First thing you do when you wake up/go to bed?
First thing I do when I wake up is open up my windows to feel the fresh air, and then drink some water before I eat breakfast. I find that this surprisingly energizes me and motivates me to make better decisions throughout the day. I'll usually stretch on a yoga mat for about 10 minutes, and then I'll spray a little bit of whatever fragrance I'm using at the moment in the air because It helps me feel more "myself" and helps set the tone for the day. Especially during quarantine, where days seemed to blend together, anything that reminded me of my previous everyday life pre-COVID inspires me to keep working productively.
Any ritual health/beauty/wellness routines or products?
The Mario Badescu Rose Water Spray, the Make-Up Forever Ultra HD Concealer, and the Biossance Squalane + Tea Tree Balancing Oil are constant repurchases for me. Also, anything Kiehls. In terms of health products - any sort of Vitamin C tablets and probiotics are a must. Last, I love Green Tea (I put a little bit of honey in it and then pour it over ice) because it energizes me while also being really light. Sometimes, drinking coffee can feel very heavy (I'm not sure if that makes any sense, but something about the strong coffee taste and milk/milk substitutes sometimes fill me up like a whole meal), so I'll opt for a caffeinated tea instead.
Favorite feature(s) on yourself and why?
My favorite feature on myself is my eyebrows, I used to be super self conscious about my body hair in middle & high school. I always had (and still do) really dark, thick hair on my arms, legs, and upper lip; and my mom did not allow me to pluck or get my eyebrows done until I was much older. Kids would say that my eyebrows looked like squirrels on my face and I always hated the fact that they grew into my eyelids or gave me a constant unibrow. Today at 20 years old, I am so grateful to my mom for not letting me touch them. I absolutely love them and how they frame my face, and I try to go easy on my skin from harsh razors and painful hair removal methods. I have come to appreciate the beauty that my family passed down to me, even if these traits are not desirable by "Western" standards. When I look at old family photos, I can see that my eyebrows, long nose, and dark hair come from my ancestors - and that, to me, is really special.
How do your job, lifestyle, and background affect your routine?
At any given moment, I'm juggling multiple jobs or internships while being a full time business student, a curve model, a business owner, a daughter/sister/girlfriend/friend, and a million other things. I absolutely love living the hectic New York City lifestyle (booked and busy??) but it definitely takes a toll on my routine and the amount of time I devote to myself. I used to believe that I thrived in high-stress situations, but I think it was just the idealization of over-productiveness that pushed me to always overload myself with roles, responsibilities, and deadlines that I frankly, didn't need to be keeping up with. I learned the hard way that you cannot be productive without taking care of yourself. Last year, it got to a point where I hadn't taken a break or cared for myself in weeks. At that point, I was feeling the effects of a severe burn-out not only on my mental health, but on my physical health as well. Between going to class, work, castings, meetings, etc. I dropped all attention from my eating, sleep, energy levels, and more. That time served as a wake up call to put myself and my health before any responsibilities, and I remind myself that every day. Today, my routine serves as a foundation for my day, and anything else can wait until after I finish my morning stretches.
What do you do to stay healthy?
To stay healthy, I love to cook recipes I find online and see how I can substitute healthy ingredients (my mom was a health nut, and growing up she taught me to love fruits and vegetables). This doesn't mean that I never eat junk food, though. I definitely do have an obsession with Takis and I definitely do bake cakes every weekend, and that's totally ok. Being healthy does not mean that you are exclusively dieting all the time, it can mean lots of different things for lots of different people, and I'd like to make that distinction clear. I do like to make sure that I'm balancing the types of foods I'm eating, and I try to stay active in any way I can. Now, post- quarantine, I'm living in the Lower East Side. It's super easy to stay active because of all of the walking and subway stair climbing (and sometimes running, if you're an intern) you experience on a simple day. But when I was quarantined in my hometown in New Jersey, it was harder for me to find motivation to go outside and be active, especially given the times. I found that hiking, biking, and walking around beautiful parks and lakes were my favorite thing to do. I'm not so much of a runner, and I've been really into setting a yoga mat down in my living room and seeing what happens, as I'm sure most people in apartments have been, too.
Photo Credit: @annaletson
Any cultural tips/tricks you've learned from family and/or friends?
My grandmothers were my first introduction to anything beauty related. Those two women are not only my inspirations, but beauty icons. They both have a very different approach when it comes to beauty and skincare. My grandmother on my mom's side tends to lean towards a natural beauty approach, she focused mostly on skincare and only a little bit of makeup to accentuate what you have. The biggest tip I've taken from her was to rub a sliced cucumber on my face in the morning, which serves as a de-puffer and hydrates your skin. I'm not sure if that's true, but it feels damn good and de-puffs my eye area like a cream never could. My grandmother on my dad's side on the other hand, is all about makeup. She lines her lips with a dark liner and fills in her beauty marks with eyeliner (no judgement on darker lip liners, she really owns that look). I remember her asking me about the mascara I used, or the lipstick I was wearing, and she'd always swing me a little bit of lipstick under the table at family events when my mom said I couldn't wear makeup. She taught me the importance of patting, NEVER rubbing, your face dry so that you will never get any wrinkles. Growing up, I was always around my grandmothers because my parents worked a lot, and they would watch me for full weekends at a time. I watched every single Audrey Hepburn movie before I watched any Disney movies. I grew up with a knowledge of "old" and "aging" in a way that I don't think a 7 year old should have known. I remember being very paranoid and obsessed with "never getting wrinkles'' and "not looking old" which kind of still follows me today, but I am definitely a lot less paranoid about it now (thanks to SPF). I am really grateful that I was so close to my grandmothers because they really impacted my view of beauty to what it is today. I joke around with my friends that I always feel like a grandma because my preferences in movies, music, art, and anything creative has always had a kind of vintage feel to it, as I'm so used to my earliest definition of beauty coming from the past.
How do you choose beauty products?
For essentials like concealers, mascaras, and skincare, I tend to look for products that are as green and as natural as possible. My personal makeup aesthetic is very Glossier-esque so I like to keep things muted and natural, and accentuate the features I have. When I’m looking for something fun and different like eyeshadows, blushes and lipsticks; I love to look at new and innovative makeup brands to play around with. Most recently, my favorites have been Kosas and Kaja. I don’t purchase any beauty product without a full search through reviews, ingredients and pictures to ensure that what I’m purchasing is worthwhile, and it usually helps. Also, I’m a marketing junkie and I love looking at makeup ads, campaigns, imagery, etc so seeing ads definitely inspire me to look into whatever product is being sold.
What is your cultural and/or ethnic background?
My parents are from Ukraine & Moldova and immigrated to America during the collapse of the Soviet Union. I am the first one in my family to be born in America and I grew up speaking both Russian and English (Although I lost a lot of my fluency in Russian growing up in the suburbs of NJ). Today, I identify as both Russian and American, and find it hard to distinguish whether I should label myself as Ukranian, Moldavian, or Russian. A lot of my friends are first-gen, too, and we always talk about how unique our American experience was growing up. It's like, you never quite feel American enough, because you have a second culture at home. But you also never feel close enough to your culture at home, because you're too "American". I have a really hard time communicating with my family on issues that are too "American" and a hard time communicating with friends about experiences that are uniquely "Russian". So, it's been really interesting learning how to balance both cultures and identities.
How do your culture, ethnicity and identity intersect and affect your beauty preferences (or grievances)?
In my personal experience, my culture is very focused on outward appearances, especially for women. I have always been a naturally curvier girl and in elementary school, I would always be 10-15 lbs heavier than a lot of my friends. I remember always feeling bad about my weight, because from my knowledge, a little girl was not supposed to be "big". My mother or grandmother would sometimes watch me eat, they would slip in little snide comments at the dinner table like, “you don't need to eat that second slice of cake” or “no boy will like you if you’re bigger than them.” It was absolutely humiliating, and it led to a lot of anxiety over eating in public, and a lot of shame. Being told I never fit the mold growing up led to severe body dysmorphia, extreme self consciousness, and a bunch of other anxieties that come with being a young girl with a developing body. I could never apply the definition of “beautiful” to myself because I never felt that I fit the definition. Luckily, when I got older, I went to college away from home and I started finding things that I found beautiful about myself every day. I quickly learned to love my curves that I used to hide, and people responded really positively to my newfound confidence. They probably didn’t know that it was the first time I truly felt myself - without shrinking myself down to meet the needs of boys, or cultural traditions, or judgemental eyes watching me eat cake. Looking back, I don’t blame my mother or grandmothers for their comments because it was how they were raised, and they were just following the cultural rulebook that stated that women must be feminine and slender. I've always felt that post-soviet cultures can be a little old fashioned, but that's not to say that I didn't gain positives from my culture. Russian culture is so rich and beautiful, but it's also filled with lots of tragic history. I always try to think about the origins of the old-fashioned ways before I criticize, as I know the rough experiences of my family through their stories about World War II, the aftermath of the Holocaust, and the struggles they faced once they moved to the US. I'm very proud to be the child of immigrants from Eastern Europe. But, I definitely am glad to recognize that those comments, and the way I was raised does not define me or my definition of beauty. My favorite part about my culture is the emphasis on dressing up, and looking your best at all times. I have distinct memories of my mom putting makeup on in the car while we were parked at my doctor's office. When I asked her why she was putting makeup on to just sit in the lobby, she said, "you never know who you're gonna run into, and you need to look good!" To this day, I am not able to walk into a grocery store without a head-to-toe look.
When it comes to my beauty philosophy today, I love to accentuate my natural features that I used to be so insecure about. But if you asked me 5 years ago, I would be hiding them under the massive pile of beauty standards I was raised with. Today I work as a curve model signed to the BTWN, an agency that represents and celebrates all different body shapes, and I am so grateful to be in a position where I can inspire other young kids who felt the way that I felt. I would say that my culture definitely impacted my view of beauty by serving as a representation of what I didn’t want to focus my definition of beauty on. My beauty is self proclaimed and self described, and I’d like to keep it that way.
If you were to create the perfect beauty/wellness product for yourself, what would it be?
If I were to create the perfect beauty/wellness product for myself, it would be a concealer & lip gloss duo - liquid concealer on one side and liquid gloss or liquid lipstick on the other side, as one, easy-to-transport stick. There is definitely something like this out on the market, but I want to find one where you can switch out the concealers and lip glosses. Most days, my makeup routine only consists of a little bit of concealer and a gloss, so I dream of a product where I would only have to take one product with me on the go that can serve so many purposes. The lip gloss can also be a blush, or an eyeshadow!
Photo Credit: @franky_marin