Coffee Break: Deco Uptown Blooms Bag

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1. I feel like my hair is aging me and not current – how should I reassess? I have long curly hair, any influencers or celebrities who look good without a lot of effort? Thank you in advance!

   1. I’d search Pinterest for ideas. My curly hair is shoulder-length, and I wear it half up most of the time.

      1. Pinterest is hot garbage now. It’s a pity.

         1. So much AI garbage. I go back to look at my old pins, but I have no interest in finding anything new.

            1. You can turn off AI generated posts.

   2. Why do you think your hair is aging you? Does your hairdresser specialize in curly hair? They will give you a cut that will give your hair an intentional shape and make your curls bouncier and less weighed down. Are you using products to encourage curl and fight frizz? Your hairdresser will be able to suggest some products, along with new styles or updos.

      1. OP, don’t feel bad if you’ve gone to curly salons and they don’t work for you. IME, “hairdressers that specialize in curly hair” only know how to make me look like Little Orphan Annie: always unflattering, always too short. I stick with a regular stylist who just knows hair.

      2. A bad haircut, using the wrong products for your hair and not styling it correctly will age you. A good hairdresser will walk you through all of this much more effectively than an influencer.

   3. I’m old, so I’d actually get offline. I’d ask a trusted hair stylist (perhaps a young one) if possible. Can you do some IRL people watching in fashionable places?

      For an easy DIY fix, try parting your hair in the middle, I think that’s most current.

   4. Is it an issue of color, shape, or texture? Color, talk to a stylist and skim insta for those with similar skin tone and features. For shape, I’d try some new styling tools, and possibly talk with a stylist about cut. Texture, I’d play with going curlier or straighter by playing with products and possibly tools and invest in good hair masks and oil (I like olaplex for an oil that improves texture without weight).

   5. Not what you asked, but I loved this photo essay in the NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/style/luscious-hair-at-any-length.html?unlocked_article_code=1.xU8.VvHE.tAlKTKBrY-Mg&smid=url-share

   6. Ask your local friend who has nice/current looking hair what salon they go to (it will be expensive) and tell the stylist there that you are in their hands.

   7. I dug up all the local stylists I could find, stalked their insta to see what kind of cuts they do, and found one whose results I like (and that seem like they would work with my hair and face shape). She has been fantastic.

   8. Curly hair almost never equals no effort. I have like 2b/c hair and for me low effort is adding layers but no bangs. If you want to move to something current like a shag or wolf cut, you may end up with more styling work than you actually want to do.

2. I have a friend who has their own small firm that is looking for a place to make some branded pens to give away to clients. Also lighters. Anyone know of a vendor that’s good for this sort of thing?

   1. If your friend has the budget the usb electric rechargeable lighters are much handier

   2. Besides pens, I love a tire pressure gauge as a giveaway. You don’t get them as often and they’re actually useful in a pinch.

   3. I’ve used vistaprint for a bunch of my own merch, both in my private practice and for other ventures. It’s pretty solid and affordable for the regular user, but heavily depends on the quality of the item you pick (there are sort of obvious tiers evident in the pricing) and the quality of your design assets.

   4. VistaPrint has done that sort of thing for years. CustomHappy for small orders. If you google “print on demand” services a lot of places come up.

   5. Is there a local print shop in your friend’s city? We have a few around us that are good for this thing. We like supporting other small businesses in town.

3. I posted yesterday about having a huge wedding or not, and someone commented that my fiance’s family must be a violent crime family whose wealth comes from corruption if they have money. I just want to say, you can be wealthy in non-Western countries without being corrupt or criminal. I am kind of shocked that that needs to even be said, but there are lots of thriving economies outside of the U.S. My husband’s family lives in one of the largest countries in the world and made their money through a media business and land ownership. Some of the sweetest and most ethical people out there, and not criminal or corrupt.

   Also, thank you so much to everyone who gave advice!! It was really insightful and clarified my thinking on it. I am going to let my fiance make any calls, and I realized even if it costs more for a less grand event, it’s still worth it to be able to connect with people meaningfully.

   1. Try not to let the instigators drag you down. Ignore ignore.

      Wishing you a wonderful wedding. Do what you and your husband want.

   2. What a dog whistle. Ugh. Sorry you had to read that.

   3. Even though the wealth was legitimately earned, isn’t it a huge risk for a regular person to marry into such a wealthy and powerful family, especially if the parents are expecting to have a lot of influence in the couple’s life?

      1. ??? How is marrying into a wealthy family a bigger risk than marrying into a non-wealthy family? In OP’s post, the parents were also fine with whatever option they chose and would pay for either wedding.

         1. The power dynamics and expectations in an ultra-wealthy family, like a family that can afford the type of wedding OP is discussing, will mean that OP and her husband will never be able to call their lives their own. She will also be up a creek without a paddle if something goes wrong and divorce becomes necessary, especially if she has kids. Doubly so if she is a foreigner.

            1. Her in-laws sound like nice people, and her husband is already drawing boundaries.

               It’s never good to marry into a terrible family, even if they’re really poor. But I’m not having sour grapes about this.

            2. It doesn’t sound like they’re planning on living in family’s home country though

            3. OP here – our in-laws live 8,000 miles away and my fiance is a ‘foreigner’ in the U.S. I don’t live in his home country. They have no power over us and have never tried to exert any type of control.

               By your logic, no one should ever date anyone who isn’t from a different country unless they are powerless and poor?

      2. Their family lives in a different country and doesn’t seem to be putting any control over them. Also a very bad-faith reading to imply they will try to harm her without any evidence other than they’re from a different country…

      3. This is some next-level concern trolling. Completely useless contribution. Just stop.

      4. Do you think life is always like a soap opera? I too have seen “Crazy Rich Asians” and this is a bizarre take

   4. That commenter was awful.

4. For those of you who have a Shark hairdryer + attachments, which ones do you use and when? I have the spinny curling attachments, but just use those for party hair. There are brushy attachments (one circular, one more oval) that snap onto the end of the dryer. What do you all use these for? I’ve given myself some 80’s type hair and also some weird flippy ends (like a Rachel, but with many fewer layers). I work a corporate job and want my hair, but with a bit more volume and smoothness (particularly the gray hairs, which can go wirey and need to be smoothed down).

   1. I use only the brush attachment – I think it’s the oval one. Every time I shower, I use them to blowout my hair. I never mastered the brush + blow dryer technique but this gives me volume/smoothness. I got much better at no weird flippy ends after some uses. I do go in 3-4 layers, starting at my base, and then clipping back the dry layer and doing the next layer, one at a time.

   2. I only use the curlers since they settle into a blowout for me.

   3. Same as you, curlers are for special occasions. I use the round or flat paddle brush for drying for everyday and the anti-frizz attachment if my hair is already dry and I want it to look really polished.

5. Does anyone here who is prediabetic use a continuous glucose monitor? Which one and how do you like it? Is it helpful in helping you move the diet and exercise needle?

   1. Did your doctor recommend this?

   2. My husband found one tremendously helpful. Maybe somebody who understood diet better would have been able to predict which foods would dramatically spike his blood sugar, but it wasn’t always intuitive to him. Ccertain savory meals for example like stir fry or Mexican consistently spiked his blood sugar concerningly high, whereas grabbing a muffin or scone with his afternoon tea wasn’t a big deal. He’d been thinking he’d have to skip pastries and desserts but wasn’t planning to make changes to vegetable and meat heavy meals. So even just wearing one for a few weeks gave him a lot of information about where he could tweak his diet for better glucose control. His A1C looks much better now though he does still watch what he eats.

      I’ve had to do a lot more blood sugar testing than he has since I have a condition that causes hypoglycemia as well as hyperglycemia, and I’ve also found it helpful to learn what’s true for me as opposed to general dietary guidelines. I’m unfortunately one of the people who really can’t get away with oatmeal, but you can bet I was eating oatmeal on my dietitian’s recommendation back when I was getting complications like retinopathy, back when they thought I was just prediabetic. So I’ve learned not to follow other people’s diets and eat to my own numbers, which has stabilized my glucose a lot.

      In both of our cases we were working with doctors, though neither of us were able to get insurance coverage at the time (therefore we went with Costco!).

      1. I meant to add, I’ve mostly relied on finger prick testing to track highs and lows, and I feel CGM is a huge improvement in terms of pain and inconvenience, and also just a lot more data to work with. The one I used did require a lot of finger prick testing to calibrate and fact check it (they’re not as fast or as accurate), so it’s not a way to get out of finger prick testing altogether, but they’re really just a wonderful advance. They can also alert to silent and overnight hypos, which has helped many, many people. We still need CGMs designed and marketed better for hypoglycemia, and we need better insurance coverage, and other refinements like better software, but I hope that’s all coming eventually.

   3. Yes, I use a Lingo CGM. Each monitor lasts for two weeks, and I started by monitoring for four weeks. I learned a lot about certain foods that make my blood sugar spike. For example, I always ate a very healthy, high fiber cereal every morning (few ingredients, no added sugar). No matter what I tried, the cereals affected my blood sugar. Based on this, I switched to chia seed pudding for breakfast. Some obvious candidates like desserts, restaurant meals, etc. also showed spikes, along with surprises like rice.

      I did change what I eat, usually by considering if the food is worth it to me. I still eat sweets, but I no longer eat a random candy, I hold out for something I really like.

      Now, I’ll use the monitor every few months for two weeks to check in. I also will use one if something is going on, for example if my husband (who does all the cooking) is away. The monitor and app are easy to use. I put a small band aid over the monitor, as I found I could pull it off trying to remove a tight sports bra. I had one monitor malfunction, and Lingo replaced it right away.

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