The Skincare Routine That Got My Cystic Acne All The Way Together
In About Face, xoNecole gets the 411 on IGers who give us #skincaregoals on the daily. Here they break down their beauty routines on the inside and out, as well as the highly coveted products that grace their shelves and their skin.
For the past two years, I've been at xoNecole telling y'all all of my business and I don't regret any of it because you are my good sisters and I love you. You've never known me to not keep it real with you, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't admit that I've been keeping a secret: I just got out of a toxic relationship.
No matter how hard I tried, how much time I invested, or how much money I spent, my skin has relentlessly been disrespecting me and it was upsetting me and my homegirls. My trouble began about six months after relocating from Louisiana to Colorado, and soon, my acne got so bad that I was too embarrassed to be seen in public without makeup.
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Holidays, birthday parties, and congratulatory gatherings all took a backseat to my cystic acne, which seemed to only get worse by the day, and after spending hundreds of dollars on products that I read about online that didn't work, I felt hopeless, insecure, and alone. It wasn't until this year when I decided to visit an aesthetician for the first time, who gave me all the tea on exactly how I was sabotaging my own face.
According to her, along with using products with pore-clogging ingredients, my fabric softener and B12 pills may have also been the culprits of my cystic conundrum. Together, we formulated a skincare routine that has helped keep my cystic acne all the way under control and my self-esteem on 10.
I could sit here and tell you that the secret to true beauty is confidence, but it's hard to have that when you have a skincare routine that's working against you.
Scroll below for the skincare routine that is helping me say goodbye to cystic acne and kick hyperpigmentation's ass one day at a time:
My earliest beauty memory...
"My late, maternal grandmother from Baton Rouge is responsible for my earliest beauty memory. I remember getting ready for bed with her at night as a child, and after we changed into our silky pajamas, she would always sprinkle Estée Lauder Beautiful Perfumed Body Powder on her chest and the bedsheets."
"At the time, I didn't grasp that the special bra that she removed before bed was the result of a mastectomy, but she had a quiet confidence about her that confirmed that she was special and her scented bed sheets made me feel special, too."
"I also remember applying liquid eyeliner to my bottom eyelid at one point and… yikes."
For my skincare routine in the AM...
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"For my cleanser, I use Face Reality Mandelic Face and Body Wash, or Nolaskinsential Clarifying Cleansing Foam if I'm feeling extra dry, and rinse with cold water. I tone using Face Reality Sal-C Toner, which also works as a great exfoliant, and Thayers Witch Hazel. I hydrate and moisturize using Nolaskinsentials Hyaluronic H2O Creme, which seems to be getting my hyperpigmentation all the way together. For my serums, I'm currently using Face Reality Mandelic Serum and Nolaskinsentials Brightening C Serum. Last but certainly not least, I add a layer of Black Girl Sunscreen for the ultimate UV protection. While some skin experts say it's best to stick to one skincare system, I've found that my skin responds best to a special mix of products from two or three brands."
My morning routine looks like...
"For the most part, I depend on the SAVERS morning routine to keep me focused and grounded throughout the day, but things don't always go as planned. If I oversleep or just feel 'off' in the mornings, I call my mom, listen to a sermon, or watch a Ted Talk to get my mind right. I've struggled with IBS since I was 16 and have major anxiety in the mornings but I found that switching out my caramel machiatto for peppermint tea has been effective AF."
For my skincare routine in the PM...
Pretty Honore/xoNecole
"My skincare routine at night is the same except I eliminate sunscreen and add in Face Reality Acne Med 2.5% three to four times a week. I rarely wear makeup, but when I do, I make sure it's completely removed before bed using Garnier SkinActive Micellar Cleansing Water All-in-1 and Equate Sensitive Skin Face Wipes from Walmart (they are the only ones I've found that don't make my skin feel sticky). When I'm in the mood for masking, I use vinegar to create a DIY Aztec Clay Mask or take a few minutes to apply Nolaskinsential Pumpkin Enzyme Mask."
How the seasons change my skin and routine...
"Living in Denver has been extremely taxing on my skin and my bank account. I frequently switch up my skincare routine to coordinate with the weather, which can be difficult when you experience all four seasons in a day. During the summer, I lighten up on the oils and serums and amp up my cleanser game. During the winter, I spend all of my coins on moisturizers and serums that cater to my combination skin type."
My go-to makeup look consists of...
"While learning to manage my fussy skin, I've discovered that less is more when developing a makeup routine. While I used to spend hours blending a full-face, I later found that a low-maintenance, easily removable beat is perfect for hiding blemishes and adding a natural glow. When I do use foundation, Fenty Beauty Pro Filt'r Soft Matte Longwear Foundation is the only product I can count on to give me full coverage, but I feel like Bareminerals BarePro Performance Wear Liquid Foundation is lighter and better for my skin.
"I usually opt-out of foundation altogether and apply Fenty Beauty Pro Filt'r Instant Retouch Concealer to my dark spots and under my eyes, using Tarte Cosmetics Rainforest Of The Sea 4-in-1 Primer and Setting Spray to keep it in place and Fenty Beauty Killawatt Highlighter in Trophy Wife for a shimmery glow. Before I begin my brows, I set them with Benefit Cosmetics 24-Hour Brow Setter. I bought Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Pencil during Ulta's 21 Days Of Beauty Sale and although I'm normally a pomade girl, I can totally believe the hype. As for my eyeshadow, I love Tarte Cosmetics Rainforest of The Sea Limited Edition Palette (which I also use for highlight and blush), but I recently ordered The Matte Book from The Crayon Case and it's slowly but surely becoming a personal favorite."
What self-care looks like to me...
"Alexa, play 'Mary Jane' by Rick James. As a workaholic, self-care can feel like a chore, but I know that it's necessary, so nevertheless, I persist. Binge-watching a sappy sitcom and playing The Sims while masking my ass off sounds like a perfect day to me."
How I approach beauty from the inside-out...
"My mom always told me, 'Pretty is as pretty does,' and I've carried that with me. I look good when I feel good and I feel good when I'm being kind––both to myself and others. Along with being mindful of the way I treat others, I approach beauty from the inside-out by managing my gut health. Living with chronic stomach issues is a pain, but as much as I want to eat junk food and cheese all day, my digestive system isn't having any of it. The way I eat affects my mood, my energy level, and even my skin, so I have to be intentional about my choices."
How my beauty routine changes when I travel...
"#MarieKondoTaughtMe that one woman's trash is another woman's travel container and I felt that in my spirit. I save old bottles from sample-sized skincare products to meet all of my skincare needs on-the-go."
To keep up with me, follow me on Instagram @PrettyHonore!
Shop Pretty Honore's Beauty Staples:
Featured image by @PrettyHonore for xoNecole.com.
Taylor "Pretty" Honore is a spiritually centered and equally provocative rapper from Baton Rouge, Louisiana with a love for people and storytelling. You can probably find me planting herbs in your local community garden, blasting "Back That Thang Up" from my mini speaker. Let's get to know each other: @prettyhonore.
Beyond Burnout: Nicole Walters' Blueprint For Achieving Career Success On Your Own Terms
Nicole Walters has always been known for two things: her ambition and her ability to recognize when life’s challenges can also double as an inspiring, lucrative brand.
This was first evident more than a decade ago when she quit her job as the corporate executive of a Fortune 500 company during a Periscope livestream. “I’m not sure if there’s an alignment of [our] future trajectory. I’m going to work for myself. I'm promoting myself to work for myself,” she said at the time before flashing a smile at the viewing audience. As she resigned on camera, a constant stream of encouraging messages floated upwards on the screen.
By 2021, she’d fashioned her work as a corporate consultant and her personal life with her husband and three adopted daughters into a reality show, She’s The Boss, for USA Network. This year, she released the New York Times bestselling memoir Nothing Is Missing, written as she was in the process of getting a divorce and dealing with her eldest daughter’s struggles with substance use.
Convinced that there’s no way the 39-year-old has achieved all of this without intentional strategic planning, I asked her about it when we spoke less than a week before Christmas. I’d seen videos on social media of her working on 2024 planning for other brands, and I wanted to know what that looked like following her own year of success.
She listed a number of goals, including ensuring that the projects she takes on in the new year align with her identity “as a Black woman, as an African woman, as a mother, as someone who has lived a [rebuilding] season and is now trying to live boldly and entirely as themselves.” But, I was shocked by how much of her business planning also prioritized rest.
Despite the bestselling book, a self-titled podcast, and working with numerous corporations, Walters said she’s been taking Fridays off. This year, she doesn’t want to work on Mondays, either.
“A lot of us think we work hard until retirement hits. I want to progress towards retirement,” she said, noting that she’ll check in with herself around March to see how successful this plan has been. The goal, Walters said, is to only be working on Tuesdays and Thursdays by sometime in 2025. “It is intentionally building out what I know I would like to have happen and not waiting for exhaustion to be the trigger of change.”
"A lot of us think we work hard until retirement hits. I want to progress towards retirement... It is intentionally building out what I know I would like to happen and not waiting for exhaustion to be the trigger of change."
Walters said the decision to progressively work less was partially in response to her previously held notions about her career, especially as an entrepreneur. “When I first started, I thought burnout was a part of it,” she said. “What I didn’t realize is that even if you’re able to bounce out of burnout or get back to it, there’s a cumulative impact on your body. If you think of your body as a tree and every time you go through burnout, you are taking a hack out of your trunk, yes, that trunk will heal over, and the tree will continue to grow, but it doesn't mean that you don’t have a weakened stem.”
But, the desire for increased rest was also in response to the major shifts that occurred three years ago when she was experiencing major changes in her family and realized her metaphorical tree was “bending all the way over.”
Courtesy
“One of the things we have to recognize, especially as Black women, is that there is this engrained, societal, systemic notion that our worth is built around our productivity,” she added. “That is some language that I think is just now starting to really get unpacked.” In recent years, there’s been an increased awareness of achieving balance in life, with Tricia Hersey’s “The Nap Ministry” gaining attention based on the idea that rest, especially for Black women, is a form of resistance. Even online phrases such as “soft life” and “quiet quitting” have hinted at a cultural shift in prioritizing leisure over professional ambition.
"One of the things we have to recognize, especially as Black women, is that there is this engrained, societal, systemic notion that our worth is built around our productivity."
If companies are lining up to consult with Walters about their brands and products, then women have been looking to her for guidance on starting over since she invited them to livestream her resignation 12 years ago. As viewers continue to demand more from content creators in the form of intimate, personal details, Walters has navigated her personal brand with a sense of transparency without oversharing the vulnerable details about her life, especially when it comes to her family.
The entrepreneur said she’d been approached to write a book for several years and was initially convinced she was finally ready to write one about business. “I started to do that, and then I went through my divorce. When that happened, I said, why would I write a book telling people to get the life that I have when I’m not sure about the life that I have,” she said.
Instead, she decided to write Nothing Is Missing and provide a closer look at her life, starting with being born to immigrant Ghanaian parents (“You need to know my childhood to know why I’m passionate about entrepreneurship.”) through the adoption of her three daughters and eventual divorce. Despite her desire to share, however, she said she felt protective of the privacy of her family, including her ex-husband.
When discussing this with me, Walters said she was reminded of a lesson she learned from actress Kerry Washington, who released her own memoir, Thicker Than Water, just a week before Walters’ book release. Washington’s memoir grapples with family secrets, too, specifically the fact that she was conceived using a sperm donor and didn’t learn about it until she was already a successful TV star. While Washington reflects on how the decision and subsequent deception impacted her, she’s also careful to hold space for her parents’ experiences, too. “A lot of things she said was that she had to recognize where she was the supporting character and where she was the main character,” Walter said.
This is something Walter worked to do in Nothing Is Missing when discussing her daughter’s struggles with addiction. “I was very intentional about making sure that I did not reveal more than what was required,” she said. “If I say something about someone’s addiction, I don’t need to go into the list of the substances they used, how they used them, what I found. [I don’t need to] walk into a room and paint a picture of what it looked like for people to understand.”
Walters said some of the most vulnerable moments in the book barely made a ripple once it was released. She was extremely nervous to write about getting an abortion, she said. But no one has asked her about this in the months since the book was released. Instead, people have been more interested in quirkier revelations, such as the fact that she once appeared on Wheel of Fortune.
“I have bared my soul about this thing I went through in my youth that has changed me for people, and people are like, ‘So how heavy was the wheel when you spun it?’” she said, chuckling. “It just goes to show that people never worry about the thing that you worry about.”
With the success of Nothing Is Missing, Walters said she still isn’t planning to release a business book at the moment. But, as she navigates parenting a teenager and two adult children while also navigating a relationship with her new fiancé, Walters said she believes she has at least one or two more books to write about her personal journey. “There is sort of an arc of where my life has gone that I know I’ve got something more to say about this that I think is important, relevant and necessary,” she said.
In just three years, Walters’ life has undergone a major transformation. There’s no telling what the next three years will have in store for her, but it seems likely she’ll retain an inspired audience wherever life takes her.
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Exclusive: Tyla On Making History & The Grammys Acknowledging African Music: "It's About Time"
History was made in more ways than one at the 66th Grammy Awards. One of the biggest highlights was Tyla accepting the first-ever award for African Music Performance for her hit song "Water." The melodic masterpiece, which took over our TikTok feeds back in August of 2023, has proved to be much more than a trend—last night earning a solidified spot in history.
The #TylaWaterChallenge was undoubtedly one the most popular dance trends sweeping social media in 2023, with dance icons like Ciara even joining in on the fun. The viral craze would later earn Tyla a performance spot at the coveted "New Years Rockin' Eve" in Times Square, with the new artist only releasing the song less than five months prior.
Tyla Makes History at the 66th Grammy AwardsPhoto by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
The South African songstress was up against stiff competition, including Afrobeats superstars Burna Boy and Davido, for the history-making African Music Performance award. The honor marked the Grammy's first acknowledgment of African music and Afrobeats after 66 years of existence. To say the least, it was a moment the superstars and their predecessors had worked extremely hard for.
xoNecole spoke to Tyla after the historic win in the Grammys media room. "Afrobeats has already started booming all over the world, which I'm so happy about," she said. "It's about time." She continued, "I just feel like this is going to open so many more doors for us back home and introduce our music and our culture to so many more people, which we've been wanting." She concluded by thanking The Recording Academy for giving African music the platform.
Tyla's self-titled debut album is slated for release in March of 2024, and she's already earned her first Grammy to set the tone. To say Tyla's "future is so bright that we need sunglasses" would be an understatement.
Congratulations, Tyla! This is truly a moment Africa will never forget.
Tyla On Her History-Making Grammy Winyoutu.be
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Feature image by Leon Bennett/Getty Images for The Recording Academy