Curious about the cute lil’ ice facial tool that popped up on both Kourt and Kendall’s IGS recently? We’ve got the intel (because of course we had to get our hands on one as well!).
Facial icing — and the wider concept of cryotherapy — have boomed in popularity this year. Cheap and easy, the cold temperatures work to constrict blood flow and define facial features, not to mention shake off signs of fatigue.
Advertisements
First off, we are big fans of ice facials—they can help reduce puffiness, brighten our complexion, stimulate blood circulation, and lift skin. We’re into this type of tool because it is reusable, refillable, and foolproof to use. Kendall shared in her post that she loves using hers for her morning ice facials, but it can be used any time of day.
The Contour Cube is essentially just a tool that can be used like an ice block container but is designed in a way so that it works with the contours of the face. You simply fill it with water (or coconut water, if you’re feeling boujee) and move it along the face to refresh, tighten, and tone. It’s a viral TikTok product (!) that explains how it might have found its way into Jenner’s skincare routine.
Advertisements
To prep, it, simply fill it with filtered water and pop it in the freezer until it’s frozen solid. Take the top off and bada bing bada boom, it’s ready to glide across your face. The bottom cover stays on, acting as a grip so that the ice doesn’t slide out of your hands while you’re using it. When you’re done, put the top back on and stick it back in the freezer.
How to use the Contour CubeÂ
After cleansing your face, run your Contour Cube under water to defrost slightly
Apply to your face in upward circular motions moving the ice continuously in 30-second intervals for up to 1 to 2 minutes on each side of your face
For optimal results, follow your usual moisturizing routine
Avoid contact with eyes and if you have sensitive skin, discontinue use if signs of irritation appear
But you’re not limited to just using water with this nifty tool, as you can see from Kourt’s post. Rose water, green tea, coconut milk, aloe vera, lemon water, and cucumber water can also be used instead of plain water.Â
Kourt added cucumber slices for extra de-puffing action. Some other ideas: green tea for anti-inflammatory benefits, coconut milk for hydration, or rosewater for a glow.
Advertisements
BENEFITS OF FACIAL ICING
Proponents of ice facials, or ‘skin icing,’ suggest that it can be used to:
Eliminate puffiness, especially around the eyes
Reduce oiliness
Ease acne
Soothe sunburn
Reduce swelling and inflammation, including rashes and insect bites
Reduce signs of aging, such as wrinkles
reduce the appearance of pigmentation or dark under-eye circles
Reply to @imsimplydynamic face pop ice facials, depending on your skin type you can customize what you put inside ❤️ #skincare101#icefacialtool#ice
You know those article headlines that make your heart stop when you come across them (or is that just a weird us-thing)? Imagine our excitement when we came across this story in Vogue about Jennifer Aniston’s self-care routine and her secrets to looking (and feeling!) as good as she does. Yes, please! After reading the entire interview about five times, the inspiration came to us like a wave. As wellness editors who love a good self-care ritual almost as much as we loved every season of Friends, we wanted to get as close as we could to being Jennifer Aniston and try out every detail of her self-care routine for one week.
So, what happened when we swapped out our self-care rituals for a Hollywood A-lister’s? Did we achieve her effortless beauty and lit-from-within glow? Did Jen and us (finally) become best friends, as having the same rock-solid self-care routine would make happen? Read on for Jennifer Aniston’s self-care rituals we added based on her interview with Vogue and our experience trying out each of them.
No phone for the first hour after waking
The first step in Jen’s self-care routine is what we need the most: less phone time. As a group of people who rolls over and checks Instagram within 30 seconds of waking up, it’s time for a morning routine makeover. As for the details (we’re all about the details), Jennifer keeps her phone stored elsewhere and uses iPods or old iPhones for alarm clocks and sleep apps. We charge our phones across the room and set an alarm on our echo clock.
Advertisements
Jen talks about finally checking her phone after about an hour to find text messages wondering where she is, which we can only assume is from her team of assistants, BFF Courtney Cox, or maybe Brad Pitt finally realizing he can’t live without her (we’ve known that for 20 years, Brad!). We don’t have a team of assistants or Brad Pitt caring about why we haven’t answered their texts, but at least our boss would notice if we were MIA, right?
At the end of the week, we have to be honest: Our mornings weremuch better. We had more time to fit in meditation (more on that below), and we swear we felt less stressed when the first thought of our day was not centered around catching up on other people’s lives or texts we had missed. We are inspired to keep our current phone when we get a new one to use for sleep apps and alarm clocks. That’s some bougie-ish, but it’s also pretty genius.
Use the Pattern app
While this is technically not a core piece of her self-care routine, Jennifer did mention that her phone is for texts, emails, and the Pattern app, which we needed to try. If it’s good enough for Jennifer Aniston, it’s good enough for us (also, it’s free, so we are game). We have never heard of Pattern, and TBH, it blew our minds. It uses data to help you better understand yourself and others for deeper connections. In a world where most of our screen time is spent watching people, we don’t know dance or cook feta pasta, it was cool to spend some time exploring our personalities and what’s going on in our life.
Advertisements
You can use it as a tool to understand yourself better, a reference to make goals (it gives you peak days/times), or even as a way to connect with people who share similar personalities and values. Think of it like a dating app, only instead of swiping left-on gym selfies, you will be matched based on your deepest personality traits. Some of us learned that we are self-critical, deep, and passionate. It’s cool, and we thank the app gods and Jennifer Aniston for bringing such a fascinating tool into our life for free.
DIY a collagen latte
Probably the best thing to come out of this experiment is that we finally know Jennifer Aniston’s coffee order. Scratch that—she calls it a coffee routine. So, when we order Starbucks, we will no longer tell the barista that a Grande cold brew with one pump hazelnut and an inch of oat milk is the order, it’s our coffee routine. In a pleasantly surprising twist of events, Jen’s morning coffee is pretty doable. She adds a scoop of collagen from Vital Proteins, a dash of cinnamon, and a packet of Stevia because she has a sweet tooth. Meanwhile, she steams her almond milk while this concoction is forming and will occasionally indulge in her guilty pleasure, hazelnut Coffee Mate (that’s the relatable queen we know and love!).
Luckily, for this experiment, we already had a milk frother ready to go, oat milk on hand, and some collagen that we typically add to smoothies. We prefer the taste of iced coffee, but we quickly learned that collagen plus iced coffee does not equal a Jen-approved superfood latte. Collagen needs heat to dissolve or else it will turn into goop at the bottom of your cup (and not that kind of Goop). But once we nailed the hot coffee routine, we liked knowing we were getting some extra nutrients and protein in the coffee.Â
PSA: Your mouth and stomach are not the only body parts that digest. Jen is protective of her boundaries by limiting news sources, social media, and negative content. It makes us happy that Jen is protecting herself because we would protect her at all costs. But this is a great point because health is not only about choosing the best way to nourish our bodies with food but also about how to nourish our minds and souls. The podcasts we listen to, the people we spend our time with, the shows we binge on Netflix, the accounts we follow on Instagram, and the way we speak to ourselves (and others) are all things that feed us too.Â
Advertisements
We always try to be conscious of this by unfollowing or muting accounts that don’t serve us, watching comedies that make us happy over horror movies or sad shows, and limiting news to what we need to know. But this week, we were not only thinking about what not to watch, listen to, and read, but we also made a conscious effort to consume more of what to watch, listen to, and read. Instead of scrolling through Instagram or watching Netflix, we read inspiring books and listened to motivating podcasts. To no one’s surprise, it was truly the most motivated we had been in a long time (and not just because we’ve been comparing ourselves to Jennifer Aniston a little too much).Â
Meditate after making coffee
Spoiler alert: Meditation was by far the most drastic change that came out of this week for some of us. It’s something we think we should do but never really make time for. We tell ourselves we will meditate after we take a smoke break, on our lunch break, or before bed, but it doesn’t always happen. Having a specific time built in to meditate (i.e., right after making coffee) was the game-changer because we did fit it in.Â
Advertisements
Jen explained that she meditates after “a few sips of coffee,” so we panicked because we weren’t sure if she takes the rest of the coffee with her to meditate (will that be a distraction and ruin the purpose?) or lets her coffee sit there and get cold after a few sips (maybe normal for the rich and famous?). We need a detailed play-by-play, Jennifer! We ended up sitting on our yoga mats with our bougie latte in hand for about five minutes of meditation (we couldn’t let collagen go to waste).Â
Jen uses Insight Timer, so we used it and tried the courses she mentioned: lowering anxiety and how to create gratitude and abundance. Through this experiment, we learned that we prefer guided meditations. There’s way too much going on in our big brains to sit in quiet stillness, and we don’t always know what to write when journaling. Insight Timer achieved what it promised for us—we instantly felt a little less anxious throughout the day, and we felt major gratitude. This is nothing groundbreaking to the self-care world, but we give a morning meditation 5/5 stars.Â
Advertisements
Adopt a pro-aging mindset
As someone in their mid-twenties, whether we are for or against aging is not a topic we’ve put much thought into. we like to think we are already a “pro” because we regularly pretended to be 21 years old before we were. But we think we can all agree that of all celebs, Jennifer Aniston is the first one to come to mind when thinking of the Buzz phrase “aging gracefully.” Not only does she look phenomenal at every age (like, how?), but it also seems like she hasn’t resisted getting older. Rather, she’s slightly adjusted her hair, beauty, routine, and relationships to each phase in her life without trying to look like Season 1 Rachel Green.Â
Advertisements
The biggest lesson we got from Jennifer Aniston’s pro-aging mindset is something we also learned from our mom’s aging mentality: We are lucky to be able to get older because a lot of people don’t get the chance. We are sure we might feel less hunky dory about it when we get crow’s feet and gray hairs, but we do believe there’s something to be said about enjoying every age of life instead of wishing we could be younger. This week, we made an effort to make decisions for our future selves by eating fruits and veggies, getting enough sleep, and moving our bodies more, knowing that taking care of ourselves now is an investment in our future selves. As Mrs. Aniston (Jen’s mom) used to say, “This is about longevity. It’s a privilege to grow old, but we don’t have to grow sick.”
Keep learning and educating yourself
It’s relatable that Jen casually mentioned to her manager that she wanted to educate herself more, so her manager arranged conversations with icons like Jay Shetty, Jessica Yellin, and David Sinclair (to be read in your best Chandler Bing-level sarcasm). We guess when you are an icon yourself, you have access to all the other icons. But as total wellness nerds who grew up loving to read (yeah, we were and still are that girl), we love that learning is a key part of Jen’s self-care routine. The goal of wellness is just growth: growing in health, growing in self-love, and growing in knowledge. When we’re constantly learning, we’re constantly growing.
We try to make more of an effort to attend lectures, listen to podcasts, and read books to grow our health knowledge, but the major change from this week was how we saw those efforts. We typically see education as an extension of our career, like we are staying up to date to be the best we can be at our job. But seeing it instead as a way to care for us transformed what we got out of it. Education, even in the name of a career, helps us grow as people, not just as a job title. If you ask us, that’s caring for yourself more than a face mask or smoothie ever could.
Supplement your health with products that work
To quote Jennifer Aniston quoting Dr. Sinclair, “As we age, our cells start to shut down and the lights in our body turn off. But you can turn those lights, those genes, back on.” One of the ways Jennifer likes to turn those genes back on and age as healthy as possible is through tried-and-true supplements, like the aforementioned collagen (she uses Vital Proteins, of which she is the chief creative officer for the brand).
Advertisements
We are typically wishy-washy with supplements. We get excited about a new multivitamin and take it religiously for a couple of weeks before forgetting about it altogether, or we know we feel our best when we are consistent with our probiotics but can’t always seem to remember to take them. This week, we were more consistent than we’ve typically been with taking the supplements and vitamins our doctor decided were best for us. A major shift was (yet again) mindset: Rather than just another thing we were “supposed” to do, we thought of these supplements as another way to invest in our future self and to “keep the lights in our bodies turned on” as we get older. You bet we won’t forget to take multivitamins again.
The Verdict:
Overall, following an A-lister’s self-care routine was surprisingly doable. We loved spending a little extra time prioritizing the things we typically forget about, like tech-free time or meditation. However, the biggest takeaway we got from spending a week as Jennifer Aniston (we mean basically, right?) is that mindset is her secret. Don’t get us wrong: We are sure she has a team of the best beauty gurus and wellness experts on speed dial and the best products that only money (and fame) can buy. But her actual routines are fairly simple. No two-hour workouts, strict diets, or 5 a.m. wakeup calls are needed to achieve Jen’s lit-from-within glow.
Advertisements
We love that the way she cares for herself is built around her mindset. She’s not using self-care rituals as a mask to achieve an “ideal weight” or to stay young forever; she cares about health because she wants to live the longest, happiest life possible. Now if that doesn’t sound like the moral of a movie where Jen would play the lovable protagonist, we don’t know what does.
We think it’s safe to say we’ve probably all had a crush on Blake Lively at some point. From her Gossip Girl days to Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (our personal favorite) or slaying red carpet looks and being adorably funny with husband Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively seems to epitomize a happy and healthy life. Blake looks like the confident and cool girl we all want to be. So how does she do it? Upon further research (AKA looking through all of her interviews we could find online), it turns out, that Blake has eight healthy habits she always sticks to, and since we aspire to be just as happy and healthy as her, we tried them all.Â
Advertisements
Limit alcohol
Blake likes a party just as much as the rest of us, but she chooses to enjoy them without alcohol. “I don’t like the effects of alcohol, but I like being a part of it,” she said in a recent interview with People Magazine. “I like being social. I like people coming together.” This is perhaps what led her to create her new line of non-alcoholic mixers, Betty Buzz. We usually like to end our Fridays with a glass of wine and dinner with friends, but we also spend some Fridays in bed with Netflix and tea, so we get where she’s coming from.
Our takeaway from Blake’s rule was that no matter the activity, you can still have fun whether alcohol is a part of it or not. We spent last week Friday at a friend’s birthday drinking kombucha. We had so much fun and woke up feeling refreshed and great (which wouldn’t have happened had we opted for a glass of wine instead). Let’s be real: Alcohol can lead to some not-so-great mornings (hangxiety anyone?). Blake’s way of life has made us rethink alcohol and consider opting for a Betty Buzz once in a while. If you’re interested in limiting alcohol or just more mindful drinking, click here.
This has magnesium and balancing adaptogens meant to lift the mood in lieu of alcohol.
Never skip breakfast
They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and Blake agrees. Her trainer Don Saladino told Cosmo that her usual breakfast is a couple of eggs cooked in coconut oil with maybe some vegetables. He also emphasized the importance of starting the day with protein and balancing sugar levels. This week, we tried to incorporate some protein into every breakfast, whether it was eggs, a protein shake, or almond butter on toast. We found that just by adding some form of protein, we felt fuller for longer and didn’t have the crash that usually comes with a sugary morning start. Safe to say, we’ll be sticking to this rule for a while.Â
In an interview with Cosmo, Saladino revealed that Blake starts every day with a large glass of water. It may seem like an easy habit, but most of us don’t drink enough water throughout the day. After dehydrating our bodies while sleeping, a glass of water is a great way to get things moving. Staying hydrated has always been something some of us struggled with, especially first thing in the morning; adding another thing to our morning to-do list just seemed overwhelming. But while channeling our inner Blake, we added a few hacks to make it easier: we filled up our water bottle the night before and left it on our bedside table (to make it as easy as possible in the morning) and opted for a water bottle instead of a glass (so we could take it with us when we are running out the door). Starting the day with hydration was a struggle for some of us, but by the end of the week, we did see the difference. We were less tired, and our skin looked more glowy and hydrated.Â
This extra-big water bottle is the perfect tool to encourage you to drink water throughout the day
Prioritize exercise
There’s a reason Blake is such good friends with her trainer instead of just a client: She spends four to five days a week in the gym! While her workout regimen has changed over the years, she has always kept it consistent. Saladino told E! News that some days, Blake trains for an hour, and other days, just for 20 to 30 minutes (celebrities—their schedules are all over the place!). But our biggest takeaway was that Blake maintained consistency: No matter how much time she had, she always fit in movement.
We value incorporating some movement into our daily routine, but unfortunately, hitting the gym four to five times a week was unrealistic for some of us. Instead, we developed a consistent schedule that worked for each of our lives, which meant yoga class every Tuesday, an at-home workout twice a week, and maybe dance class on the weekend. But being Blake for a week taught us that it didn’t matter if we had an hour for a yoga class or 15 minutes for a walk on the beach: The goal is just to move consistently.Â
Advertisements
Eat a balanced diet (and never count calories!)
According to Saladino, Blake’s diet is a healthy balance of proteins, vegetables, fruits, slow-burning starches like sweet potato, and healthy fats like avocado, coconut oil, and grass-fed butter. And the best part: She’s not tracking her calories or in a strict calorie deficit like you might hear from other celebs. “I don’t think putting someone into a caloric deficit is the right thing to do,” Saladino told Cosmo. “This is why a lot of coaches and people are unsuccessful.” A well-balanced diet is also something we try to incorporate into our weekly routine, so this rule was already practiced. While not every day is the same, planning out our Sunday grocery shopping in advance is always helpful. Trying out new recipes and incorporating the same ingredients into multiple meals also adds variety and reduces the cost we are spending on food too. This is one healthy habit we will be sticking to.
Make room for fun
If you browse through Blake’s Instagram, it’s a combination of gorgeous fashion looks, her family and friends, and, of course, delicious baked goods. Blake has a passion for baking and a strong sweet tooth (we can relate), and so while she sticks to a healthy routine, she still makes time for “fun.” Blake follows an 80/20 rule. This means she eats clean 80% of the time, leaving 20% for indulgences. While it seems tangible, keeping our indulgences to 20% was tough for us. While we try to save indulgences for the weekend, we are big snackers (and love mid-week candy here and there because sometimes, you need to!).
Instead of sticking to a strict 80/20 rule for the sake of becoming Blake Lively, we decided to look into each time we were craving sweets during the week and assess why. Were we bored, stressed, or needing comfort? Or does our body need this right now? If the answer was yes to the latter question, then we indulged. But we noticed that most of the time, we were just bored, and it wouldn’t satisfy us. By the end of the week, we discovered it was easier to limit indulgences because we were more conscious about why we craved them in the first place. But maybe it was more 75/25 than 80/20—we are only humans, after all.Â
Advertisements
Keep skincare simple
Long before it became a TikTok sensation, Blake was using the affordable skincare brand CeraVe because she also understands the value of good drugstore buys, just like the rest of us. In an interview with People magazine, the star shared a list of her makeup and skincare go-to’s, which included many affordable options, including a Burt’s Bees Chapstick. While she may choose to splurge on a serum, Blake also realizes that not every item in your bathroom cabinet has to be expensive to be effective.
As someone (Lee) who has extremely dry and hormonal skin, it took a while to find the right products for my skin. I was guilty of splurging on expensive creams and toners, only to realize less is always more. Now, I opt for an all-natural cleanser, natural face oils for moisturizer, and a lightweight sunscreen. Blake’s skincare mindset is one I already live by, and while it took many years of experimentation before I got there, I realized everyone’s skin is different, and what works for you may not work for someone else.
There’s no such thing as “perfection” in your exercise routine
As a mom of three who travels often and always seems to be on the go, it’s impressive how Blake fits in a sweat almost every day. But sometimes, she isn’t able to stick to her schedule, and she knows that’s OK. “This isn’t about coming in and stepping on the gas and going as hard as you can every workout. That’s the biggest mistake that people make,” Saladino told E! News. “The reality is, it’s never going to be a perfect scenario, right? There are always going to be things getting in your way. That’s just life. Just get in there and move.”
Advertisements
This rule was one of our favorites. Sometimes, there can be a lot of pressure on working out—like you need to be doing an hour, burning a certain number of calories, or going at a certain intensity for it to be effective, but that’s not true. This “rule” took all the pressure off of us on the days when we didn’t have a workout planned. One time, we walked to the grocery store instead of driving. On our lunch breaks, we would opt for a 10-minute yoga stretch. Simply adding a little bit of movement into the days when we weren’t feeling up to a 60-minute workout gave us more energy and took all the pressure and guilt away.Â
Since the spring of 2020, the BeautyLeeBar.com editors have been primarily working from home. It may not surprise you to learn that, before making these workweek changes, we all had pretty lengthy beauty regimens and loved experimenting with new products and looks on a daily. But as you can imagine, spending the majority of our workdays indoors and away from a traditional office building has inspired some changes, both in routine and mindset. Read on for the beauty lessons we learned during the pandemic.Â
Advertisements
Sara, Content Director
One of the biggest beauty lessons that I’ve learned during the pandemic (and there have been many!) is to fully lean into makeup that helps me feel most like myself — and whatever that may be is allowed to change day by day, week by week. In other words, I listen to how I’m feeling before I do my makeup every day, which is given me the freedom to have more fun with my look. Recently, I’ve been embracing nail art, bright nail polish shades, and press-on nails. I’ve got my eyes on Essie Risk Takers Only, a bright orange, for my next mani. On the skincare front, I have even more appreciation for my dermatologist’s recommendations. Since following my derm’s suggested routine, my skin has only gotten clearer, smoother, and healthier.
Chyanne, Editor
The biggest beauty lesson I’ve learned throughout the pandemic is to not be afraid to wear lipstick — mask and all. I’ve gotten a thorough idea of what the ultimate lipstick is for me to get me through long days on Zoom calls or errands with a face mask. The recipe is matte, long-lasting, and transfer-proof. My go-to has been the NYX Professional Makeup XXL Lip Lingerie Matte Liquid Lipstick. This little tube has gotten me through it all over the past few years, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Ariel, Editor
One thing the pandemic taught me was how to master the five-minute face. Pre-pandemic, I used to wake up at least two hours early to apply a full face of makeup, pick out an outfit, and account for my commuting time. During the pandemic, those habits shifted drastically. Anyone who works from home has likely had a morning (or maybe quite a few mornings) when they woke up minutes before a Zoom meeting and had to rush to look polished before logging on. In my case, I usually swipe on mascara ( LancĂ´me Monsieur Big Volumizing Mascara has been my go-to for years) and a bright lip gloss, like the Benefit Cosmetics Liquid Lip Blush & Cheek Tint. Together, these makeup products pair up to make me look freshly caffeinated and awake in minutes.Â
Katharina, Social Media Editor
Being at home through the pandemic has taught me two important lessons when it comes to my beauty routine. First, being utterly bare faced is completely fine. Second, when I do choose to wear makeup, there’s nothing wrong with getting a little bit bold and experimental with it. I probably wouldn’t have shown up to work without an ounce of makeup on before the pandemic but being virtual has shifted my mindset to a point where I can be fully confident in a meeting with nothing on my face but some light, natural mascara (I swear by the Maybelline Green Edition Mega Mousse for a no-makeup makeup look). I also have the freedom to play with my makeup a little bit more; if I want a bold lip in the morning and a subtle gloss in the afternoon, I have my entire makeup kit at my fingertips and can play around with my look.
Crystal Lee, Founder
Pre-pandemic, you could find me wearing only full-coverage foundations and concealers to hide any skin imperfection. You would never catch me with a bare face, especially if I was walking into the office or going out to eat with friends. After countless social distancing parameters and countless Zoom meetings, I’ve found myself becoming more comfortable with embracing my skin’s natural texture and opting for products that have a “your skin but better” feel. I’ve started leaning on buildable, lightweight foundations like the Valentino Beauty Very Valentino 24-Hour Wear Liquid Foundation on the days I decide to wear makeup. It leaves my skin with a natural look without the heavy feel of foundation.
