The creator of Beauty Insider Julia Grebenkina about your favorite cosmetics
For "Available" we study the contents of beauty cases, dressing tables and cosmetic bags of interesting characters to us - and we show all this to you.
About the profession of beauty blogger and delusions
I have been a beauty blogger and a beauty editor for six years now. And, although this can not be said for my stocks of cosmetics, my main beauty principle in life is “without fanaticism.” I went through the stages “I need everything” and “I want to try it without fail”, as well as the inevitable stage “Something is all that does not work.” I no longer expect miracles from cosmetics caring and not looking for unusual shades in decorative - I think now you can buy any color at all for anything, if not in the "mass", then from indie brands. This does not negate my curiosity about everything that is interesting, new and amusing, but the degree of passion has shifted.
On the one hand, this was facilitated by a rather austere skin care (in my case, variety is evil, and no matter how hard my hands reach for each new jar, I can beat myself on them). On the other hand, the understanding that my idea of what is normal in terms of beauty does not coincide with the advertising one. Should I strain and worry if by the middle of any day my skin still shines, as it is oily, if my pores are rather large, wrinkles start to form around my eyes? The industry says yes. And I am friends with people who enjoy every hour of checking in the mirror what they look like and whether it is not necessary to correct makeup. But I usually think of my own either by chance or by evening. And if I see that it would be necessary to walk on the face with a matting napkin, I will go. But to fill this head as a separate task - no, I have many other things.
Moreover, I still do not know the real way to make oily skin matte for the whole day, acne is completely gone, and wrinkles in 33 years reversed. So why should I worry so much about this? To accept yourself as you are is to do for yourself what you yourself consider sufficient, while being in a relaxed mood. For some, it will be a course of procedures, for someone a cream on a shelf in the bathroom, but in my opinion, this marker of relaxation is very important. It does not mean a fight with your own, forgive, Lord, imperfections, but sound expectations and a sound approach to solving a particular task.
About body care
A few years ago, Decléor founder Solange Dessimuli came to Moscow and talked about how she divides girls into "face-girl" and "girl-all-body." For many years I was a “girl-face” - I took care of my problem skin, but left everything below the neck unattended. Now I understand that, in fact, my body did not exist in my mind - it was just something that allowed me to do what I want (work, work and work). I was not interested in sports and it was terribly lazy to even smear the skin of the body with a cream, so it did not exist for me.
This approach has exhausted itself closer to 30 years old - I emotionally burned out at work, everywhere I quit and started to learn a simple rule: it is impossible all the time to squeeze the maximum out of my body, it takes time to rest and recover. And if you competently monitor your condition and dose loads and rest, the quality of life changes significantly. For about a year and a half, I just slept off, then imbued with sports, and it became a permanent part of my schedule, then a more balanced diet. And ... unexpectedly, although it was logical to get the buzz from the care and body.
Facial care
I have oily skin with a tendency to acne, at the same time dehydrated and very sensitive, with redness. And also serious pigmentation on the cheek, which I don’t hope to get rid of. Pigmentation, especially hormonal - the most difficult problem in cosmetology, and I am a vivid example. No new cosmetologist believes that I go all the time and year-round in SPF no less than 30. I, having tried everything, just relaxed about it so much that I no longer mask my makeup: well, here I am, and I have two spots on the cheek, so what?
You live with acne, never knowing what awaits you tomorrow on your face, plus quite often we treat one, cripple the other (say hello to acids and retinoids, which improved the condition, but made the skin very fragile and increased pigmentation). So now I have a basic home care: good moisture in very light textures (everything that is heavier than gel or emulsion, clogs the pores), the mildest cleansing for problem skin and ... everything.
About hair care
It is curious that I somehow had no luck with my hair (just a beauty-blogger-find): a few years ago I got to a trichologist (by the way, it seems, the best in Russia - I still have his contacts at least once a week) , I was diagnosed with androgenetic alopecia (AHA) and seborrhea. Exacerbation of seborrhea occurs under any stress, so there is always a dermatological mask-serum at hand. Well, the AHA is eternal: here you can only fight with your own DNA to the best of hair quality to the best of your abilities. I do it in a lazy-relaxed mode: sometimes I get attacked, “I have to do something urgently,” and I run to my doctor for new appointments (it’s good that he is experienced and has been in Zen for a long time about this), but I don’t do it for months nothing at all.
The only thing with which I strictly have is the intake of vitamins that the trichologist-endocrinologist prescribed for me and which, as it turned out, give an effect not only on the condition of the hair. This is necessarily vitamin D with periodic monitoring tests (a normal level of vitamin D so seriously affects my energy level, that I always watch him now), iron preparations (as soon as ferritin deficiency begins, I have aggravation of AHA and hair is climbing, let alone again, about the level of energy - I like to run, but I personally get depleted of iron easily from this), sometimes B group vitamins (but also under observation - I somehow had an allergy to them). During periods of intense training, I drink potassium and magnesium, otherwise I start to cramp (sometimes the banal "Panangin", sometimes complex sports vitamins, where they are in the composition).
About cosmetology procedures
I do not believe in wrinkle creams: in my opinion, the cream should just moisturize well and you should not expect anything more from it. Even antioxidant serums, which are considered the must in terms of basic anti-aging care, are not particularly used - the skin, as long as it feels fine, does not want to overload with anything.
For serious results, I go to the professionals. I have several procedures from the category of "well, why did not you do them before ?!". This is Botox, which I tried last year, laser hair removal, teeth whitening on Philips Zoom 4 (by the way, it doesn’t hurt at all, as many people write - choose the lamps of the latest generation and a competent doctor who will make a two-week training). As well as keratin straightening, my hairdresser Alex Kontier persuaded me to him, and since then the life of my porous hair sticking around the head has changed. Also, let me sing an ode to gel polish: I have stopped persuading myself that someday I have painted my nails with those two hundred varnishes that I have, distributed or threw them all out of the house, and for the second year already I am happy.
About make-up and its goals
When I get to the press tour with my colleagues by the beauty bloggers, they always have decorative bags, and I have one modest cosmetic bag with a whole single palette of Urban Decay Naked 2 Basics. In this regard, I am the most boring beauty blogger (but I have a dozen three nude palettes!). I love it when a wow make-up for shooting on me is drawn by a pro, but I myself am lazy to do it, for me, make-up is a very applied thing, not creative: to even out the tone, make the eyes and eyebrows brighter. And that's all. Lately, it happens that I go without makeup at all, which I couldn’t have imagined myself ten years ago (feminism is good). But I am for diversity: let everyone do everything as they like. It is convenient for me like this.
The only thing that worries me about this is that the girls realize that the instagram full makeup or makeup for a photo that looks cool in the photo in their social network tapes looks different in life and is not necessary for everyone. I understand the effect of the transformations that Gohar Avetisyan shows in his instagram, for example. But I also understand that this makeup in life looks like makeup. And do not need to feel about this complex "oh, I do not look so" - and it is not necessary, his goal is different. This is a fan, this is art, this is, after all, in order to make the filter in the instu easier to overlap, or for photoshop, the photographer would need less. No need to compare yourself in the mirror with this picture.
About sport and health
I came to the sport, like many of my friends, through running. Four years ago, because of Sasha Boyarskaya and Ani Zabolotnaya, she was fascinated by running; I started on the C25K program (although I wouldn't recommend it to anyone now), ran a little bit for a long time, then ran a half marathon with I Love Running, began to prepare for a marathon ... And I was injured. Not critical for health, but fundamentally for my sporting achievements and, as it turned out, it is very useful for restructuring the head. Because now, as soon as I overdo it, the injury comes out again, reminding me to take care of myself.
The injury made me rebuild all the training sessions at first — I didn’t want to, but I had to work on strengthening the muscles of my whole body, my posture, and then my attitude to sport in general. At the first stage, sport was a story about overcoming yourself, achieving better results tomorrow than you were yesterday, faster-higher-stronger, die-but-do it. After the injury, I had to learn to listen to the body, give it a rest and, most importantly, exactly the load it can bear (and not, as you think, it should bear). Accents have shifted from achievements and medals to health care.
I was so fascinated by this topic that I even entered fitness trainers, but I failed them even before the first exam in anatomy - there is no time to learn such a layer of knowledge, although the dream has remained. Therefore, this year I found myself a coach who puts the same principles at the forefront: health, functionality, and well-being every day. With him, we are engaged in correcting my posture and general recovery. Periodically, he instills various useful thoughts in me: for example, that my excessive thinness was the result of very high anxiety, with which I did not cope well; or that if I stop being late everywhere, as I began to do when I gave up office work, I would reduce my stress level by at least half (it turned out). But the main thing is that he teaches us to constantly pay attention to his state of health, to think about what has affected him and how he can be improved. So far, the coach is my biggest and most tangible return on investment in my own well-being.
