Mini-Ep 462: Jeans, Laser Machines, and Short-Hair Queens
Listeners have thoughts about leaving your baby for a trip for the first time, plus questions about at-home laser hair removal machines and whether you can trust “expert” advice about haircuts.
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Transcript
This episode transcript is AI generated.
Doree Shafrir (00:10):
Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree Shafrir.
Elise Hu (00:16):
And I'm Elise Hu. And we're just two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.
Doree Shafrir (00:21):
It's so true, 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 remember, we are not experts. We're podcast hosts and we always encourage you to seek support first and foremost from a medical and or mental health professional as needed.
Elise Hu (00:43):
And what a time to be alive. I hope you all are taking good care of yourselves. It feels pretty chaotic these last couple of weeks, like more chaotic than usual. And so as a show that's focus is just trying to take care of ourselves and trying to take care of each other. I hope that you are taking deep breaths, staying calm, as calm as possible, getting the sleep and rest that you need. I'm trying to get to bed earlier. I'm trying to celebrate the small wins. I'm trying to hug my kids tight. I went to Ava's first volleyball game last night, which was a lot of fun. That coach is so coached. He has such coach vibes. I think he used to be a college basketball player at LMU or something, and he's very tall and just intense and it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun.
Doree Shafrir (01:39):
Oh good.
Elise Hu (01:40):
And the girls played really well together as a team, even though it was their first game and they won. And it was good to see Ava, I could tell she was really self-conscious. All the boys came, the whole boy crew from the seventh grade and eighth grade, a lot of 'em are basketball players. They came and they kind of sat in front and watched, and I think that made her even more nervous, but it was cool to see. So yeah, just celebrating being present and being alive as much as possible. I hope that you all are doing the same. How are you, Dorie? What's happening? Let's do a quick
Doree Shafrir (02:17):
Temperature check. Well, I mean,
Elise Hu (02:23):
Yeah,
Doree Shafrir (02:24):
It's bad.
Elise Hu (02:24):
We care about free speech here on the show
Doree Shafrir (02:28):
And in the country. And in the country indeed. So yeah, just trying to muddle my way through this. I feel like this is something that we could talk a lot more about. We are going to get to our listener questions and comments because we've actually gotten quite a few and we have a lot of responses for a few different topics that have come up lately. Them is a listener who had, I think she called in about having a baby and going away.
Elise Hu (03:06):
Oh yeah. She was leaving her seven month old and was anxious about
Doree Shafrir (03:11):
It and was anxious about it. Correct. So we got another great response to this.
Listener Voicemail (03:17):
Hey, I'm calling in response to the listener who is leaving her baby for the first time to go on a work trip. I first of all just want to say I feel you so much. When I had to take my first work trip away from my kid, I literally wept in the airport fourth before leaving on an international flight. And I ran into one of my bosses at the airport that was even more awkward, but one recommendation that really helped for me other than just FaceTiming with the baby when I could, although sometimes that was harder for my spouse, but one other thing that I did, but I would journal in the evenings like I was writing to my kids about everything that I was doing and it made me feel really connected to her and also made me realize how cool my job was and what I was doing was, and all the cool things I was seeing for the first time.
(04:10)
And I would write about the things I was struggling about too and how much I missed her. And I thought one day she's going to read this and she's going to think about how cool her mom was, but also that her mom was a real person that was juggling and things were hard for her and that was just really special for me and I hope that she does read it one day and looks back on it. And then also everything Lori said is true. It's going to be fine. And it actually did help my husband form a close relationship with the baby while I was gone and when I got back, he could help me a lot more with her because he learned feeding technique that works for her that didn't work for me. So good luck. Enjoy your trip and I hope you get some nice time for you too.
Doree Shafrir (04:53):
Love this.
Elise Hu (04:54):
Yeah, I imagine she's gone on her trip now, but I'd love to hear back. So if you were the original caller or texter or emailer who wrote in, give us an update.
Doree Shafrir (05:06):
Yeah, we'd love an update. We got another voicemail on another topic that came up, which was someone transitioning to working in a school, and I also just want to note that this is a voicemail that was emailed into us as a voice memo, and I think you'll all hear the high quality of this voicemail.
Listener Voicemail (05:29):
Hi Doree and Elise, I'm calling in response to the listener who said she was going from working in a hospital to working in a school. I was a teacher. I'm currently a stay-at-home mom, so two things I thought of were that being a service provider in a school, a speech language pathologist, occupational therapists can be kind of isolating because you're not working at a grade level team kind of situation. A lot of first grade teachers work together, et cetera. So if there's a good lunchroom culture, staff lounge culture to go eat your lunch in there and get to know people. My second piece of advice is schools are really busy, hectic places. There's just this amazing organized chaos that happens every single day and it can be really easy to get caught up in that hustle and bustle and to not take breaks and just let the day run by you. So really making an effort to take real actual breaks at your lunch break or whatever you can do to just actually carve out a break for yourself. This call kind of got me thinking a lot about the idea of career transitions because honestly, I thought about becoming a speech language pathologist myself, so I would love to hear also about other listeners who've made big career transitions and what that's looked like for them. And thank you ladies so much for the show. Love listening.
Elise Hu (06:57):
There's a shout out for y'all then. So the career pivot question from one of our listeners, call in or email us a voice memo.
Doree Shafrir (07:07):
I mean, did you not appreciate the crystal clear quality? And we also got a text about this that said hi there. I had some self-care tips for the school-based SLP speech language pathologist transitioning from the hospital setting. I'm a school psychologist and often collaborate with our SLP. The biggest piece of advice I can share is to actually leave the building for your lunch hour, whether it be listening to an audiobook or podcast in your car doing a five minute walk on your school's track or just having lunch with a coworker. We often are doing paperwork while inhaling lunch, and I have found that the midday reset of just truly taking a lunch makes such a difference. Also, lean on your IEP team for learning how to write goals for your students. We've all been newbies before and it can seem overwhelming at first. Have a great school year.
Elise Hu (08:05):
That's a great tip because I do imagine educators just being on campus all day.
Doree Shafrir (08:11):
Right? Exactly. Exactly.
Elise Hu (08:13):
If they do get a lunch break, they do get a lunch break. How do they even leave though? Because the kids only get like 20, 25 minutes. So it is, yeah, that's a great idea and I think it's something for all of us to remember no matter where you're working to try and take a walk if you can. I mean even just a quick five to 10 minute one, getting out of the building is really helpful. I had Oscar with me the other day at the new coworking space that I'm using, which was a topic of some of our mini apps a few weeks ago, and Oscar can't, one of the dog rules of having a canine on campus is that you can't keep him on campus when he needs to go to the bathroom. They have something called the quad, but you're not, which is kind of this open out outdoor space, but it's on the property and when you agree to bring a dog or they agree to let you bring a dog, you have to agree to take your dog off property to let him relieve himself interest. I had to take Oscar on a little walk around Venice. It was so pleasurable and unintended pleasure that I needed to do that.
Doree Shafrir (09:24):
I love that. That's so cool. Elise. We also got a text that is relevant to you and it says, Elise has said the phrase longest, shortest time a couple times recently. This made me think about a podcast I listened to seven plus years ago when my daughter was a baby. I loved the podcast, but then it went off the air This morning I googled longest, shortest time podcast and found that the podcast is back and Elise Hugh is on the latest episode, excited to listen and hear a familiar voice on an old favorite podcast.
Elise Hu (09:59):
This was an awesome show, especially during the time that I was listening to it originally. So I was really delighted to be able to be a guest on it. I'm talking a little bit more about parenting now. I'm taking on parenting as a topic for the first time in my career as part of hosting Raising Us the New Parenting podcast. And so they asked me to come on and I got to tell Isabel's birth story, which is hilarious because they fed me the entire time I was giving birth. My, even when I was pushing, the doctor came and was like, it's dinnertime. What do you want to eat? And I'm like, do you see that I am pushing, was
Doree Shafrir (10:33):
This here or in Korea?
Elise Hu (10:34):
Korea In Korea, yeah. And so we talk a little bit about international versus domestic motherhood in different places and then I talked for the first time my origins and my dad being a refugee and all these things. So yeah, take a listen. It's cool. I was asked to dig deep because it was like a 90 minute interview that they cut down into 45 minutes, but it felt really good to just chat for a while. So
Doree Shafrir (11:04):
Yeah, thanks for listening. Very cool. Alright, well we are going to take a little break. After the break. We have some messages about laser hair removal and then we have very interesting question about whether we've all been misled by expert advice.
Elise Hu (11:23):
Stay tuned,
Doree Shafrir (11:25):
Stay tuned and just a reminder that you can call or text us at (781) 591-0390. You can email us at Forever35podcast@gmail.com. And again, you can email us voice memos. Do not text them to us for some reason they do not work. You can visit our website Forever35podcast.com. We have links there to everything we mention on the show. Follow us on Instagram at Forever35 Podcast. Sign up for our newsletter at Forever35podcast.com/newsletter and shop our favorite products at ShopUs/forever35 and we'll be right back. Alright, we are back. Elise, you want to read these next couple messages about laser hair removal?
Elise Hu (12:11):
Yes. I'll do the laser hair removal correspondence section of the show. Great. Hi Dorian Elise, I love all the content about laser hair removal. It is so helpful. I had it done in my twenties and now want to refresh the area I did and do some other areas. I recently heard you can buy an laser hair removal tool by Braun or Gillette and that some people really like that. Have you or any of your listeners done this? Do people recommend or No, thanks so much. I have not tried it. I have seen it on Instagram,
Doree Shafrir (12:44):
So this email just went, this text just went perfectly with the next one we received.
Elise Hu (12:50):
Oh, okay. So next question. Laser hair removal. Surprised that no one has mentioned using an at-home device. I think it's more economical. I did my bikini line in an office and then purchased the TRIA for at-home, purchased years ago. There are many options now and it's great for touchups, but have also done my armpits and rogue chin hairs. I think this is DIY.
Doree Shafrir (13:18):
Very cool. Okay, so at home device.
Elise Hu (13:22):
Yes, yes,
Doree Shafrir (13:26):
Yes.
Elise Hu (13:27):
I get those advertised to me on Instagram and I don't know which ones are good. So it sounds like this listener likes the TRIA but purchased it years ago. If there are other listeners out there who like your at home laser hair removal device or a hair removal device, generally be sure to call right Or text us.
Doree Shafrir (13:50):
Alright. And this is the interesting question I alluded to before the break. Hi, Dorian Elise. My whole life I've seen magazine articles, blogs, and videos on how to pick a haircut based on your face shape. The same recommendations are repeated over and over and I've recently begun to wonder, is this all a scam? I have a round face shape and the common advice is that people with round faces should wear their hair long because it elongates the face. Every hairdresser I've asked has agreed with this and advised I never cut my hair shorter than shoulder length. Last year I decided to throw all this advice out the window and get a French bob. I got bangs and my hair is now shorter than chin length. It's as short as I can cut it without having to shave the back of my head. And guess what?
(14:40)
I love it. And I get complimented all the time, not only by friends, but also from strangers on the bus or people in the checkout line at the store. Everyone says my haircut suits me. If I had listened to the advice given by so-called experts, I never would've discovered a new haircut that I absolutely love and I'm kind of pissed about it. I feel like these kinds of articles box people in and make them afraid to try new things. Do other people think that too? Is all this advice nonsense? We should just discard because each person is too unique to categorize like this. We'd love to hear your stories if anything like this has happened to you.
Elise Hu (15:14):
Yes. We're all too unique to be categorized. Yes, we are too unique to be following narrow beauty standards. Yes. I have a Ted talk about this. Do something different. And I think our conversation with Sable Young was a real reminder of this when we did that live episode, withs Young. She's like, you know what I find most beautiful? What I find most beautiful is people who do something a little bit different, have their own thing or go out of the norm, out the standard deviation or just pick a thing that's theirs, whether it's not shaving your armpits and making sure that, and then having your armpit hair be long or having a haircut that's different than what's recommended for your hair shape or face shape. Having a little fashion thing that's yours. Let's say you wear broaches all the time, so yeah, I love that. I love that you did that. And those hair cut recommendations for Face Shape kind of remind me of those tables that they had in 17 Magazine growing up, what you were supposed to do for different face shapes or what you were supposed to wear for different body shapes. And
Doree Shafrir (16:24):
It
Elise Hu (16:24):
Does all seem so prescriptive and yet those are really lasting charts in our heads. I think about what we can do and what we can try and so don't limit yourself.
Doree Shafrir (16:36):
Yes. I mean, I think take everything with a grain of salt and don't let some seemingly arbitrary rule dictate everything that you do. If you love the way a color looks on you, but it's not like in your color family who cares, all those kinds of things. Do what you feel good in and what makes you happy and take what's useful to you and ignore the rest.
Elise Hu (17:06):
Yeah. Speaking of colors, I have yet to try that. You know how everybody's into color theory now, or a lot of people are into color theory. Are you a cool autumn or a warm summer? And that was always very big in Korea there had lots of consultants for that 10 years ago when I was there and now there's all these apps and things that you can do. I really want to try it as an experiment, so I might pay for that. A stylist to do color theory, I don't know if our listeners have done it
Doree Shafrir (17:35):
Well. We had an advertiser a few years ago called Color Guru, and so we had our colors done.
Elise Hu (17:43):
Which, what season are you?
Doree Shafrir (17:45):
I am a moonlight winter.
Elise Hu (17:47):
Moonlight winter, okay.
Doree Shafrir (17:50):
When I saw the description and what colors look good on you, I was like, yeah, that's actually accurate. I don't look great in pastels. You know what I mean? But there were some colors that I was like, oh, when we got it done, I feel like earth tones were still very in. And it was basically like, please never wear an earth tone or anything remotely neutral. No beige, no rust, no olive. It was just like, you need more vibrant colors. And I was like, oh, okay. And so I have used it as a guide, I will say, because in some ways it does help to have these sort of guardrails to go shopping or something or to buy new clothes. We do better in some colors versus other colors. That's true. Yes, exactly. But every so often there will be something that I'm like, oh, this is so cute. Oh, but it's not my color. And I'm like, okay, whatever. Exactly. So I think it's just, again, it's like take what's useful to you and forget the rest.
Elise Hu (18:59):
Great.
Doree Shafrir (19:01):
Alright. We are going to take another short break and when we come back we have some thoughts about what to do with empties and then also some jeans wrecks.
Elise Hu (19:18):
Okay. We'll be right back.
Doree Shafrir (19:27):
Okay, we are back. This listener writes Loving mini app, 4 61.
(19:32)
Thank you. Wanted to write in to spread the word about Refillers. Exactly as you said, it's like a whole store that is the bulk section of Whole Foods for cleaning supplies, soaps, cosmetics, spices, teas, oils, et cetera. You bring containers, they weigh them, and then you fill them and they weigh them again to get the price. We even have one here in Knoxville, Tennessee called Knoxville, and many of the refillable products are also local. They also have recycling bins from TerraCycle, so you can bring your empties, batteries, et cetera, to be recycled. A quick search brought up Refiller LA and sustain LA near you all. Maybe
Elise Hu (20:08):
Fillery is by me that I can walk to
Doree Shafrir (20:12):
Is in, I think it's in Highland Park. Not super, not that close to me, but could be worth a stop if I'm on that side of town. Definitely worth checking out. I think I'm curious all the things that they offer. Okay, I see they have cleaners, they do have some body oils, soaps, some other stuff, so definitely worth checking out.
Elise Hu (20:47):
Oh, but my Refiller LA is permanently closed. The one that's right by me.
Doree Shafrir (20:51):
Oh no.
Elise Hu (20:53):
I know. We have a, that's like a refilled grocery place, but that's more
Doree Shafrir (21:00):
Like whole, that's like the bulk section. The solicitor also wrote also an unsolicited career suggestion. I've always thought Dory would be great in collegiate advising or admissions. Not sure if that's something she's explored sending love to you both.
Elise Hu (21:14):
Have you ever explored anything like that?
Doree Shafrir (21:17):
I agree. I would be great at that. I have not explored it. I do think you would be great at that. How do you get into college admissions? Let's see.
Elise Hu (21:28):
Probably every other job, which is somebody that you know.
Doree Shafrir (21:33):
Yeah, it's hard to Google it because when you Google, how do you get into college admissions? You just get, how do you get into college?
Elise Hu (21:42):
But not even admissions offices for colleges. I could see you doing it for some really elite school or something too.
Doree Shafrir (21:49):
I'll put that on the list. It's not a bad suggestion. Thank you. All right. Elise, do you want to read this next one?
Elise Hu (21:56):
Sure. I put my empties in the recycling bin. I do opt for large containers and refill for products like face wash. The refill packaging is less plastic than the original bottle, which I get to reuse. I can't really do samples due to my sensitive skin. I have trusted products and don't really like trying samples, especially when I'm traveling and then have to have a breakout or a reaction when samples are given to me. I often pass them to my preteen nieces who love samples. Oh and jeans. I have taken ripped jeans to textile recycling bins. I'm lucky in Boston that these bins are in every neighborhood. I've heard that you can turn jeans into insulation for a house. If you don't have access to something like this. There are companies that will send you a bag you can fill and ship back. Oh, for textile recycling, like trashy or ZWS. I do do that. I do subscribe to trashy because I have a lot of towels and linens that we have to change out fairly at least every year or a couple of years or so that we have to update since there's so many people in this house and the sheets get washed a lot, so yeah, it's a good idea.
Doree Shafrir (23:05):
Okay. Good idea. Alright, we got a recommendation for some actual jeans. This was also a callback to a listener question. Someone suggests the Abercrombie Fitch jeans curve. Love specifically the dad jeans.
Elise Hu (23:25):
Oh, and then while we're on jeans, our original rider did say jeans that are in good condition. She donates to places that have a thrift store to benefit a cause that I care about. AIDS research young adults in foster care, et cetera. That's another genes.
Doree Shafrir (23:44):
Then a final text because Elise had been talking about getting her IUD taken out and this person texted us and said, as someone who has never given birth and gotten four IUDs, getting an IUD taken out is way easier and nearly painless.
Elise Hu (23:59):
Oh, thank God. Okay. Alright. I'm just going to go schedule that then.
Doree Shafrir (24:03):
Great. Alright, sweet. Love that. Okay. Thanks everyone for listening and we’ll talk to you soon!
Bye.
Bye.