SEP 10, 2026

INSIDE: Dry Shampoo, Building Credit, and Real-Life Romance.

TODAY I WILL:

Stop underestimating what one day can do.

Chatting nostalgia, aspiration, and a few reality checks.

• Your tiny-home Pinterest board isn’t the whole story.

• Sports betting may feel like investing, but the returns tell a different story.

• Sunflower seeds might deserve a spot in your daily snack rotation.

• Your first fashion icon might have been 11 inches tall.

• A new lawsuit is bringing the beauty industry’s Epstein connections back into focus.

Looking for a dry shampoo that actually makes your hair feel refreshed? 

We get it. Dry shampoo is supposed to buy you another day (or two) between washes, but the wrong formula can leave behind a powdery cast, gritty buildup, or hair that somehow feels heavier than when you started. And the right one can absorb excess oil, add a little volume, and make yesterday’s blowout look surprisingly alive again.

The trick is finding one that works with your hair type and your routine. From lightweight sprays that disappear into roots to formulas that give fine hair some much-needed oomph, our editors rounded up the dry shampoos that actually make skipping wash day feel like a win. Consider your everything-shower officially postponed.

K18 Biomimetic Hairscience AirWash™: Instead of the usual aerosol formula, K18 uses a lightweight liquid mist with translucent microbeads that absorb excess oil without leaving behind that telltale white cast or gritty buildup. 

Not Your Mother’s Clean Freak: This one is like an upgrade to the traditional dry shampoo we all fell in love with (finally designed to leave behind zero white residue) and smells amazing. Plus, it’s only $11.99, which we love. 

Drybar Detox Silk Dry Shampoo: This one is new on the scene, and our editors ran to check it out since we love the brand’s other products. We reach for it because it conditions as it cleans thanks to amino acids in the formula that keep hair soft and naturally shiny between washes. 

Bumble and bumble Prêt-à-powder Post Workout: This one is a staple in the gym bag for all of our morning workout girlies. Trust us. Give it a good shake, spritz it onto roots, then tousle or blow-dry—and suddenly that post-Pilates ponytail can become actual plans hair. We also love that the lightweight mist works especially well on fine-to-medium hair.

Pay It Down 

You may feel like having debt is isolating, but a ton of young people are exactly where you are. Millennials now carry an average of more than $132K in total debt, while Gen Z’s average credit card balances jumped 62% between 2022 and 2024. Nearly a third of Zoomers have a subprime credit score, and millennials are more likely than not to carry a credit card balance. Add in the fact that 84% of Gen Z student borrowers say that they’ve delayed major life milestones (like buying a house) because of their loans, and you can easily see that juggling multiple types of debt at once has become the norm, not the exception. 

If you’re stuck on how to make progress, we got you. We tapped Mary Navarrete, VP of Strategic Partnerships and Impact at Point West Credit Union, to find out how to actually make progress. Her first piece of advice is to make sure you can see the full picture clearly. Write down every debt you have with its balance, interest rate, and minimum payment. Once you have that, you can pick a pay-off strategy that’s the most congruent with your personality—whether that’s attacking the highest interest rate first or starting smaller to build momentum.

She suggests scheduling quiet time to read your credit card statements because that’s where you might realize you have an old subscription you never use on auto-pay, or something similar. If it all feels like too much to deal with, asking for help is better sooner than later. She said, “The sooner you reach out [to your credit union or a certified financial counselor], the more options you'll usually have.”

For people whose debt is higher than what is realistically manageable, Navarrete says that bankruptcy can be worth considering (after you’ve considered every other option). Work with a bankruptcy attorney so you know exactly what this will and won’t cover—and many states or cities have people who will work with you pro bono or at a discounted rate depending on your income. Debt consolidation can be another option for some. You roll multiple debts into one loan with a single payment and interest rate. But Navarette said that this only works if you stop taking on new debt entirely since “the goal isn't just to have one payment, it's to break the cycle.” Similarly, settling debt for less than you owe is in the last-resort category. It can hurt your credit, come with fees if you’re using a settlement company, or even trigger tax implications, which means this is an option to talk to a tax professional about before deciding if it’s the right move.

No matter where you are financially, it’s always worth it to explore your options and get started. You’ll be proud of yourself when you look back later at where you began.

Romance readers have always understood the assignment: Fall hard, feel everything, and believe in the happily-ever-after. But for bestselling author Elsie Silver, love stories are about more than swoony heroes and perfect endings. They’re also about communication, vulnerability, independence, and the decidedly less cinematic work of choosing each other over and over again.

We caught up with Elsie to talk about romance on- and off-the-page, what writing love stories has taught her about her own marriage, and why a happily-ever-after doesn’t require perfection.

The romance genre is sometimes dismissed as frivolous. Why do you think stories centered on women's desires and happiness have been underestimated? 

I think that historically our society really hasn't put much value on anything that centers women's desires and happiness. But that doesn't mean the demand hasn't been there. Smart, capable, independent women have been reading romance books for generations. This isn't a new phenomenon; it's just that only now are we culturally catching up. I would say that women are a wildly underserved audience when it comes to media in general, and businesses are starting to pay attention to the audience. This is especially true as women begin to make their mark in industries and professional positions historically held by men.

What has writing romance taught you about real-life relationships?

How important communication is. It's something we're all told is integral to a good relationship (and I also think it's one of the biggest challenges in most people's relationships). But even as I write, I swear I can almost feel the two characters falling in love the more I make them talk to each other or share their feelings in an open and honest way. There's something very vulnerable about opening up to another person, and it's integral to building trust between two people, as well as learning about that person and how their mind works.

Is there a relationship habit that sounds completely unromantic but has actually made your marriage stronger? 

Yeah, both of us really support and create space for the other to pursue their own passions or hobbies. Of course we love spending time together, but I think it's so, so important to make space for each of us to forge our own identities outside of who we are as a couple. We both value our alone time and don't hold it against the other when we need it. Maybe I'm out of town at a horse show for two weeks, but then he does a bike trip with friends for two weeks. We work hard to carve those opportunities into our schedule and then reciprocate by picking up the slack around home to make it possible.

Has anything from your real marriage ever quietly made its way into one of your books? 

At the very beginning of us seeing each other, when we hadn't really defined what we were to each other, I worked up the nerve (after a couple of drinks) to ask him if he was seeing anyone else. I remember him sort of chuckling and lookin