Our virtual creative director shares how she is stepping up her health and beauty regimen with a silk pillowcase and new and improved anti-aging tips for full body bliss.
Hello Christine Fam! Katrina here with a winter edition for our Self Love Hacks series to step up your anti-aging health and beauty practices, from using a silk pillowcase to sweating it out in the sauna! I see the winter as a great opportunity to condition the mind and body. Especially in these times of social distancing, I’d like to think of our homes as a cocoon where we can safely prepare to become beautiful butterflies by Spring.
I have been taking advantage of that opportunity by stepping up my daily health and beauty practices, making strides to look and feel better than ever before.
Here are my updates on what I am doing differently to keep me camera ready, bring me peace and clarity, and fill my heart with bliss.
Beauty Sleep Update:
Beauty sleep was a self love hack I mentioned from the very beginning in my First Edition of Self Love Hacks because it truly is paramount when it comes to anti-aging and looking and feeling your best.
A lack of sleep can increase your cortisol levels which breaks down the collagen in your skin, resulting in premature aging. Your body restores all of its organs while you sleep, including your skin (your biggest organ) and your brain, so I take sleep very seriously.
That said, I have upgraded my nighttime beauty routine with our premier anti-aging silk pillowcase! The silk pillowcase launch has been our best kept secret and a long time coming so I am absolutely thrilled that they are finally available for all to enjoy and reap their beauty benefits!
A silk pillowcase will give you the beauty sleep of your dreams while its many anti-aging benefits work their magic, including its ability to prevent wrinkles, keep your skin moisturized, keep those expensive beauty products where you want them (on your skin), and preserve your gorgeous blowout. For more details on the power of the silk pillowcase, discover the top five anti-aging benefits of sleeping on silk by clicking here.
Personal Sleep Struggle: I have a very hard time sleeping and I grind my teeth at night. In fact, I secretly wear a mouth guard with my little silk chemise! I am constantly thinking up new ideas to the point where I seemingly can’t turn off my brain so I even keep a notebook by my bed to jot them down. I continue to work towards better sleep everyday by using melatonin, not looking at screens before bed, pillow spray- the works. With the exception of actual sleeping pills – you name it, I’ve tried it. Some days are better than others, so I simply do the best I can, but I will say that I have been sleeping better ever since using our silk pillowcase. It’s just that soothing. I’m not saying a silk pillowcase is the cure for insomnia – I still wake up sometimes and toss a bunch – but I am happy to say it has not been as frequent.
Bottom Line: At the end of the day, (literally, lol) a silk pillowcase is truly a dream to sleep on. Even my Jiu Jitsu-fighting, gritty boyfriend has been raving about how amazing they feel. When you put your cheek to the silk, your entire being will thank you for upgrading to a silk pillowcase. Let their beauty nourish your beauty…
Skincare Products Update:
TWO WORDS: IT COSMETICS. As I have always been transparent when talking about anti-aging skincare products, let me start by saying I know no-one at this company, I have never worked with them, and I pay for every item, nothing was gifted from the brand.
For me, It Cosmetics has become the holy grail brand for anti-aging skincare and makeup. I have a number of their products at this point and I find them to be effective and affordable. Their makeup is packed with skincare benefits too, which I love! To name a few, I am a big fan of their CC creams and powders, Secret Sauce Moisturizer and Confidence In Your Beauty Sleep night cream, which conveniently stays on my skin and does not get absorbed into my pillow, thanks to my new luxurious anti-aging silk pillowcase. 🙂
Furthermore, I have stopped buying high priced skincare products all together and started to invest in more intensive spa treatments from lasers to dermaplaning to high caliber facials. Most recently, I have had a great experience with skin tightening via Venus Freeze at my local spa, EC Beauty in Hoboken, N.J. and let me tell you, you must find a provider! Full disclosure, it doesn’t tickle, but it works! Venus Freeze should be called Venus Fire because it burns but the results are fire. I pop three Advil before my session and I’m good to go. Oh, and no down time!
Personal Skincare Struggle: The birth control I am prescribed causes very very severe Melasma. As someone who wears spf 50 everyday even in the dead of winter, this really threw me for a loop last summer. By the end of August, I looked like a raccoon without my makeup on. I can’t describe how it made me feel, or just how bad it was, or how much foundation I had to cake on to cover it up and even then you could still see it. There I had been finally enjoying a foundation-free life after overcoming years of cystic acne and now it was back to foundation! It looked horrific. If you are having a similar problem, talk to your doctor and get yourself to a dermatologist. I was prescribed a skin bleaching cream that wiped it out completely. I am SO THANKFUL.
Bottom Line: It is important to be consistent with your daily skincare regimen, using quality products that are SAFE but when it comes to spending big bucks, invest in what is going to be the most effective… I can assure you, a $300 face cream ain’t gonna make you glow like a solid spa treatment.
Fitness Update:
I’ve really tried to step it up this year, and I finally feel like I am getting stronger. I am able to do more videos, or longer videos, or simply get through videos that I couldn’t before! I workout seven days a week, with one day that’s dedicated to only 15 minutes of fit-yoga followed by 20 minutes of yin yoga for flexibility. For the most part, I am still working with the same girls, but here’s a little update on a few additional methods I am incorporating as well as specific videos that are current favorites:
–‘The Best Body Slimming Workout’ by Blogilates,15 minutes. For the arms section, I only do half of her exercises and then switch to chest. As I mentioned in the self love hacks edition, ‘Working Out To Win The Day.’ working your pecs helps to lift the breasts! For chest, I do push ups while focusing on using my pecs, and I also clasp my hands in front of my chest and sort of press together to pump my pecs. It’s actually a version of something I read in Valley Of The Dolls. Haha! That said, Blogilates also has a great boob lift video. Additionally, do a lot of her standing leg workouts, the waist whittler video, and her total side glute.
-I do at least one of Bailey Brown’s thigh slimming workouts six days per week, 5-7 minutes. I also love her abs videos, and butt lifts.
-Best all around workout for cardio AND strength training: Any of Move With Nicole’s cardio pilates, cardio Barr, or HIIT workouts. They’re about thirty minutes each and I am obsessed with them. I know HIIT can be a scary word, but hers are reasonable and effective. I do them at least twice a week.
-Boho Beautiful will always be my go-to girl for yoga. I like to do a lot of her yoga workouts, yoga-for-weight-loss, yoga for digestion, and yin yoga for flexibility. I also do this post-workout stretch video every single day at the end of every workout.
-We now have a gym in our building, so I have been incorporating some fast-one-mile-runs on the treadmill, cardio sessions on he elliptical, and weight lifting. If you’re hitting the gym, don’t just do random stuff. Come up with a circuit that works for you and complete it.
-I am finally boxing again! I used to train before the age of COVID and loved it. That said, this past Valentine’s Day, my boyfriend and I had a big fight. 🙂 We got a pair of punching mitts on amazon, I threw on the gloves, and he is officially the Mickey to my Rocky now! For anyone who didn’t grow up on Balboa, Mickey is Rocky’s trainer. I am a fighter in every sense of the word, and this is easily my favorite workout of all time.
Personal Fitness Struggle: Please don’t get discouraged if you can’t get through a video, or do a pose or a particular move- I still struggle, but that’s because I challenge myself. I’ve been working on videos to get to a full split for almost two years and I’m nowhere near it. There are poses I just can’t do. There are moves I just can’t do. But I work at it, I stick to it, I never give up, and I never stop moving. Even if I can’t keep up with the pace of the video, I at least keep going at the best pace I can. I move until the video is done. Until the whistle blows. I stop to have some water, and try again. And again. And again.
Bottom Line: Constantly change it up!!! Not only will it prevent you from getting bored, but it will keep you looking and feeling your best! There’s something like 600 muscles in the body. Changing up your workout will help to address every one in unique ways to provide you with the utmost multi-dimensional strength and physical health.
To close, I’d like to talk about cooking at home.
Yes, it’s better for your health. Yes, it’s more economically forgiving. Yes, it’s better for the environment. But most of all, I would like to touch on the relationship between love and cooking. Because there is one. Prior to moving in with the man of my dreams, I never did much cooking. Mainly because I wasn’t very good at it. Since then, I haven’t taken any cooking classes, it wasn’t at any point a new years resolution or something I started doing for a new diet, but I started cooking. And the only thing I can think of that has changed is that I fell in love. Now I google a recipe almost every night and amaze myself with the incredible dinners I am somehow whipping up like I’ve been doing it all of my life. That’s what living with Matt feels like. Like we’ve been doing it all of our lives. If you ask him, I’m running a five star Michelin restaurant over here, but he’s a little bias!!!
Occasionally Matt cooks. He makes a mean burger, breakfast sandwich, turkey club, and he likes to make Thai food in the pressure cooker. But I sure made a point to share Christine’s latest piece ‘Our Love Story’ with him. “You see this?! He cooked almost every night!” … So we can expect more Matt dishes in the future… I need that extra time because of course, I’ve got silk on the brain…
Bottom line? … There will never be anything that is better for you than love. So as Christine says, “When you find it, cherish it , don’t give up on it, celebrate it, honour it, and surround yourself with it. Laugh and kiss often!”
Love looks great on everybody.
xxKatrina
