the natural hair-care market. “I did a panel with some of the natural hair-care founders and someone said that 70 percent of the world has textured hair,” she says.”That means that there’s so much room.” Which takes us back to the need for different products, specific to natural hair. “I’ve never just used one product,” Henson adds. “So I want TBH to be a part of the regimen, a part of your life, even if it’s just one product. I mean, you can buy the whole line and it still won’t cost you $100.”

“I did a panel with some of the natural hair-care founders and someone said that 70% of the world has textured hair. That means that there’s so much room.”

Taraji P. Henson

Small and BIPOC-founded beauty brands to support

Because I can tell that Henson is conscientious, I’m curious about what other beauty brands she supports and uses in her own life. “I like to support smaller brands,” she says. “I have a friend who does my nails, she’s done Beyoncé’s nails, and her salon is called The Nail Suite, her name is Lisa Logan. She makes the most incredible handmade soaps, they are absolutely amazing. I start with her soaps, then I go into my regimen with TPH body products. I also love Paul Scerri, I’ve been using the pH Balancing Cream for over 20 years. Biore, I love. My favorite shimmer is a Body Lava from Fenty. I love what Rihanna has done with that line.” 

Specifically for her nails, Henson loves doing her own manicures. She tells me she just DIYed a pink chrome set that was “so pretty and dainty.” But she’s also quick to show love to the incredible celebrity nails artists who make her job as a host or a presenter a little easier. “For the big professional stuff, like BET, I’ll have someone else make me a set,” she says. “Temeka Jackson is amazing. Plus, I have a lot of other things I have to think about.”

Shop the TPH by Taraji line, below:

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Laura knew her brief relationship with work colleague Jack was over when he admitted he was “still in love with his ex.” She remembers how her housemate stroked her hair while she sobbed in bed, and fed her pizza as they watched Clueless. She definitely remembers the toe-curlingly awkward conversation she was forced to have with her line manager when she handed her notice in the next day.

But despite the breadcrumb trail of pain Jack left for Laura, when he texted her asking to go for a drink three months later, she found herself agreeing — and putting on her lacy red thong under her leather skirt before she headed off.

“In my head I was thinking, he’s a prick, I really don’t want this, but also I want to know if he still wants me, and whether I even feel anything for him,” she explains.

Laura’s curiosity in seeing whether she and Jack still had chemistry between the sheets is just one of a myriad of reasons why people end up having sex post-breakup. Unlike the good old days before the internet, we are now forced to confront our exes on a daily basis; seeing them pop up on social channels and apps. Even our iPhone is keen to vomit up random photos on our home screen, showing us a picture of us and our former SO during happier times just when we’re feeling our most vulnerable.

“Breakup sex can go one of two ways,” says dating and relationship expert Sarah-Louise Ryan. “It can confirm that the spark or emotional connection has gone in a relationship or it can be that one party of the two realized that they do not in fact want to draw a line in the sand. 

“The intimacy may give a false restart to a situation emotionally when we physically connect with an ex again,” she says. “Closure defines the end of something but actually some people that reconnect with an ex for sex can sometimes be looking for something casual but they mix up a whole load of emotions by revising the old instead of working on welcoming someone new between the sheets.” 

He put his phone on airplane mode so she wouldn’t bother him while were were at the pub.

Laura

“And, in short, sex with someone after a breakup is a temporary solution to the physical and emotional pain that both or one might be seeking to heal in order to move forward,” Ryan explains.

After a bit of an awkward start to their drink, Laura and Jack found themselves falling back into the same, flirtatious habits after a few glasses of wine, which naturally saw them back in Jack’s bedroom. 

While Laura admits the sex was “good,” it was not the soft, tender sex the pair had previously shared and it jolted her back to her senses.

“He was doing this dirty talk which made me cringe,” she laughs. “And I was on top so I had to do most of the work.

“I had massive regret the next day, especially when I found out he’d started dating someone else in the office and had put his phone on airplane mode when we were at the pub so she couldn’t bother him,” Laura admits. “It just confirmed to me he was a dickhead and we didn’t speak again.”

Aoife* had a similar experience when she had “closure” sex with her ex-girlfriend Stephanie*. The pair had had an intense but tumultuous relationship for two years while Aoife was working abroad. After the sudden split of her parents, Aoife (who was keen to remain on good terms with Stephanie) needed someone to talk to about the situation, and their initially platonic rendezvous led to sex.

“I didn’t go with the intention but it was one of these things when you’re going through a difficult time, you gravitate towards the person you feel most at home with,” Aoife explains.

“I was really trying to keep control of myself but the way she was behaving, hugging and kissing me, I couldn’t stop myself,” she says. “I knew it was objectively wrong, but it felt right. It’s still the best sex I’ve ever had. It was medicinal, in a way.”

Ryan agrees that breakup sex can feel good, if not better, than the sex was in the relationship.

“Sex itself releases all of those feel-good hormones to the brain to lessen pain,” she explains. “When we orgasm, dopamine is released, heightening out feelings of desire, motivation and also pleasure and so it can be easy to associate those feelings with an ex.”

The excuse she gave me was stupid, she said she’d been with a music producer who wanted to cast her in a video, which just made me laugh because it was so ridiculous.

Aoife*

“We are our most vulnerable when we are physically and emotionally intimate with someone and if there is no defined future, it leaves a space for mixed emotions, feeling out of control and worries about what it was, or is, to grow,” she continues. “In short, sex makes us feel good. But how it leaves many feeling after sex with an ex is questionable. I mostly hear stories of confusion, emotional turmoil or a craving of the physical in the same way again.”

Aoife thought her and Stephanie would be able to discuss the events of the night before, and was left feeling hopeful after the pair had a romantic morning in bed together.

But she was soon reminded why the pair broke up when Stephanie left Aoife in her house with no explanation.

“She said she was nipping out but she wasn’t back until the evening,” Aoife says. “The excuse she gave me was stupid as well. She said she’d been with a music producer who wanted to cast her in a video, which just made me laugh because it was so ridiculous.

“That night she had a bit too much to drink and she got angry and snappy at me. At that point, I realized the cycle was never going to stop unless I fully cut off all contact with her. I guess in a sense [the sex] served as a realization that I really truly couldn’t do this anymore,” Aoife concludes.

Not all our tales of breakup sex are necessarily as woeful. Fueled by Dutch courage following a drunken night out at university, Kat* turned up at her ex Michael’s* house. She knew he was in on his own, and decided to shoot her shot.

“We’d broken up about six months ago, but had tried to remain friends because we’d been together for so long,” Kat says. “I’d been casually seeing other people but nothing really compared to what me and Michael had.”

While Michael was surprised to have Kat on his doorstep, things quickly got intense after Kat stated her intentions.

“The sex was really good,” she explains. “None of my encounters since the split had been particularly satisfying, and Michael and I knew each other’s bodies so well. It was familiar and comforting.”

While Kat was left wondering whether she’d done the right thing, the next morning, after a cup of tea and two slices of wholemeal toast made by Michael, the pair talked over their feelings, and decided to give things between them another go.

“Ultimately, we realized we broke up for reasons that could be remedied, and thought what we had was worth trying for,” she says.

Having an open and honest conversation is likely the only way to have objectively less problematic breakup sex, Sarah says.

“The idea of ‘closure’ sex is to finalize the time that two people spent together — often seen as one last orgasmic hoorah, so to speak,” she says. “It can only ever work if the two people cease contact afterwards. We should look back to learn the lessons about what we want and do not want. We should use it to have reflection and take stock.”

The moment led to us properly having some closure in our relationship. It gave us the chance to move on.

Kat

Kat and Michael’s reunion was fairly short-lived, with the pair breaking up for good the following year, but Kat doesn’t regret the final time with her ex.

“Some people said we scratched an itch we shouldn’t have,” she says. “But on the whole, the moment led to us properly having some closure in our relationship. It gave us the chance to move on.”

Like breakups themselves, breakup sex is very rarely clear-cut, often leading to a tangle of emotions, uncertainty and distress. But, like many things that aren’t “good” for us, the temptation of good sex and curiosity over an ex can have you doing things you know your friends will give you a hard time for when you tell them over brunch. So next time you find yourself reaching for your phone after your ex’s name flashes up, only start packing your overnight bag if you’re ready to confront your feelings afterwards.

“Can sleeping with someone you cared about one last time ever be healthy? More often than not, one person is always bound to get hurt,” Ryan says.

“If the bridges haven’t been burnt badly it should also be considered that one party might just want to keep that door open for sexual opportunity but not real emotional connection. That’s tricky in itself, as it can blur the lines,” she continues.

“Sex with an ex can be momentarily stabilizing from the mixture of stirred emotions we endure during a breakup,” Ryan says. “But for every example of closure sex being a positive experience, I could probably show you a hundred of examples and case studies where it hasn’t helped but only hindered one or both parties.”

*names have been changed

This article was originally posted on Refinery29 UK.

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There’s an episode in season 4 of Gossip Girl, in which the show’s resident “evil dictator of taste,” Blair Waldorf, is unraveling as she tries to balance a full-time job at W Magazine and a hefty course load at Columbia University. So much so that she shows up at a birthday party wearing two different Roger Vivier shoes, a sign for everyone around her that she’s about to implode her life if she doesn’t take a break. But what if Waldorf was making, dare I say, a statement? 

While I’ve always been against the idea of mismatched shoes, Gucci’s Resort 2023 collection made me reconsider Waldorf’s mishap. Creative director Alessandro Michele unveiled a look that not only put mismatched shoes on the runway, but celebrated the controversial styling, by way of a two-tone black-and-white blouse-and-pants combo, paired with non-matching shoes. 

Michele might be doing this on the runway, but the deliberate mismatching took me back to Sex and the City’s season 3, when Carrie and her crew fly to Los Angeles to escape the monotony of their New York lives. So much so that Carrie forgoes all styling rules and dons different color shoes in metallic hues for their first night out. The statement — probably concocted by the show’s costume designer Patricia Field — signaled that one of the best ways to spice up your life is to break all the rules, even if you look like you rushed out of the house without looking in a mirror. 

After Gucci’s show, I set out to try the trick on my own. While fashion brands like Sarah Jessica Parker’s SJP Collection and Charlotte Stone have offered different color shoes for some time now, I figured the best (and frankly most affordable) way to try it for myself was to literally wear two mismatched shoes in one outfit. I first analyzed the references in front of me: I could go all out with contrasting, metallic colors à la Bradshaw, or I could take a tip from Waldorf’s mishap and wear two different shoes that were quite similar to one another. 

As a fan of neutral dressing, I went with the latter because, well, baby steps. I also made sure to choose two pairs of shoes that were the same height because this experiment could not end up with me limping, or worse, a broken hip. I figured a white slip-on sandal with zigzag strings in front could go well with a beige sandal that featured wavy straps. As long as we were going for mismatched, I figured the asymmetry between the two pairs was justified. 

Then, came the styling, which was easier than I imagined. I paired a white tank top — one of the season’s top trends — with a denim jacket and high-waisted shorts, a relatively blank canvas for the weirdness going on with my feet. I added a beige shoulder bag and white sunglasses. If you follow the colors there, you can see the formula: Pair each of your shoes to something in your outfit to make them fit in with the look, just like at Gucci. And it worked: no one — not even my boyfriend, who I went out with wearing the outfit — noticed I was wearing two different shoes (or at least, they were polite enough not to stare).

While this may be a quirky styling tool, much like with Bradshaw, it works wonders when your closet — or even your life — is feeling stagnant. And even when you’re feeling in shambles, accidentally wearing two different shoes by mistake, go with it. It’s a statement.

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The summer of 2022 brings a rare connection between rebel planet Uranus and the North Node of Destiny on July 31. Although this is the time they exactly unite, the effects have been underway since January and will be felt for years to come. Uranus and the North Node link up every 15 years, but this is the first time in centuries and the next time won't be until 2357. 

The years Uranus traveled through Taurus was back in 1934-1941. The revolutionary planet breezes through each zodiac sign in approximately seven years, taking 84 years to make its way through the whole zodiac. It entered Taurus in 2018, where it currently resides and will until 2026 (after several movements forward and backwards through Taurus and the early degrees of Gemini). 

When Uranus is in Taurus, it brings abrupt change to Venusian sentiments (because Venus is the planetary ruler of Taurus). One of the ways it’ll affect us the most is through our sexual exploration. This will be a time in which we will want to experiment or try out our secret kinks and really make them a part of our repertoire. 

How does the North Node of Destiny in Taurus play into this sensual vibe? Well, the North Node in Taurus (it was last in this sign from 2003-2004, as it takes 18-19 years for a nodal return to occur) urges us to embrace and lean into our sensual side and desires by incorporating the hedonistic attributes of Taurus and the scintillating proneness of Scorpio (where the South Node of Destiny lies). Being that one must compensate both nodal energies together, while moving in a new direction, it’s important to incorporate past Scorpio energies and present Taurus indulgences together, with a focus on the progress and novelty of Venusian pleasures. 


The alliance between the North Node of Destiny and Uranus in Taurus will upgrade everyone’s sex drive, kinks, and desires. It’s time to say goodbye to the basics and start a whole new exciting journey that allows us to turn the heat up by leaning into what truly turns us on. “Great Awakener” Uranus is shifting our mindsets and loins by allowing us change, while the North Node is helping us be the most unique and exciting versions of ourselves. It won’t feel like upheaval if we know what our zodiac sign prefers and wants sexually. The moment to go beyond our desires is now. It’s time for sexual liberation and freedom. Read about how your zodiac sign will enjoy the summer of consensual sexual transformation below.

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