Check out BUST's Holiday Gift Guide! We rounded up the best small-business buys and holiday finds to make your winter merry and bright! BLACK PHOENIX ALCHEMY LAB Celebrating its 20th year as an indie perfume label, BPAL specializes in personal and home fragrance that is cruelty-free and blended by hand, channeling realms of history, myth, enchantment, literature, and other avenues of the uncanny into scent.   FAT AND THE MOON Fat and the Moon is an herbalist-founded and formulated, head-to-toe bod care line. Low waste, handmade potions to dose your...

Women getting paid less than men who do the same job is a tale as old as time, but, thanks to the creator economy, that might be about to change. In the past couple of years, we have shifted how we work. It’s clear now that a traditional corporate job isn’t the only way to make a living, and a 9-5 job has been proven not to be the best career investment for women —a recent report by McKinsey & Company showed that, in 2021, for...

Self-love requires self-recognition—which means you recognize your self-worth, and acknowledge that it’s worth celebrating.  To this end, Wondershare, the global leader in creative software, has teamed up with Step Up and Dress for Success, two non-profit organizations dedicated to empowering women of all ages, to launch the Wondershare Claim Your Space Campaign with the mission to uplift women through a collective celebration, empowerment funds, and content creation. “Here’s a beautiful idea,” said Shaan Jahagirdar, Chief Design Officer of Wondershare, “we’ll share stories of women thriving in the...

Earlier this year, beloved shoe brand Dr. Martens announced a series of mini documentaries about several music scenes in New York City and Los Angeles for their Dr. Martens Presents: Music & Film Series project. The latest episodes focus on women punk rockers in L.A. and the DIY music scene in NYC, with appearances from members of the old and new guard alike. In Redefining Feminism in Punk: Los Angeles, director Alison Roberto interviews punk icons from the earlier days of the genre — X’s Exene...

Although you might want one, you won’t need a glam squad to attend Womankind’s upcoming Virtual Gala—you can join right from the comfort of your own home. Just RSVP (tickets are donate-what-you-wish) and then get ready for October 26th, when Womankind’s organizers will be honoring a few truly influential women, while celebrating the work they’ve done in the past year. Womankind’s mission is to use the multidimensionality of its Asian heritage to work alongside survivors of gender-based violence as they build a path to healing. Read...

"My own relationship with my body is so complicated. […] I’m fat, and I celebrate other fat people, but I don’t quite celebrate me. I would secretly give anything to be thin, while outwardly and openly rebelling against the idea that anyone should have to.” —from Fat Chance, Charlie Vega From debut author Crystal Maldonado comes Fat Chance, Charlie Vega, a memorable, nuanced, and binge-worthy coming-of-age novel about a fat brown girl trying to survive her chaotic life in a white Connecticut suburb. Charlie Vega is a lot...

“I blew out the candles. I wished. I wished so hard. I had learned my lesson from fairy tales, though, to never make your wish too specific. Like, if you wish for a lot of money, you might get a big check, but because, like, you lost your arm in an accident or something. So, I left it vague. I wish to be okay. I wish for us all to be okay.” From debut author Sara Hosey comes a heart-breaking tale about abandonment, abuse, homelessness, and...

If you’ve ever gone swimwear shopping online as a plus-size person, you know the drill: head to a separate section of a brand’s website to peruse a limited selection, or hope that some of the swimsuits designed for slimmer bodies come in your size, too. And, when they do have larger sizes, they’re usually old-lady style swimsuits with giant skirts or other drape-y parts attached meant to hide your body. But what if there was a company that didn’t make you feel like an afterthought?  It...

Much of advertising makes us question if we’re pretty, sexy, or skinny enough to be “worth it.” According to a 2018 Eventbrite study, the average American spends 22% of their disposable income on products that exploit the idea of self-care and that are built by brands that capitalize on our universal struggle with self-worth. These brands convince us that these transactions will “fix our flaws” and finally make us feel worthy. In spite of Gen Z having access to an unlimited number of beauty brands...

In a decades-long career, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an advocate and jurist for gender equality and for ensuring that the United States Constitution leaves no person behind. As revealed in her final book, Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue, in the area of gender rights, Ginsburg dismantled long-entrenched systems of discrimination based on outdated stereotypes by showing how such laws hold back both genders. In Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue, co-authored by Amanda L. Tyler, a Berkeley Law professor and former Ginsburg law clerk, Ginsburg shares...