If TikTok videos are an indicator of what’s trending, the beauty trend known as “slugging” has gone mainstream.
Over 100 million viewers have watched clips describing the practice, which involves going to bed at night with your face slathered in Vaseline trib.al/DFjxRAH
The chemist Robert Augustus Chesebrough is pleased to see that another generation has rediscovered the wonder-working powers of Vaseline, his beloved invention.
This gelatinous substance has been a staple in a range of beauty treatments trib.al/G7wBxcC
Vaseline’s story begins with the discovery of crude oil deposits in Pennsylvania in 1859.
Among those drawn to the fields was Chesebrough, a chemist from Brooklyn who worked in kerosene refining trib.al/G7wBxcC
The chemist was intrigued to find that the oilfield hands used the stuff as an emollient, claiming it helped heal scrapes, burns and other skin injuries.
He took samples back to Brooklyn and studied it trib.al/G7wBxcC
Chesebrough developed sophisticated methods for purifying the goo.
In 1872, the young entrepreneur patented his creation, dubbing it Vaseline trib.al/G7wBxcC
Beginning in the 1880s, Vaseline was pitched as a beauty aid.
A typical advertisement declared that Vaseline would “keep the skin clearer, softer, and smoother than any cosmetic ever invented" trib.al/G7wBxcC
Soon women began publishing cosmetic recipes that featured Vaseline as the chief ingredient, along with more modest amounts of lavender, castor oil, cocoa butter, spermaceti and other ingredients trib.al/G7wBxcC
The use of Vaseline to enhance eyelashes and eyebrows may have encouraged some beauty experts to conclude that it promoted hair growth.
One beauty manual from 1901 warned that Vaseline helped hasten “the growth of little hairs on the cheeks and chin” trib.al/G7wBxcC
Vaseline had lost its luster by the 1970s.
Dermatologists dutifully recommended it, including the famed Dr. Jonathan Zizmor of New York City subway advertising fame, who touted its virtues in a guide to beauty aids published in 1978 trib.al/G7wBxcC
Everything comes back into style eventually. Vaseline is no different.
If TikTok is any guide, the beauty regimen of Lady Randolph Churchill has returned, leaving millions of faces with that otherworldly glow that only crude oil sludge can provide trib.al/G7wBxcC
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Today you can be identified by an array of digital representations of your face via technology applications, which will soon scan the faces of U.S. citizens who want to manage their taxes online with the Internal Revenue Service trib.al/cZHOMM8
On the surface, these services are simple, but the number of companies processing faceprints is also growing.
This raises some hard questions about how we want to be identified — and even classified — in the future trib.al/qoArEiC
A way to imagine today’s complex web of facial recognition vendors is to think of the Internet as being like The National Portrait Gallery in London.
The public portraits freely on display are like the billions of photos people post on social media trib.al/qoArEiC
At as little as $5 apiece, rapid antigen tests have become the frontline tool for governments and institutions to quickly check whether a person may be infected with Covid-19 trib.al/i1474MK
The process is simple: Stick the provided cotton swab up each nostril until you meet resistance, twirl it a few times, and swirl the tip in a small tube of liquid before putting a few drops onto a test strip.
It’s taken time for governments to accept rapid antigen Covid tests in full.
Their reticence is understandable because RATs aren’t as sensitive as RT-PCR tests, meaning that a positive case may not always be picked up trib.al/1rtTK2t
We’re already fighting the next global health emergency: Growing antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
Common ailments such as UTIs and sepsis are increasingly able to tough out the drugs developed against them. Some develop into superbugs that defy treatment trib.al/Z4TUOmz
Antimicrobials is the catch-all term for the many antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals and other drugs that prevent infections in:
Pathogens naturally develop resistance to antimicrobials as they evolve, but thanks to an overuse of antibiotics and other conditions, the speed of such resistance has become a major global health issue trib.al/Z4TUOmz
During each recession for the last 40 years, a sizable number of men — more than women — have left the labor force and not come back
So far, this has been true for the Covid pandemic , despite rising wages and the best job market in decades trib.al/2Ql0F7u
The male prime-age labor force participation rate — the share of men aged 25 to 54 who are either working or looking for work — has fallen over the years from 96% in 1970 to about 89% in 2020 before the pandemic trib.al/gi8P7HM
Less-educated men are the most likely to drop out of the workforce.
The rate of prime-age male high school graduates in the labor force is still 1.37 percentage points lower than before Covid. Only 84% of men without college degrees are in the labor force trib.al/gi8P7HM
It’s official: Americans are paying up for their favorite goods.
December saw the biggest 12-month gain in inflation since 1982. Procter & Gamble raised its sales outlook for the year to the end of June on the back of higher prices trib.al/ftA3lQJ
Consumers clearly aren’t balking at having to pay more for their groceries.
P&G said that so far, they were reacting to price increases more favorably than in the past.
Instead of pulling in the purse strings, consumers are trading up trib.al/9GGkW7e
A little inflation is good for manufacturers and retailers alike. The value of sales expands, and consumers get used to paying more at the check-out counter.
It’s a problem when price rises grow rampant trib.al/9GGkW7e