April 16, 2021
Put your old sneakers to good use and help for hot sleepers.
Donate your gently worn sneakers!
I purge my closet regularly to help keep my inventory manageable, and I have one basket for the good stuff (which goes to TheRealReal) another for fast-fashion that gets sent to ThredUp. I’ve had great success selling designer shoes because I take pretty good care of them, but have always had issues with sneakers. I hate the idea of them getting tossed in the trash—especially since they’re generally still wearable—and I’m so happy I found a meaningful way to give them a second life.
The sisters behind Karité Shea Butter created Shea for Soles as a way to provide shoes for the women who work at the cooperatives that harvest shea nuts and extract the incredible shea butter used in their products. Many of these women commute to work on foot and spend their entire day on their feet, which is why proper footwear is so important.
To date, Shea for Soles has collected more than 100 pairs of gently worn sneakers, and they are accepting donations through the end of the summer. The sisters will hand-deliver the sneakers to these hard-working women when they visit Ghana in December.
If you would like to participate in Shea for Soles, please send gently worn sneakers to:
Karité Shea Butter
℅ Bergen Dermatology
473 Sylvan Avenue, Suite 110
Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632
I bet you have a pair or two languishing in the back of your closet, so why not put them to good use?
Attention hot sleepers!
I’ve been having issues “keeping my cool” overnight for quite some time, and at 44, it’s very possible I’m experiencing a hormonal shift (i.e. peri-menopause). But regardless of the cause (which has not been validated by any hormonal testing and I still get my P like clockwork), there is absolutely nothing fun about night sweats.
At first I blamed the thermostat. There was this weird schedule thing on there that would automatically raise the temperature after I lowered it before getting into bed. My husband said he fixed it—but he also has a tendency to sneakily raise the thermostat after I’m passed out when he’s ready for bed. Last week, after waking up sweating for the gazillionith time and checking the thermostat, WWIII ensued in the morning and I had the AC all to myself that night. As much as I hate admitting I’m wrong, I apologized to my husband because even at my preferred temperature, I still woke up hot several times throughout the night.
And so began the hunt for the miracle product that would save my sleep (and possibly my marriage). I really didn’t want to start dealing with electrical gadgets that would make noise and further disturb my slumber—or cool the entire bed. After more than an hour of searching and reading reviews, I ordered Therapedic’s Polar Nights 10 Cooling Personal Underpad. (So sexy, right?)
Guess what… This might be my BEST purchase ever. (Even better than the mini-vacuum.) I have no idea how it does it, but this super-thin, ultra-lightweight, pressure-activated pad starts cooling in less than 10 seconds—and lasts ALL night long. It somehow “recharges” between the time I get up in the morning and get back into bed 15 hours later so I can enjoy another blissfully cool night of much-improved sleep. In fact it’s so good, I’m going to order a second one since I’ll be spending a lot more time in bed when I recover from surgery. (I wish I had a video of my son’s reaction when he climbed into my bed for the first time—it was priceless.)
Whether you’re a hot sleeper or you and your partner just can’t agree on the sleep temperature, just do yourself a favor and order this pronto. And if you have a Bed Bath and Beyond nearby, you can even have it for tonight!