Preparing for [the Houston Ballet’s] “The Nutcracker,” we rehearsed five days a week, from Tuesday to Saturday. I would wake up at 7:30 a.m. and use CeraVe’s Salicylic Acid Cleanser during my morning shower, followed by the Daily Moisturizing Lotion. When my skin feels particularly dry, especially in winter months, I use Youth to the People’s Hydrate + Glow Dream Oil. Aesop’s Rind Concentrate Body Balm is also great. That does it for the morning — the last thing I want is to add more steps to get ready at the start of the day; hence Keurig coffee in the morning, usually accompanied by yogurt, granola, blueberries, and honey. After rehearsal, I’ll often have a Clif Builders Bar (chocolate mint is my favorite). Fragrance-wise, I love Boy Smells’ Flor de la Virgen; I apply it before rehearsals, with touch-ups during and after. For performances, a lot of male dancers use company-provided cosmetics, but I’m a bit more particular because of my skin’s sensitivities. I love Wet N Wild foundation and LA Girl Pro concealer. As a dancer of color, I love that the finish of L’Oréal’s powder is more of a warm banana shade than a white. Post-performance is crucial: I love Jordan Samuel Skin’s After Show Treatment Cleanser; developed by a dancer, it doesn’t foam as much as other cleansers and is oil-based to help break down makeup without too much skin-damaging abrasion. For particularly involved looks, I also use Aveeno’s makeup wipes. Masks help as well. I like Youth to the People’s Hydrate + Glow Dream Mask as well as its Superclay Purify + Clear Power Mask, which is great when makeup is really caked into my pores. Recently, I did a program with a lot of body paint and Athena Club’s body wash was great to get it off. It’s more creamy than soapy, with plenty of vitamins to nourish my skin as it gets rid of paint and sweat.
Wear This
A Friendship Charm Designed by Phoebe Bridgers
“I’m obsessed with tiny jewelry and tiny tattoos,” says the singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers. “Whenever I asked where a cool person got their jewelry, the answer was always Catbird.” This spring, after she had been a devoted customer for years, the New York-based brand reached out to Bridgers to see if she would be interested in a collaboration. The answer was an immediate yes. To begin the design process, Bridgers referred the Catbird team to a booklet of her lyrics with illustrations by Chris Riddell and invited them to a performance in Brooklyn. The first drop of the collection (two more charms will be available in early 2023) launches today with a set of friendship charms inspired by Bridgers’s “Garden Song,” a bittersweet track about growing up. Lyrics (“Everything’s growing in our garden / You don’t have to know that it’s haunted”) in the singer’s handwriting appear on the backs of the heart halves, while the fronts are adorned with skulls and delicate spider webs drawn by Riddell. “I still have my half of a friendship charm like this that I got in high school from my friend Haley Dahl from the band Sloppy Jane,” Bridgers says. “It is very dear to me, and I’ll probably give my other half of this one to her.” $490 for 14-karat yellow gold and $130 for silver, catbirdnyc.com.
After the Dutch former “Linda” editor Rozemarijn de Witte sold her publishing company 12 years ago, she finally had the freedom to manifest her aesthetic vision outside the pages of magazines. First, she and her husband, Pierre Traversier, a former basketball player from Paris, bought an abandoned hotel near a beach on the northernmost point of Ibiza and in 2016 gave it a second life as Los Enamorados, an eclectic boutique hotel with nine rooms. More recently, they bought a space on Paris’s Left Bank, formerly home to the gallery Epoca, and transformed it into Arrogant Verneuil, a boutique, gallery and home. The shop, which is open to the public Tuesday to Saturday from noon to 7 p.m., is loaded with vintage objects that the couple have picked up on their travels (such as a very realistic ceramic snake curled up by the window and three signature Pierre Chapo wooden tables that were originally created for a restaurant in the Swiss Alps) as well as exclusive fashion collaborations. The gallery, which doubles as their living area, is open by appointment only, with artworks from the couples’ personal collection — there’s an abstract mural on one wall by Frank Visser, a bookshelf of papier-mâché by French cartoonist Roland Topor and a cabinet from Piet Hein Eek. De Witte says they don’t mind selling what’s in their home: “We love collecting and we have this urge to keep evolving the spaces we live in.”
Covet This
A Modernist Lamp Collection From a Mother-Daughter Duo
The German fashion editor and stylist Almut Vogel hadn’t considered going into business with her ceramist mother, Gudrun Vogel, until friends asked about doing a ceramics workshop with her. Gudrun became a master potter after completing a ceramics apprenticeship in southern Germany in the ’80s and, at the request of her daughter, she agreed to host a workshop for Almut and her friends this past August. “I hadn’t touched clay since my childhood but immediately loved the sensuality of the material, and it felt so natural to work alongside my mom,” Almut says. “At the time, I was moving from Paris to Berlin, so I needed new lamps for my apartment.” She decided to create a lamp inspired by the midcentury furniture galleries she’d browsed in Paris’s Sixth Arrondissement. When friends began asking her to create a similar lamp for them, Almut and Gudrun embarked on an artistic collaboration, naming it A.G.V. Atelier. “A lamp can link sculpture and design; its functional aspect brings so much atmosphere to an environment and the mixed media of clay and textile aligns both of our backgrounds,” says Almut. Each lamp is one of a kind and handmade with custom lampshades created by Sabine Bruns, a Berlin artisan. The project has brought Almut and Gudrun’s relationship full circle as well: “The moment when we decided to work together was actually within the same year that I gave birth to my daughter,” Almut explains, “and since we haven’t lived in the same place for over 15 years, it’s just nice to spend more time together.” From $1,699, agvatelier.com.
Buy This
Hard-Working Yet Gentle Retinol Skin Care
Retinol is one of those skin-care heroes, like vitamin C or sunscreen, whose efficacy everyone can agree on. Best applied at night, the vitamin A derivative has been used since the 1950s to treat a variety of skin issues including acne, signs of aging and uneven skin tone — and thanks to changes in formulations since, it’s no longer necessarily an irritating prescription. The Multi-Retinol Night Emulsion, from skin-care experts Kristina Holey and Marie Veronique, uses three kinds of retinoids as well as soothing and softening ingredients so that even those with sensitive skin can feel confident applying it. La Prairie’s caviar extraction process produces the retinol and lipids found in caviar for its Skin Caviar Nighttime Oil, which locks in moisture, making it perfect for dry skin. Lipids are also used in Klur Sculpture + A Overnight Enrichment Cream, along with collagen-supporting peptides, anti-inflammatory botanicals and retinol, which together promote skin resilience. Dull skin will appreciate the alpha hydroxy acids and encapsulated retinol in Eve Lom Radiance Repair Retinol Serum, while the breakout-prone (and especially adults interested in slowing the effects of aging) could try Avène Cleanance Night Cream, which uses a fast-acting retinoid along with gentle resurfacing ingredients. For daytime use, try Supergoop’s new Daily Dose Bioretinol + Mineral SPF 40 (launching December 20), which continues the work of nighttime retinols with bakuchiol, a more gentle, plant-based alternative to the ingredient.
