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 ofELLE'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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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak