Theater producer Ksenia Anikeeva about natural perfumery and cosmetics
For category "Cosmetic" 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 work
From the age of nineteen I work as a producer, and already eleven - in the theater. This is a great job that, however, requires considerable commitment. I am not talking about the stereotype that “you have to give yourself all to art” (according to this logic, you can give yourself away to literally anything), but that theater for me is working with people. With the audience, with the artist, with services, with all participants in the process. Therefore, my personal participation and attention are really important, they cannot be delegated to someone. This gradually absorbs, so that any “grounding” is simply necessary for the theater worker. It is necessary to remember that no one will take care of you, except yourself, and that besides big creative tasks there is still a simple need not to go crazy and stay healthy. Personally I am helped by sport, massage, comfortable food, walks. The simplest things really work.
About quick care
Right now, together with colleagues from Impresario, we are releasing two new performances of the Belgian theater company Ontroerend Goed. I came to the interview with one rehearsal and after going to the second. Such intensive periods happen a couple of times a year, and I always try to prepare for them - including buying proven cosmetics, trying to make self-care fast and convenient. In the evening, no multi-stage system will go, body cream seems like an unnecessary luxury. So, I choose multi-functional tools, makeup wipes, in a bag I wear a cosmetic bag with mini versions, so that the right thing is at hand. How going to space.
My usual care is very simple: cleansing with micellar water, washing, tonic and cream. There is a home ritual for bringing heavily tired skin to life: I put on a mask with fruit acids for twenty minutes, leave a soothing mask for another twenty minutes, at the end - a nourishing cream. Everything. The best I've ever done for my health and beauty, I quit smoking five years ago. I still sometimes have dreams that I smoke again, and these are always nightmares.
About the right to yourself
I, like many girls, have a difficult relationship with appearance. With me it was everything: diet, eating disorder, fitness six times a week. If you multiply this by perfectionism, it is scary. I no longer encourage old neuroses in myself and do not cultivate new ones. I am thirty-two years old, and when I occasionally come to a beautician for some procedure, they always offer me a standard package “Botox fillers-threads”. Get off my face! What's wrong with him forever? If I do not accept any small age changes now, I am afraid to imagine that I will be in fifty-sixty years.
Awesome discovery - once realized that your body and face belong only to you. It seems to be such an obvious thing, and still the people around can not refrain from commenting. Too much makeup, too little makeup, shave here, polish here, you pay too much attention to your appearance, oh, and you started something completely yourself. Fuck it. The society constantly transmits to the woman conflicting messages, in this coordinate system there is no safe zone in principle. Whatever you do, something will still be "wrong." "Too sandwiched", "too loose" - I think you understand.
About make-up
I love make-up - I even learned a little bit of it in Moscow and New York. I didn’t work as a makeup artist, but had a great time. In general, the Americans and Europeans, though in different ways, strongly pumped my idea of makeup and beauty. Americans (both women and men) are experimenting a lot, I learned from them to perceive cosmetics as an instrument of self-expression. Europeans are very relaxed to make-up. Bright lipstick is applied unevenly, tone is missing - who cares? It's just great!
About fragrances
My last hobby is natural perfumery. This is a separate direction in independent perfumery, where only natural raw materials are used as ingredients, and mainly in the form in which it was produced: essential oils and minimally processed mixtures of substances, sometimes animal components. This is an incredible odor, very different from those to which we are accustomed. At first they can be shocking, but if you fall in love, then they’re all deeply. If the topic is interesting to you, I recommend reading the blog of the olfactory artist Anna Zworykina, she writes a lot about it, and also makes awesome perfumes - charming and with meaning.
