Author: Jack Ward

Bebe Rexha made her debut at one of the most photographed nights in fashion in 2025 when she stood in front of a camera at the Met Gala in a Christian Siriano gown. The coverage that followed was not what one would expect from their first Met Gala appearance. Rather, her body was the subject of nearly all of the remarks. The conversation was abruptly cut off when she revealed that she had recently lost a pregnancy and had been grieving in private while people on the internet disagreed about how she appeared in pictures. The discussion about Bebe Rexha’s…

The internet has developed a certain kind of cruelty over time, and it usually finds its sharpest edge when directed at women whose bodies change in public. Before anyone realized the true cause of her changing appearance, Erin Moriarty, best known as Annie January, the conflicted, radiant Starlight in Amazon’s The Boys, endured a version of this for years. The internet had already expended a lot of energy labeling her a “skeleton,” a “Botox zombie,” and worse by the time she revealed her Graves’ disease diagnosis in June 2025. Everything was put in a new context by the diagnosis. In…

Between a lobster tower and a piece of cake during Essence Fest in New Orleans, Muni Long reportedly put on ten pounds and, according to far too many strangers on the internet, committed some sort of unacceptable public transgression. The Grammy-winning R&B singer took a seat in front of her Instagram Live camera in late July 2025 and did something that felt both completely necessary and slightly draining. She explained. She was admirably clear that she didn’t owe anyone an explanation, but the rumors had gotten to the point where she was unwilling to ignore them. For several weeks, rumors…

A virus variant named after an insect that vanishes underground for years and then reappears without warning has an almost poetic, if slightly unsettling, quality. The Cicada strain of COVID-19 has indeed earned its moniker. Health officials in the UK and at least 22 other countries are currently keeping an eye on BA.3.2, a strain that is descended from BA.3, a minor Omicron offshoot that briefly circulated in late 2021 and early 2022 before virtually disappearing from surveillance records. It appeared to be gone for a while. It wasn’t. Long before the virus was officially discovered in South Africa in…

Finding out that your greatest, deepest fear has finally materialized can be subtly devastating. That turning point for Sarah Beeny occurred in the summer of 2022 when a lump she had noticed months earlier—and even raised during a routine mammography, only to be reassured—turned out to be breast cancer. She was fifty years old. The same illness had killed her mother, Ann, when she was 39. For forty years, Beeny had been waiting for this in some dark corner of her mind. The story of Sarah Beeny’s illness goes beyond a celebrity’s health revelation. It is a story about inherited…

After that, the treatment room was silent. The machine was humming down to standby mode, clean towels were folded on the trolley, and the subtle aroma of something botanical persisted. A client with red eyes, not from the procedure but from crying, was sitting up slowly on the treatment bed and blinking at her reflection in the tiny mirror. Everything had been done correctly by the aesthetician. The equipment was authentic, the technique was sound, and the protocol was adhered to. Nevertheless, tears were shed. It’s the kind of moment that isn’t included in treatment menus or product brochures. However,…

You’ll find advertisements for laser hair removal somewhere near the top of practically every beauty clinic on a busy high street, the kind with frosted glass windows, a receptionist who smiles with practiced warmth, and a menu of treatments printed in a tasteful sans-serif font. frequently with the word “permanent” close by. In the headline, occasionally. The word has a lot of persuasive power, and it’s important to consider whether it’s truly deserving of that status. Not quite, to put it succinctly and honestly. In contrast to, say, getting rid of a mole, laser hair removal is not permanent. It’s…

Dermatologists and employees of laser clinics around the nation are familiar with a certain moment. A bride asks if she can finish a full course of laser hair removal in time because her wedding is six or eight weeks away. Almost invariably, the response is something along the lines of “not really, no.” The explanation that follows, which includes sessions spaced weeks apart, hair growth cycles that are unresponsive to deadlines, and skin that requires time to settle, usually elicits the same mixture of astonishment and mild annoyance. No one informed her. Or rather, no one informed her promptly. Compared…

The machine itself usually commands all the attention when you walk into a modern laser clinic or industrial facility. It is sleek, hums softly, and emits that subtle clinical odor that seems to belong in medical settings. The person using it receives much less attention to their qualifications. what they truly understand. What they’ve been taught to do in the event of an issue. The difference between a skilled laser technician and an inexperienced one can be measured in burns, vision damage, and, in the worst situations, truly irreversible consequences. Hence, it is worthwhile to close that public awareness gap.…

After a bad shave, there’s a certain type of silent annoyance that occurs in the bathroom. The skin is crimson. Ten minutes ago, there was no stinging sensation. You look down at your neck, your legs, or the curve of your bikini line, and what was meant to be a straightforward morning routine has made you look worse than before. You dress, go about your day, and don’t tell anyone. Examining that silence is worthwhile. Hundreds of millions of people from all demographics and cultures shave every day, making it one of the most popular grooming habits in the world.…