Yara Shahidi On How She Finds Balance & The Last Great Thing She Read
Yara Shahidi is a force to be reckoned with! The Grown-ish star continues to act in the college sitcom as she attends college in real life at Havard and she is also expanding her activism in a big way.
The actress just signed on for a multi-year deal with Dell XPS to help the next generation use their voice through technology, she is working with former first lady Michelle Obama to live-stream a discussion with college students nationwide and she founded Eighteen x 18, which focused on getting first-time voters to the polls in 2018.
And while Yara has captured our attention with the use of her voice, she has also wowed us with her elegance and style. Her Instagram page is filled with many enviable style moments, but her red carpet looks are to die for. A recent example is her look for the 2021 Met Gala.
Channeling the legendary Josephine Baker, Yara blew us away with her crystal beaded gown and matching long, fitted gloves while she rocked diamonds on her neck, ears, and headpiece. But according to an interview the Black-ish star did with Glamour, that's not even the best thing she has in her closet. The 21-year-old dished on her style, her favorite snacks (which are healthy, go figure!), and the last thing she read.
On Her Personal Style Journey
"My personal style is ever-evolving in that I feel like I have very distinctive eras. There used to be a time where I did not, could not stand jeans, but I loved high-tops. So as a little kid, I was in skirts and high-top tennis shoes. In my all-girls Catholic-school phase, I took the assignment seriously. I had knee-high socks, the plaid skirts, both in and out of school. And now a lot of this phase has been about finding pieces that help further my self-expression, which means I have a much wider dress code."
"I love a good tracksuit. One year of school all I wore were different monochrome tracksuits for every day. But now, whether you've seen me on the red carpet—let's say in that beautiful green dress that my Dior family made for me—or you've seen me in my regular street style, I love just the loud colors of my clothes. It makes me feel seen, especially as a young girl traversing so many new spaces. Often have my clothes helped give me confidence before I get to that space of being confident."
On Routines & Finding Balance
"It starts with the simple things. I love my morning time routine, and not just because I love the way it makes me look. It's the first moment in the day in which I'm starting by taking time for myself... No matter how busy it's been, I'm spending time with myself winding down."
"I'm trying to figure out how I want my schedule to look, and I think this is something for so many young adults. It's more common now than ever to be juggling many things. One thing that I've been doing recently that has been really helpful is taking time to think about what dream of dreams would look like for me? And then seeing ways in which I could make it happen.
"That moment of affirming and setting time aside to not be reactionary to what's happening around me, but to be proactive, has been really helpful."
On The Last Thing She’s Read
"I've been reading lots of essays. A good one is by Herbert Cole called 'I Won't Learn From You'! It's talking about the experience of an educator who has a student who's intentionally choosing not to learn from this teacher. But all in all, long story short, it's a really interesting conversation on the way in which race plays into our education and what it's like to be a part of a system that is not seeing you or recognizing you. It's really well written."
On How She Spends Her Day Off
"My favorite way to spend a day off is with family. We really do love each other and probably enjoy each other too much. We love to travel as a family, whether it be a trip where all we're doing is sitting and being next to each other, or it's a trip where we learn history and go on little mini adventures. Smaller things, when we don't get to just get on a plane and get away, would be listening to podcasts. I recommend Heavyweight—there's a new season!—Being Seen, Dead Eyes, and Everytown."
Featured image by Leon Bennett/Getty Images
Smile, Sis! These Five Improvements Can Upgrade Your Oral Hygiene Instantly
This article is in partnership with Sensodyne.
Our teeth are connected to so many things - our nutrition, our confidence, and our overall mood. We often take for granted how important healthy teeth are, until issues like tooth sensitivity or gum recession come to remind us. Like most things related to our bodies, prevention is the best medicine. Here are five things you can do immediately to improve your oral hygiene, prevent tooth sensitivity, and avoid dental issues down the road.
1) Go Easy On the Rough Brushing: Brushing your teeth is and always will be priority number one in the oral hygiene department. No surprises there! However, there is such a thing as applying too much pressure when brushing…and that can lead to problems over time. Use a toothbrush with soft bristles and brush in smooth, circular motions. It may seem counterintuitive, but a gentle approach to brushing is the most effective way to clean those pearly whites without wearing away enamel and exposing sensitive areas of the teeth.
2) Use A Desensitizing Toothpaste: As everyone knows, mouth pain can be highly uncomfortable; but tooth sensitivity is a whole different beast. Hot weather favorites like ice cream and popsicles have the ability to trigger tooth sensitivity, which might make you want to stay away from icy foods altogether. But as always, prevention is the best medicine here. Switching to a toothpaste like Sensodyne’s Sensitivity & Gum toothpaste specifically designed for sensitive teeth will help build a protective layer over sensitive areas of the tooth. Over time, those sharp sensations that occur with extremely cold foods will subside, and you’ll be back to treating yourself to your icy faves like this one!
3) Floss, Rinse, Brush. (And In That Order!): Have you ever heard the saying, “It’s not what you do, but how you do it”? Well, the same thing applies to taking care of your teeth. Even if you are flossing and brushing religiously, you could be missing out on some of the benefits simply because you aren’t doing so in the right order. Flossing is best to do before brushing because it removes food particles and plaque from places your toothbrush can’t reach. After a proper flossing sesh, it is important to rinse out your mouth with water after. Finally, you can whip out your toothbrush and get to brushing. Though many of us commonly rinse with water after brushing to remove excess toothpaste, it may not be the best thing for our teeth. That’s because fluoride, the active ingredient in toothpaste that protects your enamel, works best when it gets to sit on the teeth and continue working its magic. Rinsing with water after brushing doesn’t let the toothpaste go to work like it really can. Changing up your order may take some getting used to, but over time, you’ll see the difference.
4) Stay Hydrated: Upping your water supply is a no-fail way to level up your health overall, and your teeth are no exception to this rule. Drinking water not only helps maintain a healthy pH balance in your mouth, but it also washes away residue and acids that can cause enamel erosion. It also helps you steer clear of dry mouth, which is a gateway to bad breath. And who needs that?
5) Show Your Gums Some Love: When it comes to improving your smile, you may be laser-focused on getting your teeth whiter, straighter, and overall healthier. Rightfully so, as these are all attributes of a megawatt smile; but you certainly don’t want to leave gum health out of the equation. If you neglect your gums, you’ll start to notice the effects of plaque buildup, which can irritate the gums and cause gingivitis, the earliest stage of gum disease. Seeing blood while brushing and flossing is a tell-tale sign that your gums are suffering. You may also experience gum recession — a condition where the gum tissue surrounding your teeth pulls back, exposing more of your tooth. Brushing at least twice a day with a gum-protecting toothpaste like Sensodyne Sensitivity and Gum, coupled with regular dentist visits, will keep your gums shining as bright as those pearly whites.
Why Do Millennials & Gen-Zers Still Feel Like Teenagers? The Pandemic Might Be The Reason.
There’s nothing quite as humbling as navigating adulthood with no instruction manual. Since the turn of the decade, it seems like everything in our society that could go wrong has, inevitably, gone wrong. From the global pandemic, our crippling student debt problem, the loneliness crisis, layoffs, global warming, recession, and not to mention figuring out what to eat for dinner every night. This constant state of uncertainty has many of us wondering, when are the grown-ups coming to fix all of this?
But the catch is, we are the new grown-ups.
As if it happened without our permission, we became the new adults. We are the members of society who are paying taxes, having children, getting married, and keeping our communities afloat, one iced latte at a time. Still, there’s something about doing all these grown-up duties that feel unnaturally grown-up. Enter the #teenagegirlinher20s.
If there’s one hashtag to give you the state of the next cohort of adults, it’s this one. Of the videos that have garnered over 3.9M views, you’ll find a collection of users who are overwhelmed by life’s pressing existential responsibilities, clung to nostalgia, and reminiscent of the days when their mom and dad took care of their insurance plans.
@charlies444ngel no like i cant explain to her why i had to buy multiple tank air dupes from aritzia #teenagegirlinher20s #fyp
The concept of being a 20-something or 30-something teenager is linked to the sentiment of not feeling “grown up enough” to do grown-up things while feeling underprepared and even nihilistic about whether that preparation even matters.
It’s our generation’s version of when we ask our grandmothers how old they are and they simply reply with, “I still feel 45,” all while being every bit of 76 years old. In this, we share a warped concept of time while clinging to a desire for infantilization.
Granted, the pandemic did a number on our concept of time. Many of us who started the pandemic in our early or mid-20s missed out on three fundamental years of socialization, career development, and personal milestones that traditionally help to mark our growth.
Our time to figure out and plan our next steps through fumbling yet active participation was put on pause indefinitely and then resumed provisionally. This in turn has left many of us hanging in the balance of uncertainty as we try to make sense of the disconnect between our minds and bodies in this missing gap of time.
Because we’re all still figuring out what the ramifications of being locked away and frozen in time by a global pandemic will have on us as a society, there really is no “right” way of making up for lost time. Feeling unprepared for any new chapter of life is a natural rite of passage, pandemic or not. However, it’s important to not stay stuck in the last age or period of life that made sense to us because self-growth is the truest evidence of personal progress.
So whether you’re leaning on your inner child, teenager, or 20-something for guidance as you fill the gap between your real age and pandemic age, know that it’s okay to grieve the person you thought you would be and the milestones you thought you’d hit before you ever knew what a pandemic was. If there’s anything that the pandemic taught us, it’s that we have the power to reimagine a better world and life for ourselves. And if we tap into our inner teenager as a compass, we can piece together our next chapter with a fresh outlook.
Sure, we’ve lost a couple of years, but there are still some really amazing ones ahead.
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Featured image by Stephen Zeigler/Getty Images
