Taraji P. Henson Just Shared Her Jet Setter-Friendly Beauty Routine
Taraji P. Henson has been looking like she was 25 since she was 32 and now, a year shy of 50, the actress formerly known as Cookie is still our forever skincare goals and the Empire star recently dropped the details on how to access the Fountain of Youth and have you looking like a whole snack at any stage of your life.
In a recent episode of Vogue's "Beauty Secrets", Taraji shared the jet setter-friendly morning routine that keeps her skin on ten at all times and xoNecole has all the details. According to Taraji, along with a $400 eye cream, this $8 charcoal face wash has been a staple in her daily skincare routine:
"I clean my face with Biore. It's charcoal, it gets the job done. I like a face cleanser that suds up because to me, in my mind, it's mental. It feels like it's doing something and cleaning."
The actress says that with the help of her specially-curated haircare line, she's able to keep her scalp so fresh (and so clean, clean) and has therefore been able to simplify her morning routine and prevent breakouts before they're able to form.
"That's all I've been doing, all these years, with an occasional facial, here and there."
In the video, Taraji also opened up about her love for all things beauty and revealed that if she hadn't made it big in acting, Taraji would have probably been one of the dopest cosmetologists in the beauty industry:
"Those who know me from way back in the day knew this about me. I would've gone into cosmetology and I think God intervened because I was late for enrollment and that was directly after I was not accepted into the performing arts high school. And I thought that because I wasn't accepted that, that meant I didn't have talent. So I was like, well off to cosmetology school. And then God blocked that. I finally found my way back to school for acting. And then I still stayed. I still was doing hair because I needed money. So I was doing $20 wet sets in the dorm."
After giving us the tea on how she keeps her both her curls and her skin hydrated AF, Taraji proceeded to give us a tutorial for the fresh-faced beat you didn't know you needed. Featuring products from Fenty, BECCA, and Kat Von D., Taraji P. Henson walked us through her unconventionally low-maintenance morning routine and spilled this must-have beauty hack for women who need to get fly on the fly:
"I just flew today. I got off an airplane. You can get a little puffy and sometimes it creates dark circles. For me, I like to use a hydrating eye serum. I actually take more care of my skin when I travel because I feel like my skin needs more attention to make sure it gets it all in. And they also have a lip serum too. You just have to stay hydrated when you fly because oh, that airplane and recycled air are not good [for your skin] at all."
For Taraji's full morning routine, scroll below!
HydraFacial Perk Eye Replenishing Serum
YouTube/Vogue
YouTube/Vogue
To watch the full video, click below!
Featured image by Instagram/@tarajiphenson.
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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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The Capricorn woman and the Virgo man can form a true, compatible, and secure relationship and friendship. This is a pairing that hits it off right away and there is a certain familiarity to these two earth signs. Both, with their high standards and an even higher need for accomplishments, something is compelling and sexy about an earth sign duo.
Is a Capricorn Woman and a Virgo Man a Good Match?
It all depends on the two lovers at hand, however, as Virgo men, a mutable earth sign, are notorious for their unpredictable ways in love. The Capricorn woman, being a cardinal sign and focused on where things are headed, may feel a bit uneasy in this relationship unless they are being shown real proof of the direction of the connection. Overall, this pairing can either be the perfect match or the perfect storm.
What attracts a Capricorn woman and a Virgo man to each other?
The Capricorn woman forms an almost immediate attraction to the Virgo man. She sees in him someone who is well put-together, thoughtful, and organized, all things she admires in others and tries to uphold herself. The Virgo man sees the Capricorn woman as someone who matches his high, most likely unreachable standards and someone he doesn’t have to hide his needs and wants from.
They are both not overly emotional beings and when they are around people who are so, they tend to feel themselves go in their shells a bit. With this connection, they feel a sense of safety with each other, and they are more open with one another than they may usually be.
There is a certain aura that earth signs carry, and there is an abundance of groundedness within them that is attractive to most, but especially to those who are earth signs as well. They are the sign you can completely chill with and not have to push conversation or activity. Capricorns and Virgos most often meet in familiar places of interest they both commonly share, like a nice restaurant, a park, work, or a bank.
The Capricorn woman and Virgo man have similar values in life and are attracted to each other’s auras, communication style, and sense of self-sufficiency. They don’t feel smothered in this relationship, they feel at home.
What is the relationship like between a Capricorn woman and a Virgo man?
The relationship between a Capricorn woman and a Virgo man is a slow and steady one. They have a lot of priorities in life and will need to make time to keep the connection growing, but at the end of the day, they both want dedicated and loyal love and are willing to put the work in to get there. Since they have such a strong compatibility, it’s easy to adore each other, and they are some of the best supporters of the zodiac.
The Capricorn woman brings out the Virgo man’s fun side. She shows him an aspect of life that is not all work and no play, but rather one that enjoys the successes they have worked so hard for.
Both Capricorn and Virgo tend to keep busy, and this is a couple that has a lot going on at once, as they are both hard workers with a lot of responsibilities and tend to be the go-to in many other people's lives. The good news is that they’ll most likely make a lot of money together, but at what cost? This relationship has all the aspects to quickly become a business partnership rather than a romantic one, and there needs to be a good balance between the personal life and professional one of the relationship to make this work.
What is the sex like between a Capricorn woman and a Virgo man?
The sex life between the Capricorn woman and the Virgo man is one of the best for both of them. Earth signs are naturally more sensual than a lot of the zodiac, and they take this area of their life very seriously. They’ll have fun playing games with each other in the bedroom and will take turns with different dominant and submissive positions. The Virgo man may surprise the Capricorn woman with his knowledge in the bedroom, as this is an area of his life that tends to be a little less restrictive than usual.
He will still definitely be cleaning the room right away after, like the Virgo he is, but this doesn’t go without showing the adventure he brings. The Capricorn woman wants the best of the best and works towards that with any partner or experience that they are in.
What makes a relationship between a Capricorn woman and a Virgo man work?
What makes a relationship between a Capricorn woman and a Virgo man work so well is that they feed good energy into each other’s lives. They are both looking for the same things and don’t force each other to be anything different than they are. They are loyal, secure, and loving, and this pairing often forms a long-life partnership.
Not much can break the attraction and connection that the Capricorn woman and Virgo man create, and that’s a lot to be said. There is a deep trust in this relationship, and the union they form is a significant one.
This couple likes to spend time together, have shared experiences, travel, eat good food, and do things in luxury. This is a partnership that works hard towards their goals together and is willing to make sacrifices when needed. Their values align, and the way they uphold themselves in life aligns as well. Neither is stepping on each other’s toes, and the Capricorn woman and Virgo man have a comfortable relationship.
They have good times and quiet times together and enjoy each other’s company more than anything. This is a relationship that is built from the ground up.
What may cause a Capricorn woman and a Virgo man to break up?
On the surface, everything seems perfect with this pairing and it’s hard to think of what can go wrong right away. However, the deeper this connection goes, they may begin to uncover parts of their partner they didn’t see before, and this can end up being a deal-breaker. For the Capricorn woman, security is everything. The Virgo man feels the same, but he is also willing to take risks and do things differently to create that sense of structure in his life.
The Capricorn woman may need more assurance than the Virgo man is willing to give, yet the Virgo man may need more acceptance from the Capricorn woman. He might find her to be more limiting than his heart can take on.
Both are stubborn individuals as well, and any differences that arise are difficult to smooth out. Even though these two tend to have similar values in life, they also see things very differently on how to get there and what rules they want to live by, and this can disrupt the synergy in the relationship. Not to mention, these two are always working or doing something, and it can be hard to make quality time for the relationship.
Things can go stale pretty quickly here unless they are learning, changing, and growing with each other rather than taking things personally and seeing change as a break in the relationship.
Summary
Overall, this pairing can truly flourish with the right people in it. The Capricorn woman sees so much of what she is looking for in the Virgo man, but can he keep up with all that is asked of him at the end of the day? The Virgo man yearns for an unmatched loyalty, one that the Capricorn woman provides, yet finds himself looking for a way out the second he finds stability.
These two come into each other’s lives to learn from each other, and most importantly to grow. If they can get out of the way of their own blessings and see what’s in front of them, this can be a romance that is an endgame for both of them. There is something special here, and it’s hard to miss.
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