“ My blog takes up a big chunk of my time, but that’s just a part of what we do in my studio. For example, I have a shoot in a few days and a shoot next week—commercial jobs, which aren’t for my blog. I’m always working on my next video, and I have to write my monthly column for French Vogue. It’s a lot of work, but I love working at home. My dream is to wear my PJs to work and have my apartment on one floor and my office just above it. I guess I don’t like the shock of having to get ready and go outside; I love to ease into my day.
I’m not a very healthy person, but I do start my day with coffee and oatmeal. It used to be a tartine—bread with butter and jam. Scott [Schuman, my boyfriend] would look at me eating that and say, ‘What?! I can’t believe you’re eating that!’ When I moved to America, I understood what he was saying, because in America, you can’t eat like that. I don’t know why. It’s funny how you end up getting obsessed with nutrition when you live here. So, now it is oatmeal and a little bit of fruit and maybe some peanut butter. My mornings used to be a celebration of life and now it’s like, ‘ Ok…’
The lighting in my bathroom isn’t great, which is why I have all of my stuff spread out all over the apartment. During fashion week, I'll gather everything I use on the windowsill in my guest room because it gets the most light. I have to have all of my products together there, and I also have my magnifying mirror. It’s scary to see yourself in, but I like it. I pluck my eyebrows in that mirror, everything. Actually, I learned very early to be careful with my brows because they’re very small—there is not a big number of them. [Laughs] I make a mistake, there’s a hole. I have to be very careful.
On my skin, I’ve been using Murad products for a few months—I went to a spa in LA and I fell in love with their products. In the morning, I use the Age-Diffusing Serum and the Perfecting Day Cream SPF 30. I feel like my skin is well-hydrated, which is really important. I have shiny skin—dry but shiny—and I have to moisturize it very well. Before, I’d used things things like mattifying lotions, but dermatologists told me to stop because my skin was suffering. I started to use Créaline instead of water to wash my face, the Murad stuff, and also their eye-contour cream, the Intensive Wrinkle Reducer for Eyes, even though I don’t really believe in that so much. It’s funny, when I was 15, I was much more conscious and I would always think I was getting wrinkles because of my smile. I could see where my wrinkles would be so I started using eye cream, but by 20, I already had them—it didn’t change anything. It’s just an expression thing; I’m not going to stop smiling.
I don’t think a cream can really fight a lot of stuff, but I use it to protect my skin a bit. I also never go in the sun. I come from Corsica, where it’s sunny everyday and I lived on the beach. And my father had a seafood restaurant, so basically we were at the beach every day, but at the first moment I became conscious of the sun, I started really protecting my skin— super early, like 11 or 12. A lot of women in Corsica and the south of France have very burnt skin, so you can see the toll it takes. And I was helped by the fact that I didn’t really love the beach culture; it was kind of boring. Now, in the summer I use the Clarins SPF 50 Sun Care Milk-Lotion Spray on my arms and legs—it’s always in my bag.
At night, I sometimes go with Neutrogena Makeup Remover Cleansing Towlettes—those are for desperation moments when I don’t want to go through the entire process of washing my face. My night cream is also Murad, the Age Balancing Night Cream. Then, every Sunday I do a sugar scrub—the Fresh Sugar Face Polish. I leave it on for as long as it takes me to shave my legs. [Laughs] I think the scrub is something I do out of habit…When I was young, my grandmother, who was Moroccan, would put me in the bath and she would make it very hot, and once I had soaked, she would come and scrub me down just with her hands and the dead skin would come off. It would feel so good because it was a massage and, at the same time, your skin is renewed.
In Morocco, baths are how a lot of women bond—they will go to the hammam together. I have to say, I don’t like hammam at all, but I love spas. I am addicted to massages. It’s one thing that I promised myself I would try to do once a week because I basically get high off massages. I usually go to the Caudalie spa [at the Plaza Hotel]. It’s great, but it’s so fancy. I have to find a more ‘everyday’ one. Even more than massage, though, I like facials a lot. I do the Vinosculpt facial at Caudalie before fashion week because it uses electricity and it's incredible. It’s a moment when I can totally let go and my brain goes into a certain mode, better than meditation. I see a lot of things and I have a lot of ideas. For one hour, I’m in another world; I totally get high. [Laughs] I get out of there and I’m energized, I have new ideas, new ideas of colors—it’s amazing. At home, I use the Weleda Citrus Refreshing Body Oil for massage, which is awesome. Scott gives me lots of massages. I am lucky! But I do it for him, too! Sharing and taking care is what makes a good couple.
I love the Byredo La Tulipe Body Lotion, for when I want to treat myself. Otherwise, I use Kiehl’s Creme de Corps for my body. It is the best one, and I have tried a lot of them. It just leaves a glow on your skin and it stays. And because it doesn’t have a strong scent, it’s good when you’re going to use perfume—the smells don’t layer on top of each other… I’m not really a big perfume person; I wear men’s perfumes mostly. Acqua di Colonia by Santa Maria Novella is really nice… It smells like my island, Corsica, which is where I grew up. I actually have another product called Donna È Rosée du Maquis that comes from Corsica, which is really the smell. “Rosée” is like rose water, like the mist that gets on flowers in the morning—that’s kind of what it does on your skin.”
Beauty-wise, I’m very low maintenance. I know what I want, and on an everyday basis I don’t really wear makeup. I don’t love putting makeup on myself. It’s not like, ‘ Oooh, that’s fun. Let’s do it.’ It’s more of a chore, but when I have to, I can do it. And for me it’s all about a balance. Like, if I wear like a men’s shirt, I will always try to wear more makeup, maybe do a nice lip or something, because I think it gets sexy when there is contrast. I just use a little bit of By Terry Light Expert Perfecting Foundation in Honey Light. I don’t put it everywhere. I don’t think anyone puts it everywhere anymore, right? I think that’s over. When I was fourteen, my mom told me she was going to teach me how to put on foundation. She said, ‘You stretch it almost into your hair because you don’t want to have a mask. Everything, from your eyes to your lips, has to be covered.’ That’s how I learned to do it, but foundation has changed a lot, and it mixes into your skin so well now that you don’t have to put it all over. Then, I will put Une Skin-Echo Concealer under my eyes. It’s from Monoprix [in Paris].
If I want to look really good, I also use the YSL Touche Éclat on parts of my face and some Chanel blush, which I apply high on my cheek with my 'everything brush.' I call it that because I lose all my other ones. I put a little bit of Rimmel Scandaleyes Kohl eyeliner on the eyes, on the top and the bottom, just along the roots of the lashes—I just want to make my eyes pop. If I could do it better, I would do them a little bit smokier, but I don’t know how to do that. Then, Dolce & Gabbana Intenseyes Black Intensity mascara, if I can find it. For lips, maybe Dior Crème de Rose Lip Balm or Bobbi Brown Matte Lip Color in Pink Lily, which is a very nice color if think you’re dressed boring. I’m actually not very into lipstick anymore—I was for a moment, but not really right now. What I used to do when I had a very long night the night before and I was really tired is do a coral or pinky red lip, so that people don’t even look at your face, they look at your mouth. [Laughs] It’s like a decoy.
I recently cut my hair shorter. The water here in New York is very different than the water in Paris. When I lived in Paris, my hair was more wavy than curly, and here it’s like total curl. And the problem with curl is that it changes every two hours depending on the weather, how much you touch it… When you leave in the morning, you don’t know how it’s going to be four hours later. You have to let go or you have to have a hairband, and at some moment just go to the mirror and put it up. So many people would ask me why my hair was always up and it’s not that I hated my hair, but it just goes all over the place.
I knew that if I wanted to have short hair again, I’d have to do something like a keratin treatment to keep it more straight, but I was worried about the negative effects and also because I’d had one before and it turned out too straight. But I said, ‘Ok, let’s try again.’ I wanted to change; I wanted to look better—I felt horrible about myself. Now I feel a little bit better, but I still have a little ways to go. When I was ready to cut it, I thought that people would send me addresses of salons, but no one really knew where to get keratin, so we looked on the internet and found a place called The Drawing Room in SoHo. I did it and I’m really happy. I’m being really careful right now—I don’t wash my hair too often because I want to stretch [the treatment] as long as possible. The goal is to have it done like three times a year. I know some people say keratin is dangerous, but I don’t think it’s horrible to do once in a while.”
—as told to ITG
Garance Dore photographed by Emily Weiss in New York City on April 19, 2013.
