Mini-Ep 406: Costco Vacays and Sunscreen Data
Doree and Elise are both back from their travels with stories to tell! Then, they hear from listeners about the perfect Notes app hack, sunscreens that can set you on fire, and a cushion compact available in the U.S.
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Transcript
Doree: Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree Cha.
Elise: And I'm Elise Hugh. And we're just two friends who like to talk a lot about serums,
Doree: And this is a mini episode where we hear from you, we share your comments and your thoughts, and we answer your questions to the best of our ability. But please do remember, we are podcast hosts. We are not medical or mental health experts, and so we always encourage you to seek support first and foremost, from a medical and or mental health professional as needed.
Elise: That is right.
Doree: Elise, we had been talking a lot about sunburn lately.
Elise: Yes.
Doree: Sunburn remedies.
Elise: Yes.
Doree: And on Saturday, Henry and I went to the beach. Matt was out of town, and Henry and I went to the beach with some kids who are going to be in his kindergarten class next year.
Elise: Oh, nice.
Doree: Next year, I mean, in two weeks. And I put sunscreen on us. I was very diligent, but I didn't put sunscreen on the tops of my feet.
Elise: Oh no.
Doree: And as I was beaching, I was like, I wonder if the top of your feet, they get so sandy. So I was like, it's like, I don't want to put sunscreen on. It's just going to get sandy and gross. It'll be fine. And then what happened was, because the sun was in the south for most of the time that we were there, we were there from 10 30 to two 30 or something. My left foot, the top of my left foot got sunburned, and my right foot did not.
Elise: You're like one of those long haul truck drivers
Doree: Yes.
Elise: That hold up their forearms. Totally, yes. And one forearm is leathery and dark, and the other one is pale like a ghost.
Doree: But I was like, oh my God. Yes. I had reapplied sunscreen on my legs. My legs did not get sunburned. The rest of my body, I was wearing a big hat, so my face did not get
Elise: Sunburned. Yeah, you're good about face protection for sure.
Doree: But the top of my foot was red and blotchy, and I was like,
Elise: Oh
Doree: God,
Elise: It felt so
Doree: Stupid.
Elise: My chest got it. I don't know if you can tell, it's kind of turned tan now, but it after being out in the sun for so many days, I think the fourth or fifth day I just got lazy. I just didn't get every inch of my body. That one part that kind runs along the top of your cleave or the top of your swimsuit line.
Doree: Yes.
Elise: It burns pretty easily. So I'm going to be peeling in a few days, but now my 9-year-old is so experienced with sunburn after experiencing her first ever sunburn this year that she's like, oh, you can use my aloe.
Doree: That's so funny. Well, you know what I put on my, my foot? What? I don't have aloe. I put a and D diaper ointment
Elise: And
Doree: It worked.
Elise: Wow,
Doree: That makes sense. Yeah, because it says it's for, yeah, it's for redness and burns and all that stuff. And I was like, okay. So I mean, it smells bad. I don't like how it smells, but yeah, it was very occlusive. That's the word.
Elise: Well, good hack.
Doree: Good hack. Good hack. I was like, surely my son has something in his drawer for me to put on this sunburn. And
Elise: Indeed he did.
Doree: And indeed he did. What is going on in your world?
Elise: Well, I went on a Costco vacation. I don't know if listeners know this, but I'm a big fan of the Costco packages because they include airfare, transportation, hotel. Often it's at locations like Mexico and Hawaii where all inclusive resorts are priced in. But the best part of a Costco vacation is when you get home, you get a $200 Costco gift card for every room you booked on the vacation. So we booked two rooms. So now there's $400 in Costco money to just spend online or at a store. I was so excited about this. I split it with Rob, so he has 200, I have 200. I got my digital wallet or my digital gift card and was shopping on the Costco website. Really excited about getting new AirPods or maybe a Sonos for my backyard. And then my daughter came upstairs and she's like, did you order my new contacts for the school year? And of course the answer was, what contacts? What are you talking about? Oh, yes. So then I had to go to Costco optical online. And what do two boxes of contacts cost approximately $200. So a big let down for me, because one of the best parts of the Costco vacation is coming home and spending your digital gift card. It's a shame. I was really drunk on power. I was so excited about it. I texted you yesterday morning. I got my gift card.
Doree: Yeah, we were talking about what you were going to spend it on.
Elise: Yeah, it could have been anything. I could have gotten just boxes of T heen gummy bears if I wanted, but no, no. I got ACU view, not even for myself, but that was disappointing. Still a huge supporter of the old Costco vacation. You should check those out if you haven't. And the hotels included are like the Andaz. They're nice hotels.
Doree: They're nice hotel hotels.
Elise: Yeah. Yeah. Or there's a lot of, and internationally, there's a lot of brands that I'm not familiar with, but have great all-inclusive packages. And there's one in Cancun that's at a water slide place that the entire hotel is like water slides. And that's the whole theme. So there's all sorts of options. There was one in Kauai that I was looking at that was at the Sheraton there in Kauai that is located in a beautiful spot. So yeah, I like how it takes care of everything. So your transport is taken care of. You're not having to shop around for each individual. And then it's all traditional airlines. You can choose whether you want to do it on American or do it on United.
Doree: Are the savings. Actual savings.
Elise: I haven tried to price out everything
Individually, but it was enough. I'd be curious. Yeah, it was enough of a difference to me for the first time. I did look at it this time I didn't even look at it because I'm already sold on these. But the first time I went to the airline and then I went separately to look at transportation and I went separately to look at the hotel. And then the first time I did it, it was also at this eco amusement park. And so the package also came with the passes to the amusement park. And so that actually made it all worthwhile because if you price in your excursions and whatever else you feel like doing parasailing, whatever, that all really adds up.
Doree: Totally. Yes.
Elise: If I had nothing else to do with my time and had unlimited funds, I think I would just take a bunch of Costco vacations and review them.
Doree: That would be super fun.
Elise: Just only Costco vacation. That would be like a niche travel blogger.
Doree: That would be so fun. You should totally do that
Elise: One day.
Doree: That would be amazing.
One day. One day. So we've been doing some fun stuff on the Patreon, the conversation we had with Sable Young, the live conversation we had with the Sable Young. We put the audience questions on the Patreon. So if you want to hear those questions, head over to patreon.com/forever three five. We've also been doing these fun Forever35 questionnaires with most of our guests where they answer a lightning round of questions about books and candles and their astrological signs and all that kind of stuff. We also have our casual chats on there, which are just kind of more of this, I would say
Elise: Us catching up,
Doree: Us catching up, us catching,
Elise: But we have a little more time catching up. That's right. But in a casual chat, we're not getting to anything else, it's just chatting. So if you, it's enjoy chatting and some of the topics we end up on, we end up riffing on. Then the casual chats come out every Friday on the Patreon.
Doree: Yes. So you can join the Patreon at patreon.com/forever three five. There's also a seven day free trial, so if you want to check us out, you're not sure I get it, you can do a seven day free trial. And then before we take a break, just a reminder that please, we love to get your voicemails and texts at 7 8 1 5 9 1 0 3 9 0. You can also email us at Forever35 podcast@gmail.com. Our website is Forever35 podcast.com. We have links there to everything we mention on the show. We're also on Instagram at Forever35 podcast, and we have a newsletter at Forever35 podcast.com/newsletter. If you want to shop our favorite products, you can go to shop my us slash forever three five.
Elise: Awesome.
Doree: And we also have what else we have on our shop? My shelf thing is all of Rachel Goodwin's makeup.
Elise: Yes. We put them up there
Doree: And skincare recs, we put them up there. So that is just a fun little spot to check out. Alright, we will be right back.
Elise: We'll be right back.
Doree: Alright, we are back. So we were recently talking about how sometimes you have a family history of various illnesses or disease or chronic conditions. It was in a mini episode,
Elise: Right? Because my brother and I were bonding over our knee problems and he's like, yeah, our dad has the same problem,
Doree: And how parents are just bad at telling you important medical history information. And I shared how my brother has gout and he probably probably delayed his diagnosis because no one knew that my grandfather had gout. So we heard from a listener who came up with a great solution for this.
Elise: Awesome.
Doree: They write, my mom died from breast cancer when she was 59 and a couple years ago, my sister and I started a shared notes app note where we dumped every bit of family medical history we could find. It has been invaluable, all our medical appointments. We also harangued our dad, ironically a doctor to share everything he knew about both sides of the family. So much of this just never comes up in conversation or it happened when we were kids and it was over our head. I love
Elise: This great idea. I need to get on this with my brother immediately.
Doree: Yeah, what a great idea. Which parts of
Elise: Dad's body are made of titanium,
Doree: Right, exactly. Need to fight now. I mean, I do think transparency is just so important, especially when it comes to medical stuff
Elise: And it can skip lots of generations. Like my little nephew who's probably only, what, eight or nine years old, he got diagnosed with type one diabetes and we thought we didn't have type one diabetes in the family. And it turns out my great grandmother did. So my mother's grandma. Yeah. So it's really helpful to dump everything in one place.
Doree: Yes. I just saw that one of Chrissy, Tegan and John Legend's kids has type one diabetes and was just recently diagnosed.
Elise: Yeah, Luke, my nephew, he didn't get diagnosed until later, like six or something. So
Doree: I think that's how old, around the age of the kid who got diagnosed. I think it was Miles.
Elise: Yeah.
Doree: Okay. Do you want to read this? We have a long email from a dermatologist,
Elise: And we were talking about sunburn at the top of the episode too, given your foot sunburn, your unfortunate left foot sunburn.
Doree: Yes.
Elise: Hi, dermatologist here. I was interested in your discussion about spray and stick sunscreens in my practice, I always recommend creams and lotions if possible for best coverage. Although any sunscreen is better than none, I did a literature review and found the following about sprays. So the first report that they found says, spray on sunscreens are less desirable than cream-based ones. For several reasons, wind can disperse the sunscreen resulting in inadequate application. Moreover, because spray on sunscreens are often fast drying and sometimes not clearly visible once sprayed onto the skin, it is difficult to determine whether application was homogeneous. Aerosolized sunscreens are also flammable, and several incidences of combustion on the skin have been reported after exposure to open flames, even after the seems bad sunscreen has been allowed to dry. Finally, the potential risks associated with inhalation of aerosolized sunscreens have not been adequately studied. Yikes. Yikes. So people have caught on fire because of their sunscreen.
Doree: Crazy.
Elise: The reason why we use spray on sunscreen on our kids' bodies is because it's like quick application. You can get them to do it, but it's true about the wind because the beach, for example, is always super windy and how much of it actually gets onto the skin. So, good point. Second article shared by our listener, spray sunscreens have shown to be as effective as lotions when applied correctly with increasing user acceptance, albeit with questionable practical results. Due to the difficulty to adequately cover all exposed parts, distribute the product evenly and use the recommended amount in the us, the preference has shifted from lotions to sunscreens and clear sprays, mainly because of the quick and easy application of these products. The lack of specific guidelines for the use of spray sunscreens and concerns about safety and adequate application by the patient may explain the hesitation of some American dermatologists to recommend sprays as seen in a recent survey, we are 99% of 540 dermatologists recommended sunscreens to their patients, but only 69% recommended the spray formulations at the time of reapplication spray formulations can be helpful in enhancing the effect of other sunscreen. Now back to our listener who says, I don't see as much research performed on sticks. Usually these are mineral sunscreens and well-regarded. But again, if the stick sunscreen is not applied evenly or completely, then it isn't that helpful. Hope this evidence helps guide. Thank you. I definitely didn't know that I could catch on fire. That was new to me.
Doree: Seriously, I love hearing from actual experts.
Elise: Yes.
Doree: An actual
Doctor. Yeah, I'm actually a dermatologist. Okay, great. I have seen people say the best sunscreen is the one that you'll actually put on or the one that your kid will actually wear or whatever. And I do think that there is some truth to that. Some sunscreen is better than no sunscreen. But I guess when you have the options, maybe air on the side of the cream or the lotion.
Elise: I dunno. I mean, I'm just so glad that kids these days are talking about and making sunscreens a ritual because when I was growing up in middle school, it was the banana boat tanning oils. We were putting oil on our skin to try and get dark.
Doree: Boy, I never did that because I don't tan, I only burn. So there was just no world where that was even possible. But what I do remember is that the highest SPF you could get was 15. 15 was high SPF. And now I feel like people are like 15. That's nothing. And then do you remember briefly, there was a whole period where people were selling a hundred SPF?
Elise: Yeah, I did. And they were charging more for it, but I don't know that that it's really, they were charging
Doree: More for it. And I think what ended up happening is that people got lulled into a false sense of security and would end up getting burned because they would put on a hundred at the beginning of the day and then never reapply it because they were like, it's a hundred, and it didn't actually work that much better. So I feel like that's
Elise: Americans looking for a quick
Doree: Fix. Yes. I feel like the highest you ever see now is 50.
Elise: I don't see anything higher, maybe 70 at most, but
Doree: That's rare. It's rare. It's rare.
Elise: But
Doree: Yeah, there was that moment where it was like a hundred spf.
Elise: Good boy.
Doree: Oh boy. Well thank you for this.
Elise: Yeah, really helpful.
Doree: I love the scientific, the evidence, the evidence-based data. All right. We have one more email in this segment. Hi, Doree Elise, I have a random problem I thought I'd throw out to you guys and the Forever35 family to see if anyone can help. I gifted myself a Peloton two years ago for Mother's Day and have been riding consistently ever since. Every time I ride my toes fall asleep, Hannah Corvin said in one ride that it means your shoes are too small. So I ordered up a size and it's still happening. I'm wondering if it means that the shoes are too narrow. It does start with my pinky toe and then moves inward from there. So I feel like it could indicate some squeezing. Has anyone else had this issue? Has anyone figured out how to solve it? The Peloton brand shoes do not come in wide, and if I size up again, my heel will fall out while I'm riding. I'm willing to go off brand, but I want to make sure to get something that's good quality and works well with the bike. Thanks for any and all suggestions. Yes. That is generally the reason why your feet fall asleep because your shoes are too small. And I was always told that for running shoes and bike shoes, you want to go up two sizes from your actual street shoe size
Elise: Because your feet swell when exercising.
Doree: Yes, exactly. Your feet swell. So that's the other thing that's a little deceiving. You could try on a pair of shoes and they might feel like they fit at the store, but that's not how they're going to feel on your feet after 45 minutes of riding. So I would maybe try up another size, even though I know you think it might make your heel fall out, or you could go with a different brand of shoe. So Shimano, which is like a very well-known, widely respected bike shoe brand. I have a pair of Shimano myself. They do make shoes that come in wide. Their shoes are pretty expensive, but they do make wide cycling shoes. I'm just seeing who else makes wide cycling shoes. Looks like there's a brand called Physics Lake Cycling, but again, I mean these are going to be a little pricey, but I think probably worth it. So I would make the investment myself. But yeah, I have big feet and I'm usually a 40 41 in European sizing, depending whether it's French or Italian. I know they're slightly different. And my bike shoes are a size 43,
So
You really do have to size up. Elise, do you have any insight here?
Elise: Same thing I do with my running shoes. So I size up at least a size and a half, if not two, or I just wear men's shoes because my foot size ends up being so large that there might be a better deal sometimes to wear men's running shoes. And as our listener said, she's throwing it out to the Forever35 family too. So if y'all have experienced this and have found a solution besides just wider shoes or bigger shoes, definitely weigh in. We want to hear your emails, texts, and voice messages.
Doree: Yes. Okay. Let's take another little break and we'll be our B. All right. We got a text that says, hi, Elise and Doree. First off, you all are doing amazing. Keeping Forever35 alive. Secondly, when I heard Elise talk about cushion compacts, I had to ask if she's tried. Michelle fans m cosmetics cushion compact. I haven't tried this because I don't wear foundation, but I've loved all of the M cosmetics lip products. Thank you for being my podcast Best friends. So have you tried the Michelle fans M Cosmetics cushion compact? Elise,
Elise: I was so excited to learn about this that I went to click on the M cosmetics link and then it froze my computer. So now I am back to say no, I haven't tried. I have yet to try cosmetic cushion compact. I am usually partial to the line cushion compacts and then the Mac cushion compact, the CC cushion delightful brand or whatever, the delightful line that I can only get from Southeast Asia. So I'm totally game to try so long as clicking on the link doesn't freeze my computer again.
Doree: Yeah, I was like, where'd she go? I was
Elise: Trying to shop for kitchen compacts. That's where I went. That's so
Doree: Funny.
Elise: There's one last package we want to close with because it is in response to one of our earlier episodes about quick week weeknight meals, which I feel like is a recurring theme on this show because we're always looking for them. The text says, Doree, a little late to the party, but I am obsessed with corn pasta. My whole friend group makes it now. All thanks to you. Smiley face.
Doree: Yay.
Elise: All. We have shared the link to that recipe. It is from the New York Times cooking app, if I recall correctly, but we can share it again.
Doree: We have shared it again. I also just want to note that I feel like corn gets sort of a bad wrap because people think about corn syrup and all the ways that corn is used in highly processed foods, but corn itself is a very nutritious food, like filled with fiber and vitamins and it's delicious. So I was pleased to learn that. Not that it really matters, but it was like, oh, that's interesting. Okay. Also, this corn pasta, it really does take 20 minutes. It's so easy.
Elise: I need to, it's crazy. I need to just go for it. It's really good. And maybe my, it's really,
Doree: Really good. Whole
Elise: Friend group can join too. I love how her friend group is all making it, so it's great.
Doree: Today is my husband's birthday. I was like, what do you want for dinner? He's like, he's like, are you sick of the corn pasta? He asked, he wanted the corn pasta, and I was like, honestly, I am a little sick of it. We have it at least once a week now. I'm going to make it. I mean, it's been a huge success, so maybe I will make it tonight.
Elise: Great. Okay. Well, thank you listeners. Keep your texts and emails and calls coming.
Doree: Yep. Keep 'em coming. All right. Bye everybody.
Elise: We'll talk to you next time.
*Transcripts are AI Generated.