We can’t blame everything bad and annoying about the online world on “looksmaxxing”. But it has certainly played a role.

“Looksmaxxing”, if you have missed it, is a way to justify being hyperfocused on your appearance as a performance of masculinity. It entered mainstream consciousness in 2024 after going viral on TikTok, Reddit and YouTube, having spawned from the online communities known as “incels” (short for involuntary celibates, this is an subculture of heterosexual men unable to find romantic or sexual partners).

The aim is to maximise your appearance and therefore be more attractive to women. Achieving these goals can be done via “softmaxxing” (exercise, skincare, calorie restriction) or “hardmaxxing” (cosmetic surgery, steroids, and even bone-smashing – a misguided and dangerous attempt to trigger thicker bone regrowth by hitting your chin or jaw with a blunt object).

Shorts

Can we treat guests without blowing our budget?

According to Waitrose, a dinner party revival is underway led by younger people trying to reduce the cost of getting together.

The i Paper food writer Sophie Morris [below] asks chefs for their best ideas for hosting at home.

Always have bread

People will feast on the
bread, and then need less fish/steak/expensive whatever. All small plates restaurants know this: this is why the first thing on the menu is always artisan bread and butter.

ELLA RISBRIDGER, AUTHOR OF THE KITCHEN BOOK – GOOD FOOD FOR EVERY DAY

Use vegetables as centrepieces

Chef and food writer Helen Graham turns vegetables into centrepieces to cut down on meat and fish expenses.

Add pantry items

Graham’s recipes include a braised cabbage with a preserved lemon sauce, a roast cauliflower with saffron, and harrisa roast carrots with mango labneh.

How to host on a budget

Improve the everyday

Guests will always appreciate a stellar interpretation of the ordinary. Think lasagna or curry.

Generosity

Cooking dinner for your guests is spoiling them – you’re being generous with your time, your effort, and your home. So don’t feel the need to go overboard elsewhere.

Ask for help

Ask friends to bring a contribution, be it a nibble or a pudding.

Big platter energy

[Presentation] can be the key to elevating something . Spaghetti and tomato sauce suddenly looks like a feast when tumbled on a lovely big plate, dressed with olive oil and parmesan and placed in the middle of the table.

Food writer and editor Eleanor Steafel 

How to host on a budget

Taco party

Have one expensive filling, like shredded chicken, and two cheaper options, like refried beans, says Ella Risbridger.

Sundaes

Shop-bought ice cream is so easily zhuzhed up with the help of handy toppings, says Eleanor Steafel.

Low-effort tricks for
a cleaner house

While many Britons feel inspired to tackle their homes during summer, the warmer months can also make cleaning harder.

But Lynsey Crombie, known as the Queen of Clean, says the hotter months can increase mould, musty smells and sweaty clothes. 

Here, she shares the tips and practical
hacks she lives by.

Every 30 washes, clean the machine

A study of 1,000 UK residents by Domestic & General revealed that almost one in 10 Brits have never cleaned their washing machine, yet it could be grubbier than the toilet seat.

Crombie says after 30 washes, use 500 grams of soda crystals on the hottest wash to clean out the drum. If there’s sludge, run a quick rinse cycle with some white vinegar.

Always make sure to leave the door and drawer ajar for 10 minutes to dry out too and avoid stale smells.

Household ingredients to use

White vinegar

This is Crombie’s go to. It can descale the kettle and taps and deodorise places in her home.

Table salt

For tough stains like red wine, rub salt into the stain, leave overnight and wash as normal.

Lemons

For stubborn water marks, use half a lemon and bicarbonate of soda and leave on for 30 minutes before rinsing.

Cold water is better

You’re damaging [wooden] floor [with hot water], making it expand, stretch
and cause gaps…

During hot days, Crombie says to avoid cleaning with hot water altogether to avoid adding humidity to the home.

“Cold water is much better, and if you’re using the right floor cleaning product, it’s still going to be clean,” she says.

Hacks for a cleaner home

Three is the magic number

Wash your towels after two to three uses and make sure they dry properly in-between.

Focus on hotspots

Clean the “high traffic” areas, like the toilets, kitchen worktops and the hallway daily.

Open the windows

To keep a home fresh open the windows for 15 minutes each day – even in colder months.

Weekly habits

Do it more frequently, to cut down how long it takes

One task Crombie does weekly is her fridge. This includes a 10-minute wipe-down, focusing on the salad and vegetable tray. “If you save that job up and do it every other month, it’s going to be a very big chore.”

LIFESTYLE

4 min read

Hacks for a cleaner home

Stainless steel

Crombie’s hack is one product: Barkeeper’s Friend in powder form.

The expensive products

“If you spend more money, you get the floral scents. The difference is scent, not performance.”

Ignore online advice

The biggest issue she sees is product overuse. “You don’t need half a bottle of washing up liquid to clean a surface.”

Crombie’s essentials

Four products can do do a full clean of the house.

• Antibacterial washing-up liquid: “It can clean almost anything, and any brand works.”
• M&S Fabric Refresher spray: It’s pet-friendly, eco-friendly and “ticks all the boxes.”
• Cif cream cleaner: “It’s an old school product. It’s so good.”
• White vinegar: ““It’s great for washing sportswear, gym kits and is a great stain remover.”

How to keep your sex life going in a heatwave

Don’t endure it

For some people, the heat and the sun boost the production of hormones responsible for joy, pleasure and connection like serotonin and dopamine. For others, the heat causes fatigue and irritability. For them, being touched can set off an anxiety response.

GEMMA NICE [BELOW]

Don’t endure sweaty cuddles

• Long-term partners can be upfront and honest with each other and say that it’s too hot to touch right now.
• For others, break the tension by having an open and honest conversation.
• Choose dates with built-in air conditioning, like the cinema.
• Don’t ignore the issue or
  power through if you’re too hot.

LIFESTYLE

5 min read

How couples can manage a heatwave

Take penetrative sex off the table

It may make you feel lightheaded, tired, and can even lead to erectile dysfunction because the body is overheating.

Indulge in dirty talk instead

Because you aren’t distracted by physical movement, your focus is entirely on your partner’s voice. This can help build a massive amount of tension and sexual desire.

How couples can manage a heatwave

Breathwork

This syncs up your nervous systems and can trigger a deep, full-body energetic response.

Mutual play

Set up a fan and touch yourselves while looking directly into each other’s eyes, says Nice.

Strip and chill out

Just sharing the space and being close to each other can strengthen your bond.

Why you shouldn’t have
sex in the sea

• Water actually washes away
  your body’s natural lubrication.
• It creates friction against the delicate tissue.
• This can cause micro tears and severe irritation.
• It drastically increases the risk of getting a urinary tract infection (UTI) or a yeast infection.

LIFESTYLE

4 min read

The one easy habit which keeps your
brain young

From adopting a different running route to taking up a new hobby, here are seven ways in which new experiences can dramatically alter your brain health for the better.

Why we need new experiences

A well-connected brain is more resilient to stress, illness and the effects of ageing.

Neurologist Dr Steve Allder says when we try unfamiliar things, our brain is forced to work in new ways.

Over time, this improves the brain’s ability to adapt to change and respond to challenges, helping us to preserve thinking skills and emotional balance.

Why we need new experiences

They strengthen memory formation

Regularly exposing yourself to new situations – even small ones – helps exercise your memory systems, which improves your ability to store and retrieve information.

They improve overall learning ability

Just as muscles adapt to new exercises, the brain adapts to new mental demands. As we age the brain then benefits from regular stimulation and maintains sharpness.

Why we need new experiences

Boosts dopamine

New experiences naturally stimulate dopamine, which encourages positive behaviour patterns.

Reduce cognitive decline

New experiences activate different brain regions, helping to keep more areas working.

Problem-solving

Your brain must evaluate options, test ideas and adjust its approach.

The benefits of new experiences

Each time you adapt successfully to something new, your brain learns that change can be handled. This improves emotional flexibility, making it easier to cope with stress and unexpected events.

They also often involve other people, whether through travel or social activities. This stimulate areas of the brain
responsible for communication, empathy and understanding others’ perspectives. 

Your sleep has a huge impact on your heart health

How sleep and your heart
health are linked

• Adults who regularly sleep fewer than seven hours are at increased risk of high blood pressure, obesity, heart attack and diabetes. 
• The risk of coronary artery disease is 45 per cent higher in adults with short sleep durations at night.

LIFESTYLE

4 min read

The bedtime habits that reduce risk

Consistency

Keep daytime naps to less than 20 minutes and aim for seven to eight hours sleep per night.

Wind down

A reasonable 20-30 minute bedtime routine can include reading, light stretching, and meditation.

Time your exercise

Vigorous exercise within three hours of bedtime can cause insomnia.

The bedroom environment

Sleeping in a bedroom with bright overhead light has been associated with a higher risk of major cardiovascular events, including heart attack (47 per cent higher risk), stroke (28 per cent) and heart failure.

Darken the room with blackout blinds or an eye mask, avoid blue light and leave your mobile phone outside your bedroom.  

The bedtime habits that reduce risk

Food and drink

Alcohol, nicotine, caffeine and large evening meals can all disrupt sleep quality.

Know your numbers

If your blood pressure at bedtime is consistently high, consider discussing medication with your GP.

Beware of snoring

Sleep-disordered breathing is linked with cardiovascular conditions, so it could be time for a GP evaluation.

HEALTH

Reflecting on the early signs of dementia

Three families reflect on the early signs of the illness, which affected their parents.

They include the things they missed or dismissed, what they’d do differently and what they’d want other people in the same position to know.

Robert and his mother Joyce

She fell for a scam

One of the first incidents that rang alarm bells for Robert was his mum falling victim to a suspected scam from someone selling mattresses door-to-door. 

She also started to struggle with cooking and making her special dishes she’d been making for decades without a problem.

LIFESTYLE

5 min read

Did he tell his mother?

We [had] just sort of played along with everything. But on one particularly bad day, I blurted it out over the phone, ‘Because you’ve got dementia, mum!’ She threatened to kill herself, which was very scary. Maybe it’s something I should have explained properly to her from the get-go.

JOYCE WAS DIAGNOSED WITH ALZHEIMER’S IN HER EARLY SEVENTIES

Rosie became a carer
in her early thirties

I think we missed some of the really early subtle signs.

Rosie’s mother was diagnosed with Young Onset Alzheimer’s Disease at 58 but some symptoms, like brain fog, were put down to the menopause.

She had become more forgetful, and was repeating herself, but as she had always “been scatty” it was dismissed.

She became fixated

It was on strange things like going to the same buffet.

Chloe was just 14 when her mum, Sarah, was diagnosed with young onset frontotemporal dementia, a rare form of the disease.

Another time Sarah, who was diagnosed in her forties, forgot how to boil an egg.

On Saturdays, when she’d usually go shopping, she’d go out and come straight back home, almost like she was forgetting
what she was going out for.

Unused or unwanted subscriptions cost consumers £1.6bn.

Writer Sadhbh O’Sullivan looked into her own forgotten subscriptions when she became a first-time buyer, and realised how much she was wasting on things she wasn’t using.

The hidden spends that go unnoticed

I’d long considered myself to be quite a reasonable spender. 

But the hidden costs across her bank accounts, like free trials that hadn’t been cancelled and memberships for abandoned services, proved otherwise.

It was full of small amounts, £2.99 here, £4.50 there. These small amounts added up.

The ghost subscriptions

Sadhbh isn’t alone.

19%

According to a Nationwide survey almost one in five Brits don’t use every platform they pay for.

The bank suggests they could save as much as £400 a year by ditching them. 

4.7 million

National Trading Standards’ 2025 research found 4.7 million people were paying for subscriptions they didn’t know they’d signed up for.

In 2024, a government report found unused and unwanted subscriptions cost consumers up to £1.6bn a year.

How to deal with the subscriptions

Hunt them down

Banking apps usually list your ‘subscriptions’ separately from direct debits and standing orders so you can easily spot what you’re shelling out on.

Check everything

You can be debited through credit cards, E-payment services, your mobile phone bill, Apple Pay or Google Pay.

How to deal with subscriptions

Be honest

Don’t vow to use a subscription you’re not going to, even if you
have good intentions.

Look over 13 months

Many businesses have changed from monthly to annual payments so look further back.

Future proof

Make sure to track any subscriptions you have kept so you can cancel them, if need be, in future.

Don’t be afraid of phone calls

If companies don’t let you cancel online, don’t fear the customer service line.

• With TV and broadband, call the new customer number as it’s often answered more quickly.
• If you’re happy with the service, but not the price, speak to a real person that may offer a better deal.
• Look for a phone number and press the ‘thinking of leaving us’ option. It’s usually a fast track to a team with authority to offer bigger discounts.

Donations to charity have increased dramatically

But staff say many people treat their shops like a tip.

Here they share the most useful donations they get, and the
ones that drive them mad.

People won’t buy the current donations

The quality of donations over the last year has diminished.

Claire Stockman, head of retail for St
Luke’s Hospice [pictured], says many donations include used items from fast fashion like Boohoo and Primark, which they cannot sell for more than £2, if at all.

What the workers see

60%

of what comes into St Luke’s Hospice is unsellable, Stockman says.

She adds its soiled, damaged beyond
repair or smelly.

Vinted

Harriet, a volunteer at Crisis in Dalston,
says people bring in clothes that are dirty and stained – things that they cannot sell
on Vinted.

She also sees dirty kitchenware and technology that no longer works.

It’s not all bad

• Harriet says they still get their
  fair share of designer items.
• She’s seen a pair of Louboutins
  sell for around £400.
• People will buy high-end items
  even if they’re a little worn.

First Person

5 min read

The best donations

There was a box donated after someone’s family had passed and in it were all these medals. I researched them and the whole collection ended up going for £2,340…

JANE THURNELL-READ, VOLUNTEER AT
THE OXFAM GENERAL SHOP IN EXETER

What is a good donation?

A good donation is anything new with tags on, anything that hasn’t been opened, or higher quality items.

Items that have been well looked after are more likely to sell and generate a better price for charity too.

Harriet adds that knick-knacks and wine glasses are surprise hits in her branch.

But we are not here to talk about that tragic world today. Instead, we’re here to explore how “maxxing” has become the latest verbal tick that turns an interest or a choice into a searchable trend. Just like popping “-core” onto the end of various styles a few years ago (normcore, cottagecore, balletcore…), in 2026, if you can think of it, there’s a maxxing for it.

There’s now a whole host of new stereotypes to see ourselves reflected in. Ahead are a selection and what they say about those dedicated to them – yes, maybe you.

Proteinmaxxing

You believe firmly in the power of protein to solve all your physical problems. Whether you are striving for hypertrophy at the gym or still reeling from Noughties diet culture, protein, with its promise to keep you fuller for longer and help you build muscle mass, is in everything you eat.

There is, of course, a core of truth to these claims, but with you proteinmaxxers, we’re not just talking about eating foods high in protein – we mean everything. Never mind that it’s a macronutrient that most people in the West are eating more than enough of without even trying. Who cares that there are plenty of readily available whole foods (meat, fish, eggs, cheese, beans, nuts) to suit all dietary needs that are heaving with protein? If a marketer slaps a label on it, you are buying into it. Bars, powders, gels, drinks, and even bread have all been blessed with a protein halo, irrespective of what else is in them.

It gives you a free pass to eat (protein) crisps and (protein) cookies. You will look good on the beach, at Hyrox or at the school gate come hell or high water!

Fibremaxxing

Hey, I don’t mean this to sound rude but… is your gut OK? You’ve spent months, maybe even years of loosening your waistband after lunch or running outside to surreptitiously fart, but now you’re complaining more than ever about your stomach discomfort. I’m guessing you’ve been caught up in the fibre wave.

Fibre is a sexy wellness trend now. The promises, like protein, are hard to ignore: fibre is essential for feeding your gut bacteria, regulating bowel movements and stabilising your blood sugar by keeping you fuller for longer. Eating 30g a day is associated with a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, type two diabetes and bowel cancer. Many of us are not eating enough. But as you have probably discovered, increasing fibre is a high-risk, high-reward strategy if you jump in too quickly. Going from zero to 100 seemed like a good idea but you’re now complaining constantly about being too full, having mad bouts of gas and dealing with… irregular bowel movements.

Maybe if you’re already making your porridge gritty with all the seeds you sprinkle on, you don’t also need that psyllium husk supplement.

Frictionmaxxing

You are sick of your phone, you’re simply sick of it!!!! So when you came across the concept of frictionmaxxing, the act of deliberately adding inconvenience back into your life (while scrolling on your phone) you felt immediately compelled to research how to do it (on your phone).

You probably started waxing lyrical about how much you love doing the big weekly shop in person on Saturdays instead of ordering online, or reminiscing about renting videos instead of streaming. Perhaps you disabled Apple Pay and started bragging about using a wallet again. You certainly picked up a whole new set of analogue hobbies like pottery or carpentry, and won’t shut up now about how nice it is to really use your hands.

However, you are not a luddite. Various conveniences remain (the dishwasher, the electric bikes) and before long, you have a particularly stressful day at work and redownload Instagram for a quick dopamine hit. Then comes the Deliveroo on a hangover Sunday. Before long, you are back to streaming everything and making your Sainsbury’s order online. You still believe in the good of frictionmaxxing, insisting to friends that “instant gratification is making life soulless”, you’re just not letting them know that your Monzo is firmly connected back to your phone. It’s too much faff otherwise.

Adminmaxxing 

What’s the solution for your scatter-brained approach to life? Why not cram all the annoying pieces of organisation into one adminmaxxed day every month? Then you can kill two birds with one stone – you get to ignore all the annoying jobs that are piling up, while also feeling good about getting it sorted!

The trouble, of course, is that the day you are adminmaxxing sucks. The first time you did it was with friends, after you saw some 22-year-olds do it on Instagram and you were riding the high of just how easy it was to change the address on your debit card, something you’ve been meaning to do for six months. But then your friend is busy, so you delay the next one for a week. Then it’s raining, and you get distracted by your phone. Then it’s sunny, and you can’t waste a good day indoors on your laptop. In the end, you only get one job done, then shift the list to next month.

By the time the next month rolls around the list is so large you can’t face it and so you are now just back to ignoring it.

Sleepmaxxing

You’d be hard pressed to find an environment more meticulously controlled than your bedroom. The temperature is precise, the blackout blinds are drawn, and your pillow is sprayed with Neal’s Yard Goodnight Pillow Mist.

But your sleepmaxxing starts long before you enter the bedroom. You stop drinking caffeine promptly at 2pm, and avoid alcohol; you take your supplements including magnesium, or maybe melatonin gummies that you bought in bulk in the US; you don your blue-light glasses and your mouth tape; and only then do you enter your carefully curated bedroom.

Your reasons for sleepmaxxing vary, but your approach of throwing everything at the wall in search of the perfect night’s sleep only seems to work some of the time. No matter how much you analyse your sleep data, you wake up tired and convinced you never entered REM state. You figure you are just one step away from it working this time, and so you continue your search for the next product. Hopefully you will forget about sleepmaxxing entirely soon – you’ll probably sleep incredibly well after that.

Spermmaxxing

This is where men use diet, lifestyle changes, and bio-tracking to optimise their sperm count and overall reproductive health. Approaches range from evidence-based foundational health habits to extreme, unverified online fads. You fall into one of two camps. Either you recently heard, perhaps for the first time, that infertility in a relationship isn’t always entirely the woman’s fault. And you most certainly want to make sure your sperm can swim far and wide, affirming your masculinity and conferring future progeny.

Or: you are genuinely concerned about your fertility, with regular headlines reminding you about our falling birth rate, and come across spermmaxxing in one of your doomscrolls. The influencer who claims eating raw garlic will help certainly sounds far-fetched, but that niggling anxiety that you might one day be the reason you can’t have kids encourages you to try. Hopefully you only give it one go before realising you are far better off just taking care of yourself a bit more. If nothing else, not having raw garlic breath will certainly make you more attractive.

Vaginamaxxing

After focusing your attention on “improving” every other part of your body, you have now been convinced that you need to rejuvenate and aestheticise even the most private and internal parts of you. In your sights are not just the appearance of your vulva but also the smell, the tightness, the microbiome and sexual performance. So you are throwing money at any product or procedure you can find.

While no one but you can change how you feel about your vagina, it’s worth knowing that it’s not only expensive: it’s pointless. The idea that your vagina becomes “looser”, according to gynaecology expert Valentina Milanova, is a myth; as are products that claim to improve freshness (they just disrupt your microbiome and ironically affect odour far more than if you just left well alone).

Feel free to groom however you see fit, but hopefully you’ll have realised by now that everything else is a waste of time, and cash.

Chinamaxxing

Chinamaxxing went viral earlier in the year across the West, with social media users posting about how they were embracing Chinese wellness practices. If you use this term sincerely you are likely in your teens or early twenties and haven’t really analysed what it means to say a millennia-old culture can be distilled into a few habits. You should probably do that.

Judemaxxing

England midfielder Jude Bellingham is now your life. Your Instagram feed is full of him topless, or being Mr. Nice at every match, or being a cheeky sweetie with his bezzie Erling Haarling (whose name you only recently learned). And you don’t just love him because he is utterly beautiful, OK! He has so many other amazing qualities. Though, you do let out an audible gasp whenever he appears on the screen in World Cup matches. You’d appreciate it if people would stop reminding you he’s 23 years old.

Outrageously-Chocolatey-M&S-Dark-Chocolate-Ginger-Biscuits-maxxing

You are me, writing this.