For What It’s Worth is a live podcast about the stuff we use, the trends we question and the products we can’t stop talking about. Stream new episodes bi-weekly on YouTube, hosted by NBC Select editorial director Lauren Swanson and NBC Select reporter Zoe Malin. Shop our product picks below and on Amazon.
We logged hundreds of miles in 26 running and walking shoes. We sweat in leggings, sports bras and socks (and yes, did dozens of loads of laundry). We brushed our teeth with different toothbrushes and toothpastes every day, swished with mouthwash and flossed with thread, pickers and pressurized water. We slept on seven silk pillowcases and in a dozen pairs of cooling pajamas. We even wore two fitness trackers at a time to compare them. And now, after three months of comprehensive testing, NBC Select’s Wellness Awards winners have been announced.
In this episode of For What It’s Worth, NBC Select editorial director Lauren Swanson and I take you behind the scenes, giving you an inside look into how our team tried products, shared feedback, tallied the results and ultimately gave the best in every category our stamp of approval.
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Episode transcript
LAUREN: Alrighty.
ZOE: Welcome back.
LAUREN: Welcome back. Today’s one of our favorite topics.
ZOE: It is: Wellness Awards.
LAUREN: It’s our favorite time of year.
ZOE: I was just about to say 2025 and I realized that’s a year ago. It’s 2026. We’ve been doing this for a long time.
LAUREN: We’ve been doing it for several years. It’s one of our favorite, well, one of my favorite…
ZOE: I love it. I think it’s fun.
LAUREN: I always find it so interesting because it’s the time of year when we really shine in terms of having opinions.
ZOE: Oh yeah.
LAUREN: I want people to either have super negative reactions to something or super positive reactions to something. It’s the neutral that makes it hard.
ZOE: I think so too. I love when I talk to people and they’re like, I absolutely hate this, or I love it and I’m using it forever. But when people are like, It’s fine… give me more. I need something more than that. That’s not going to be helpful here.
LAUREN: How many products do you think we try? Rebecca knows. How many products do we try, Rebecca? [NBC Select editorial projects manager Rebecca Rodriguez is off-camera.]
ZOE: I mean, I would guess over 300.
LAUREN: We test over 300 products, 330 products, across oral care, fitness, sleep. How many products do you think you tested?
ZOE: 90. I’m positive it’s at least 90. I think I tested 22 sneakers, 17 leggings. I was looking the other day, and it doesn’t actually feel like that much when I do it. It feels like that much when I’m submitting my feedback. But when I’m doing it, it doesn’t really feel that way, because I test mostly fitness stuff. And so it’s easy, because I put on a pair of leggings, I put on a sports bra, I put on socks and I put on shoes. So it helps me create little outfits, and then I just keep doing that. So then it kind of feels like I’m testing five or six things at one time. It doesn’t feel like I’m testing so many individual things. But then, when I realized, when I look at my sheet, my spreadsheet, and I’m like, Whoa, I’m testing a lot of things. What are you mainly testing?
LAUREN: This year, I’m testing a lot of oral care, a lot of sneakers, because I like testing sneakers, and pajamas.
ZOE: Oh my gosh.
LAUREN: I got sleep. I got sleep and pillowcases.
ZOE: That is the best addition we’ve ever made: jammies.
LAUREN: Cooling pajamas.
ZOE: Oh man, I feel so grateful for the jammies category.
LAUREN: I had a new pair of jammies every night.
ZOE: Me too. It’s the best thing ever. I get so excited to pick them. I wear them like athleisure. I wear them out and about now. I’m at the bodega in my set. I love it. Best category we’ve ever had..
LAUREN: You go outside in inside jammies?
ZOE: Well yes, but then I don’t sleep in them.
LAUREN: Oh, okay.
ZOE: I personally believe there’s jammies that are…
LAUREN: I’m like…
ZOE: No. I don’t let outside clothes in bed. Absolutely not.
LAUREN: I was going to say, that doesn’t sound like you.
ZOE: No, it doesn’t sound like me. But I love long sleeve shirt jammies with matching long pants. I cannot sleep in them. I can nap in them. I can lounge in them. I can run errands in them. I cannot sleep in them. I am a shorts and t-shirt or tank top person. I just can’t do it.
LAUREN: Even in the winter?
ZOE: It could be zero degrees, even negative temperatures.
LAUREN: And you’re in shorts?
ZOE: And a T-shirt, yes. I feel suffocated otherwise.
LAUREN: Did you fit any night dresses?
ZOE: No, did you?
LAUREN: I had a couple night dresses.
ZOE: Interesting.
LAUREN: Sometimes I’m a night dress girl. Sometimes I’m not. During this testing season, I was not a night dress girl.
ZOE: I can’t imagine being one.
LAUREN: Just because at some point, it becomes a T-shirt.
ZOE: That’s how I feel.
LAUREN: The way that I toss and turn, I feel like it becomes a T-shirt and then I am so overstimulated by the fact that it’s not functioning well in the middle of the night that I wake up and I’m like, It’s not right. It’s not right.
ZOE: Get this off me. But that’s how I feel about long pants and long sleeve shirts, because they’re loose, so I just feel suffocated by fabric.
LAUREN: I can understand that because when I’m wearing a long sleeve and long pant jammy set, eventually the pants do scrunch up.
ZOE: They become pantaloons.
LAUREN: Pantaloons, gauchos, yes. They come up to my knees and that’s also overstimulating.
ZOE: I completely agree with you. I need to be in a very low maintenance, calm sleeping outfit.
LAUREN: But I also can’t do leggings when I sleep.
ZOE: Oh my God, no.
LAUREN: Like, it can’t be compressed to my body, and it can’t be too loose that I’m drowning in fabric.
ZOE: It’s a fine line. We test that fine line.
LAUREN: We find that fine line.
ZOE: We really do. I also feel like with the silk pillowcases we tested, I was surprised by how many opinions I had. In the beginning, I was like, A silk pillowcase is a silk pillowcase. But there are different types of silk. Whether it’s an open envelope situation versus a zipper situation. Does it cause static? Does it start fraying in the wash?
LAUREN: Sometimes the silk has an oily feel on your hands, and I did not like that.
ZOE: I agree with you.
LAUREN: That does not feel pleasant to me while I’m sleeping, or even just touching it and putting it on the pillow. I also prefer a zip.
ZOE: Me too. I love a zip. I gave every single silk pillowcase that I tested with no zip less points because it’s annoying. It’s just simply annoying. I don’t want to think about the fact that if I move my head a certain way, my pillowcase is going to fly off. No. That’s annoying.
LAUREN: Outside of sleep, you tested a lot of sneakers.
ZOE: A lot. Yes, I did.
LAUREN: What do you look for in a sneaker? What’s your testing process? You said you put outfits together, but you’ve been doing this for, well we’ve been doing Wellness Awards for three years?
ZOE: Four years, we’ve been corrected [by Rebecca, off-camera].
LAUREN: We’ve been doing wellness awards for over four years, and you’ve been testing sneakers for over four years, so you’ve probably tested, I don’t know, how many?
ZOE: I don’t know. I could not even calculate how many.
LAUREN: Hundreds and hundreds of sneakers. You’ve got it down to a science. How do you test?
ZOE: I do. Well for me, I always start on the treadmill, because if I like a sneaker on the treadmill, great, I’ll just keep my run going and test it out for let’s say three miles. And if I’m like, Okay, it’s fine. I don’t mind it. Let’s see if I can just make it through the rest of my run, because my base is a six mile run. I’m like, Okay, if I can make it through six miles and I like it, or I don’t hate it at least, I’ll take it outside. But if I put it on and I’m on the treadmill and I’m three miles in, and I’m like, This sucks and I cannot keep going, I always bring a second pair with me to the gym, and I’ll change them out with a reliable pair that I know I love. And then that sneaker is just dead to me. I just can’t do it. And then that one is not getting the outside treatment. So that’s how I do it. I remember the first year we did this, I did not have that down to a science, and I was suffering through a couple runs, and I was like, I don’t deserve to do this to myself. I shouldn’t do this. So that’s my little process for sneakers. And then for workout attire, I kind of just put it on, and I’m like, All right, we’ll kind of see how this goes. I always run in everything, even if it’s meant for low or medium impact, because I think sometimes brands will say a sports bra or a legging is low or medium impact, and then you try it for a higher impact activity, and you’re like, Honestly, I like it better for that. So I give it a couple chances. And then for me, the legging situation really comes down to if they are slipping down and if they are rolling around. That I can’t handle it. Then they’ve got to go. And the sports bra is pretty easy for me too. If this thing is chafing, if it’s uncomfortable, if it’s suffocating me, or, on the other hand, if it’s just not supporting me, it’s got to go. So I feel like the leggings and the sports bras, I’m a little bit quicker to make my mind up about. With the sneakers, it takes me a couple runs.
LAUREN: As they should.
ZOE: We test running sneakers and walking shoes, and I think there is a distinction for some of them, but others, you don’t really know by just looking at them, or even the brand’s website sometimes will say “okay for walking and running.” And then I’m kind of like, I don’t know about that, but I’ll give it both chances. I’ll give it a running chance and I’ll give it a walking chance. And sometimes I agree with the brand and it’s fine for both. Other times, I’m like, You cannot run in this. You’re crazy.
LAUREN: All running shoes are walking shoes, but not all walking shoes are running shoes.
ZOE: Absolutely. And I think sometimes that gets a little inflated on the brand’s website. Sometimes they’re like, You can run in this. And I’m like, But should you? I don’t know. I do have one thing to say about shoes: This year we tested a lot of, I would call them fashion running sneakers, and I hated them. Every single one. I just don’t believe that if you are a fashion-first brand, you can make a great running shoe. I just don’t. I think that the technology…
LAUREN: You’re throwing a hot take out there.
ZOE: I know, it’s a hot take. But I really do feel this way. We have tested them sporadically in the past because brands like Alo and Lululemon have running sneakers all of a sudden. And so we’ve tested a couple here and there, but then for Wellness Awards this year, we tested a lot at once, so I was like, Okay, now I can really see if I’m noticing a difference between a Brooks, a Saucony or a Hoka and an Alo or whatever. And I really did notice a difference. I just felt like the ones that were from the fashion brands, were they cute? Yes, they were cute. But am I running a 10K in this and am I going to be comfortable? No. I did not like any of them.
LAUREN: But you’d walk in them?
ZOE: Some of them I would walk in, yes. Some of them I was fine with walking in. Other ones I was just like, This is not for me. I’m just not loving this. But someone else might, which is why we have multiple testers. Do you have any sneakers that you were obsessed with?
LAUREN: Well, you know I’m a Saucony girl, so every time I put those on, I’m a happy girl. I didn’t have any standouts from sneakers this year. But I also wasn’t running as much in them. I was doing more of the walking. In previous years, I’ve tested leggings, and there were definitely standouts in the leggings. I give extra points for pockets, for example. I think I tested lymphatic drainage leggings last year, and I tested them when it was 20 degrees outside, and the little beads became like icicles. Painful icicles. I was like, That’s not great. But not so much this year. I would say I went cozy this year in my testing categories. I also tested a lot of oral care. Similar to the way that you put together an outfit, I was putting together an oral care routine and testing every element. I didn’t test floss, but I could test a toothbrush, a toothpaste and a mouthwash at the same time. Actually, the past couple of days, I’ve been — this is so gross — not brushing my teeth when I’m at home, but coming to the office and then brushing my teeth as soon as I come here.
ZOE: Well, you have it all available to you.
LAUREN: Because I have it all here. To everybody I see, I’m like, Don’t talk to me. Don’t talk to me. I have to brush my teeth. And I tested one just recently that felt like there was Pop Rocks in your mouth. And I didn’t love that. But somebody might. It just was not for me. I also didn’t read the package that said it had some popping things happening in your mouth. And I’m brushing my teeth and I’m like, I think something’s wrong. Something is happening.
ZOE: That’s an alarming experience.
LAUREN: And then I checked the tube and it said, “with bright burst popping technology.” That was when I was like, Okay, this makes sense. I’m not dying.
ZOE: Do you have a favorite silk pillowcase you tested?
LAUREN: I liked the Ulta Beauty one.
ZOE: Did you even know Ulta Beauty made silk pillow cases?
LAUREN: No, but I wasn’t surprised.
ZOE: I felt the same way. I loved it. I tested that one too. I was like, This is solid.
LAUREN: It wasn’t super expensive, because silk pillow cases can get expensive.
ZOE: Absolutely.
LAUREN: But the silk didn’t feel cheap to me, which was really nice. I think it had a zip.
ZOE: Yes, it did.
LAUREN: Because any of the ones that I loved had a zip. And that one, I think I kept on my pillow the longest because it just felt so nice.
ZOE: I agree with that.
LAUREN: So I really enjoyed that one.
ZOE: I really liked that one too. I also tested one from Quince and I loved it. I thought it was great. I really do feel like every time we do Wellness Awards, Quince submits and it’s just phenomenal. I don’t know what they’re doing over there, but they’re doing something right.
LAUREN: We’ve loved their leggings in previous years, right?
ZOE: We’ve loved their leggings. We’ve loved their sports bras. I adore the silk pillowcase. They know what they’re doing. I was impressed by their stuff, and I feel like a lot of times with activewear, again, if it’s a fashion brand, I’m skeptical about their activewear.
LAUREN: I need pockets.
ZOE: Yes, I need pockets.
LAUREN: I need pockets. I need some sort of, not efficiency necessarily, but. I need something that actually speaks to the fact that you know this sport and you know what I need to do this sport, pockets being one of them. If I’m testing leggings and they don’t have pockets, where am I supposed to put my gels if I’m doing a long run? Where am I supposed to put my phone? Because there’s sometimes where I don’t want to go out in a belt.
ZOE: Me too. I feel the same way.
LAUREN: I want to be able to put my phone in my pocket, and you want the leggings to also stay up when you have your phone in your pocket, or your keys in your pocket, or whatever it is.
ZOE: No jingling, no bouncing.
LAUREN: And then having a tie is nice. I don’t like when you can feel the thin elastic in the waistband of leggings. I want to feel a thick elastic band that almost just absorbs into my skin.
ZOE: I completely agree with that. I want to be held in. My favorite leggings I tested this year, speaking of all of those features because they checked every single box, are from Aerie. They’re actually for cold leather runs.
LAUREN: That’s a fashion brand.
ZOE: I know, I was shocked. That’s why I gave it such a great score.
LAUREN: So clearly they were designed by and for athletes.
ZOE: Yes, they knew that this was for cold weather runs, because the inside is fuzzy-ish, but not so fuzzy that you’re overheating immediately. It has these pockets that go all the way down your thigh with zips, which is not always something you find.
LAUREN: So you’re not worried about things flying out.
ZOE: Yes. They’re phenomenal. And they almost have the jogger bottom a little bit, which I just think feels nice around your ankles. And they have a tie. It’s a thick waistband. They were so great. I’ve done two or three half marathons in them in the winter because they were so great. I was like, Why would I pick another pair if I know this one is going to keep me warm without overheating? It holds, quite literally, everything I’m going to need over the next two hours. I was amazed. I was so happy with that. And then for sneakers, do you have a favorite before I give you my favorite?
LAUREN: No, you give me your favorite.
ZOE: I started doing this last year, but this year, I was very cognizant of keeping track of all my miles for my runs. As Rebecca knows, as everybody knows who wanted to test sneakers, I said that I needed to test the Nike Vomero Plus because everyone in Central Park runs in them and everyone on social media runs in them. I have never, ever liked a Nike shoe we’ve tested. That’s just the truth. For my foot, it was always too narrow for me. These shoes are so insanely good. I will spend money on them. I will go out and buy more when this pair is beaten to the ground, which is soon. I’ve done all my long runs in them since December. I’ve run 120 miles in them so far. They’re still fantastic. They have this bubble kind of in the midsole, so it absorbs literally all of the shock. When I put my foot down, I don’t feel the impact. I was like, This thing is magical. So now, when I see people running in them in Central Park and on social media, I feel that kinship.
LAUREN: You’re like, I get it.
ZOE: I’m like, You know what? I’m not judging you for going with the trend. I agree with you. So I’m obsessed with them. Those are my first favorites. The Saucony Endorphin Azura, which just came out recently, I’m obsessed with. Those are amazing. But those are speed shoes. I definitely will say that the Nikes were great for long distances. And even when I started running in them, before I did longer distances, they were fine for 6 to 8 miles, I was still happy in them. But with the Saucony Azuras, unless you hit a certain speed, the shoe wasn’t doing what it was designed to do. I definitely think you need to be under that 9-minute mile marker, and if you weren’t, you just didn’t feel it. And then we also tested the On Cloudmonster Hyper, which I loved. They were great recovery shoes. I felt very balanced in them, and they weren’t too clunky, because I think sometimes the On Cloudmonsters can be clunky. So those were my top three faves.
LAUREN: Amazing.
ZOE: Those are my opinions.
LAUREN: Well, Wellness Awards is coming out.
ZOE: And you’ll be able to see every single product that not only we love, but that the rest of our whole team loved, too. That’s fun.
LAUREN: Because we’re just two people.
ZOE: Yes, and when you get a team of 20 people involved, your opinion might not be the majority. And that is interesting. And I actually love that. I’m okay with being the odd one out. If everyone else loves something else, and the award goes to that shoe, I respect it.
LAUREN: Well, we were just talking about this right before filming with toothbrushes. I could have a favorite toothbrush. You could have a favorite toothbrush. And then somebody else could completely hate it. So that’s the beauty of our Wellness Awards testing, our process, a look behind the curtain a little bit. We have as many people test products as we possibly can, and they’re all different. They have different teeth, they have different feet, they have different preferences, and that helps us narrow it down. And I think that’s really important when we determine what the best of the best is, because wellness products are expensive. Shoes are expensive. And that’s why it’s really important for us in the role that we are in, to test these things, so that when people are out there and they’re looking to spend upwards of $200 on a sneaker, they know that this has been tested by somebody that’s running 120 miles in that sneaker, and can actually verify that this is the best of the ones that I’ve tried.
ZOE: I agree. It’s definitely one of my favorite things we do. I’m so excited for everyone to see our picks.
LAUREN: All right — until next time.
ZOE: See ya.
LAUREN: Bye.
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I’m a reporter at NBC Select and I co-host our live podcast, For What It’s Worth, with editorial director Lauren Swanson. In this article, I summarize Episode 17: Behind the Scenes of Wellness Awards 2026. I included a summary of the episode, a transcript, products we recommend during the podcast and related articles.
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