Wellness Wednesday Issue #195

🎁 Twenty-two corporate holiday gifts sorted by budget, for whoever got stuck with the team list.

🔥 This FDA-registered vibrating ring adjusts to you, and it’s 50% off today.

🪷 A therapist on why self-compassion as an adult feels like learning a second language.

📊 Parent stress predicts how much screen time kids get better than almost anything else.

Your tech reaches for the cuticle nippers, and you let her, because that’s what happens at a manicure. It’s also the one step dermatologists wish everyone would skip.

Cuticle oil is the whole routine

That little strip of skin is doing an actual job. Cutting it is why you get hangnails and an angry red corner two days later.

A drop of oil on each nail before bed, every night. Give it three weeks and your hands look like you’ve been going somewhere expensive.

Strong nails are boring and free

The gummies aren’t doing much. Biotin only does something if you’re deficient, which most of us aren’t, and the doses in nail supplements are high enough to skew your bloodwork, thyroid and cardiac panels included. Tell your doctor you take it before any labs.

What actually works: gloves when you do dishes, a week off between manicures, hand cream that lives on your desk instead of in a drawer. Growth rate is genetic and no serum is beating it. Quality is yours to influence.

Leave these on the shelf

Acetone as your default remover. It works, and it’s brutally drying. Gel removal only.

Metal cuticle pushers. Wood or plastic, on softened skin.

Peeling anything off. Gel, dip, that lifting edge you keep flicking during a meeting. It takes nail plate with it and you’ll grow that out for months.

Formaldehyde hardeners. Rigid nails snap.

The lamp is aging your hands

Your nails come out fine. Your hands are the problem. Both lamp types put out UVA, and your hands are the least protected skin you own. Steering wheel, keyboard, out in the world, almost never sunscreen.

The fix takes thirty seconds. Mineral SPF before you go, or fingerless UV gloves in your bag.

What to ask for when you sit down

• Say the cuticle thing out loud, because nippers are the default.
• Look for ventilation at the stations, not the absence of smell. Some clean formulas have a scent and plenty of low-odor ones aren’t clean.
• Ask to see the bottle before it’s opened. A brand you can look up beats an anonymous one.
• Skip the electric file on your natural nail. That thinning takes months to grow out.
• Bring your own sunscreen, since almost nobody offers it.
• Let them remove the gel properly instead of you doing it in the car.

The polishes worth buying

The labels are unregulated, so “clean” and “10-free” mean whatever a brand decides. So we’ll just tell you which ones are good.

Zoya has the widest shade range and the most consistent reviews. Olive & June wears the longest of the clean formulas and has the better brush. Suncoat is water-based, which makes it the pick if you’re pregnant or painting a seven-year-old’s nails, with the tradeoff that it chips around day four. Ella + Mila has the strictest formula on paper, though testers keep finding it thin.

And if what you want is the gel look without the lamp, Essie Gel Couture gets close to two weeks with no UV involved.

Keep the manicure

You don’t have to choose between nails that look good and nails that are actually good. Take the thirty seconds, tell them to leave your cuticles alone, and go get the color you actually want.

Quick note on this dinner experiment series: I’m testing meal delivery services one box at a time to sort out which one fits which kind of week. Test 1 was Green Chef, test 2 was Factor, and this week it’s HelloFresh.

Here’s what stood out with this one: I still got to cook, which I love, but I only had to decide once. I picked the meals for the week, the box showed up, and that was it. No standing at the fridge at 6pm doing math.

I tried a trout dinner, shrimp with couscous, and Thai coconut curry chicken lettuce wraps, three completely different dinners with nothing in common except how fast they came together. Every one was on the table in under 20 minutes, the recipe cards were easy enough that I wasn’t rereading steps twice, and I genuinely loved all four.

👉 Read my full HelloFresh review

P.S: Get 10 free meals and a free Caraway pan with code ASSIST10FRY today.

Someone once told me AI is like having Amelia Bedelia as your intern. Same one from the books I read with my mom. Tell her to draw the drapes and she sketches them. Ask her to dust the furniture and she reaches for the powder. She is doing precisely what you said, which is the problem.

AI is literal. It fills every blank you leave with the most average possible answer, and “make this sound more professional” leaves almost everything blank. Four fixes, in the order I’d try them:

1. Give it a role and a reader. “You’re a comms lead writing for busy department heads who’ll skim this on a phone.” Who it thinks it’s writing for changes the output more than any adjective you add. Name the person who reads it, not just the thing you want.

2. Say what “done” looks like. “Make it good” means nothing to her. Say “three paragraphs, no bullet points, no preamble, ends with one clear ask.” Describe the finished piece the way you’d describe it to a temp who has never seen your company.

3. Show it a bad one. Everybody pastes the version they loved. Almost nobody pastes the version they hated, and that one teaches faster. “Here’s a draft I didn’t like, and here’s why: too formal, buried the ask, apologized three times.” Naming what’s wrong with something real beats a paragraph of adjectives about what you want.

4. Fix it in the same thread. When the first answer misses, resist opening a new chat. Name the specific failure and say what to protect: “too formal, cut the opening line, you invented a deadline I never gave you, keep the third paragraph exactly as it is.” Skip that last part and the second draft fixes one thing while quietly breaking two.

Do this and you stop losing an evening to a draft you should have gotten right the first time.

These are the wording fixes, though, and they get you about halfway. The other half happens before you type anything at all, in what you decide to hand over. That’s the part I’m spending an hour on tomorrow.

🗓️ 3 AI Plays to Get Your Hours Back and Credit for the Work You Do. Thursday 9/24, 9am PT, sixty minutes, free. Save your seat.

Joanna (TA Co-Founder)

Someone in your group chat is paying $500 a month for a GLP-1. Someone else is paying $59 for the same doctor-prescribed compounded medication out of a US-licensed pharmacy.

The ingredients in compounded GLP-1s cost around $5 to produce. So those hundreds more you’re paying? That’s the markup, not the medication.

Collective pools members’ buying power to negotiate GLP-1 pricing straight from US pharmacies, the same model Thrive Market used on organic groceries. A $199 annual membership (less than $17/month) gets you compounded semaglutide at $59/month or tirzepatide at $69/month, and the price stays the same at any dose.

You also get unlimited messaging with a real doctor, dose adjustments when needed, plus nutrition support most programs skip. Try it free for 21 days, (only pay for your medication) and see why better care doesn’t have to cost more.

👉 Stop overpaying for your prescription.

💼 Business news weird enough to actually read: subscribe to The Hustle, free, five mornings a week.

👉 Seed’s DS-01 survives your stomach acid to actually reach your gut (25% off with code ASSIST25).

🏠 The easiest way to elevate your home and add a touch of luxury into your life every day.

🎁 We love gifting this Owala 32 oz FreeSip bottle to coworkers, it’s leakproof and keeps drinks cold for 24 hours.

 Upcoming Events

• TODAY 9/23 @ 6:30PM PT: Coworking Session (SGS Only* | Join the waitlist)
• TODAY 9/24 @ 9AM PT: 3 AI Plays to Get Your Hours Back and Credit for the Work You Do
• Tue 9/29 @ 12PM PT: Coworking Session (SGS Only* | Join the waitlist)
• Wed 9/30 @ 3PM PT: Gossip Hour: What Happens Here, Stays Here (SGS Only* | Join the waitlist)

* Smart Girl Society is our private community for women who want deeper conversations, accountability, and tools that actually make life easier. Join the waitlist to get in the next round.

👩‍🍳 Recipe of the Week: Vegan Black Bean Soup (thanks to TA reader, Ashley L., for sharing!).

😋 Have a recipe you love? Share it here.

 Browse our job board here.

Have more feedback? 💌 Reply to this email and tell us.

✨ P.S. Want more inspiration and positivity to kick off your week? Sign up for our Motivational Monday texts (U.S. only).