You don't know what you've got til' it's gone, and when it comes to having clear skin, this statement is 100% big facts. Gone are the days where I could rinse my face with some Dollar Store brand body wash and go live my best life without fear of giant blemishes, rashes, and unexpected pimples. Now, my skincare routine takes approximately 20 minutes and $200 worth of products from Ulta and honey, my time and my money are spent.
With growing up comes bills, responsibilities, and worst of all, adult acne, and although you may be in the struggle season right now, sis, your glow-up is on the horizon and it may only take a few trips to the dermatologist and a new skincare system to get your face all the way together.
On a recent episode of ELLE's Wake Up With Me, R&B singer Justine Skye gave us the 411 on the morning routine that keeps her skin both hydrated and healthy AF. Along with checking her horoscope, Justine says that she prefers to ditch the morning java and start her day off with a dairy-free Matcha latte. She explained:
"I'm obsessed with matcha. I have to have it. I don't have to have it, but I would love to have it every day if I could. This right here is a nitro latte. It has almond milk and coconut milk in it. I try not to drink or eat dairy because it's not really that good for you. I tried that coffee thing that everyone does for a little while and I realized that it gave me anxiety and kind of like, panic attacks. I don't know. My heart would start beating really fast and I would start going crazy and like what's wrong with me? And for some strange reason matcha, which is supposed to have more caffeine than coffee, doesn't do that to me."
After eating some banana bread, checking her texts, emails, and horoscopes, Justine is off to jumpstart her skincare regimen, which is a delicious hybrid of Kiehl's and Clinique products that you should get your hands on ASAP.
ELLE/YouTube
Scroll below for details on the acne-prone routine that keeps her glow-on-go at all times:
Clinique Acne Solutions Cleansing Foam ($22)
ELLE/YouTube
"First, I use Acne Solution Cleansing Foam to wash my face and then I just pat my face. I try not to like rub it too bad."
Clinique Acne Solutions Clarifying Lotion ($17)
ELLE/YouTube
"Next, I use Acne Solutions Clarifying Lotion. It's kind of like an astringent. You shake it up and I get one of these lovely cotton pads and I just like put a little bit on there and I just wipe my face with it, focused on the nose area cause I feel like it's a lot of build-up in there."
Kiehls Daily Reviving Concentrate ($47)
ELLE/YouTube
"I use Dramatically Different Moisturizing Cream and I mix it with a little bit of Daily Reviving Concentrate, which is like an oil that really just hydrates my skin. I use three drops of it. Massaging your face does help a lot, gets the blood flowing and circulating so you don't have bags under your eyes and stuff like that."
Cactus Flower & Tibetan Ginseng Hydrating Face Mist ($27)
ELLE/YouTube
"I travel with this, I keep this in my bag at all times because it just hydrates your face, you know like whenever it's feeling dry at whatever point. I'm not putting on makeup today because I'm just going to rehearsal. I want my skin to breathe and be healthy and just like get all the vitamin D from the sun and charge up my melanin, you know?"
Kiehl's Glow Formula Skin Hydrator ($38)
ELLE/YouTube
"I use this skin hydrator; one and a half pumps of that. And then this one, I don't really like massage into my face. I kind of just pat. And this is the glow guys. This is how you get the glow. Amazing, isn't it?"
A Handy, Dandy Toothbrush
ELLE/YouTube
And you can't forget to lay those edges, sis.
Clear Eyebrow Gel
ELLE/YouTube
"I always have to have my eyebrows in place, so I just used some clear eyebrow gel."
Featured image by Instagram/@JustineSkye.
Originally published on October 30, 2019
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So, we handpicked one hundred It Girls who embody that palpable It Factor moving through us as young Black women, the kind of motion lighting up the world both IRL and across the internet.
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And then, almost overnight, it was as if the rug was pulled from under us as Black women, as the It Girls of the world.
Our much-needed, much-deserved season of ease and soft living quickly metamorphosed into a time of self-preservation and survival. Our motion and economic progression seemed strategically slowed, our light under siege.
The air feels heavier now. The headlines colder. Our Black girl magic is being picked apart and politicized for simply existing.
With that climate shift, as we prepare to launch our second annual It Girl 100 honoree list, our team has had to dig deep on the purpose and intention behind this year’s list. Knowing the spirit of It Girl 100 is about motion, sauce, strides, and progression, how do we celebrate amid uncertainty and collective grief when the juice feels like it is being squeezed out of us?
As we wrestled with that question, we were reminded that this tension isn’t new. Black women have always had to find joy in the midst of struggle, to create light even in the darkest corners. We have carried the weight of scrutiny for generations, expected to be strong, to serve, to smile through the sting. But this moment feels different. It feels deeply personal.
We are living at the intersection of liberation and backlash. We are learning to take off our capes, to say no when we are tired, to embrace softness without apology.
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In business, visionaries like Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye and Melissa Butler are fighting to keep their dreams alive in an economy that too often forgets us first.
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Featured image by xoStaff
Then there were those who gave up their zip code altogether and found a permanent home in the skies. After years spent recruiting students for a university, Lisa-Gaye Shakespeare became a full-time travel influencer and founded her travel company, Shakespeare Agency. And she's not alone.
These stories mirror the experiences of women across the world. For millions, the pandemic induced a seismic shift in priorities and desires. Corporate careers that were once hailed as the ultimate “I made it” moment in one's career were pushed to the back burner as women quit their jobs in search of a more self-fulfilling purpose.
xoNecole spoke to these three Black women who used the pandemic as a springboard to make their wildest dreams a reality, the lessons they learned, and posed the question of whether they’ll ever return to cubicle life.
Answers have been edited for context and length.
xoNecole: How did the pandemic lead to you leaving the cubicle?
Randi: I was becoming stagnant. I was working in mortgage and banking but I felt like my personality was too big for that job! From there, I transitioned to radio but was laid off during the pandemic. That’s what made me go full throttle with entrepreneurship.
Gabrielle: I moved around a lot for work. Five times over a span of seven years. I knew I needed a break because I had experienced so much. So, I just quit one day. Effective immediately. I didn’t know what I was going to do, I just knew I needed a break and to just regroup.
Lisa-Gaye: I was working in recruiting at a university and my dream job just kind of fell into my lap! But, I never got to fully enjoy it before the world shut down in March [2020] and I was laid off. On top of that, I was stuck in Miami because Jamaica had closed its borders due to the pandemic before I was able to return.
Randi O
xoN: Tell us about your journey after leaving Corporate America.
Randi: I do it all now! I have a podcast, I’m an on-air talent, I act, and I own a public relations company that focuses on social media engagement. It’s all from my network. When you go out and start a business, you can’t just say, “Okay I’m done with Corporate America,” and “Let me do my own thing.” If you don’t build community, if you don’t build a network it's going to be very hard to sustain.
Gabrielle: I realized in New York, there was not a lot to do for Black lesbians and queer folks. We don’t really have dedicated bars and spaces so I started doing events and it took off. I started focusing on my brand, Raw Honey. I opened a co-working space, and I was able to host an NYC Pride event in front of 100,000 people. I hit the ground running with Raw Honey. My events were all women coming to find community and come together with other lesbians and queer folks. I found my purpose in that.
Lisa-Gaye: After being laid off, I wrote out all of my passions and that’s how I came up with [my company] Shakespeare Agency. It was all of the things that I loved to do under one umbrella. The pandemic pulled that out of me. I had a very large social media following, so I pitched to hotels that I would feature them on my blog and social media. This reignited my passion for travel. I took the rest of the year to refocus my brand to focus solely on being a content creator within the travel space.
Gabrielle
xoN: What have you learned about yourself during your time as an entrepreneur?
Randi: [I learned] the importance of my network and community that I created. When I was laid off I was still keeping those relationships with people that I used to work with. So it was easy for me to transition into social media management and I didn’t have to start from scratch.
Gabrielle: The biggest thing I learned about myself was my own personal identity as a Black lesbian and how much I had assimilated into straight and corporate culture and not being myself. Now, I feel comfortable and confident being my authentic self. Now, I'm not sacrificing anything else for my career. I have a full life. I have friends. I have a social life. And when you are happy and have a full quality of life, I feel like [I] can have more longevity in my career.
Lisa-Gaye: [I'm doing] the best that I've ever done. The discipline that I’m building within myself. Nobody is saying, ‘Oh you have to be at work at this time.’ There’s no boss saying, ‘Why are you late?’ But, if I’m laying in bed at 10 a.m. then it's me saying [to myself], 'Okay, Lisa, get up, it's time for you to start working!’ That’s all on me.
xoNecole: What mistakes do you want to help people avoid when leaving Corporate America?
Randi: You have to learn about the highs and lows of entrepreneurship. You have a fast season and a slow season and I started to learn that when you're self-employed the latter season hits hard. Don't get caught up on the lows, just keep going and don't stop. I’m glad I did.
Gabrielle: I think everyone should quit their job and just figure it out for a second. You will discover so much about yourself when you take a second to just focus on you. Your skill set will always be there. You can’t be afraid of what will happen when you bet on yourself.
Lisa-Gaye: When it comes to being an influencer the field is saturated and a lot of people suffer from imposter syndrome. There is nothing wrong with being an imposter but find out how to make it yours, how to make it better. If you go to the store, you see 10 million different brands of bread! But you are choosing the brand that you like because you like that particular flavor.
So be an imposter, but be the best imposter of yourself and add your own flair, your own flavor. Make the better bread. The bread that you want.
Lisa-Gaye Shakespeare
xoNecole: Will you ever return to your 9 to 5?
Randi: I wouldn’t go back to Corporate America. But I don’t mind working under someone. A lot of people try to get into this business saying, “I can't work under anyone.” That’s not necessarily the reason to start a business because you're always going to answer to somebody. Clients, brands, there’s always someone else involved.
Gabrielle: I went back! I really needed a break and I gave myself that. But, I realized I’m a corporate girl, [and] I enjoy the work that I do. I’m good at it and I really missed that side of myself. I have different sides of me and my whole identity is not Raw Honey or my queerness. A big side of me is business and that’s why I love having my career. Now I feel like my best self.
Lisa-Gaye: I really don’t. For right now, I love working for myself. It's gratifying, it's challenging, it's exciting. It’s a big deal for me to say I own my own business. That I am my own boss, and I'm a Black woman doing it.
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Featured image courtesy of Lisa-Gaye Shakespeare
Originally published on February 6, 2023