It’s Big Beauty Tuesday here at The Glow Up, and in lieu of our regularly scheduled programming, there’s a glow I felt deserved special attention this week: the glowing skin of The Root’s Editor-in-Face-Chief, Danielle Belton. In fact, Danielle’s skin is so lit-from-within, it recently inspired comedian, actress and author Michelle Buteau to pause mid-interview to compliment it (more on that to come)—but as my partner-in-hosting at The Root Presents: It’s Lit! later disclosed, her flawless face is the result of a skincare routine perfected during the quarantine. Of course, I had to know more—and thought you might want to know, too. So, without further ado, here’s Danielle’s 5-step routine for flawless skin. (I suggest you take notes.)
A little can go a long way.
That was the lesson the pandemic and quarantine time taught me. Twenty minutes of walking and working out can keep your feet from swelling up to balloons from sitting obscene amounts of time while working from home. Setting a timer to just get up and walk around, stretch or stand every hour on the hour also helps. Going to bed an hour earlier can turn you into a morning person over time. And just developing a skincare routine—any kind of proper care routine that fits your skin type—can turn your usually fine, but kind of dull skin, into illuminating, Jennifer Lopez levels of shiny and fantastic.
First things first: Pre-pandemic I wore makeup quite a bit because my skin was uneven in tone. I wanted a more uniform look and I could only achieve it with some kind of liquid foundation or tinted moisturizer. The end result was a great “no-makeup” all-makeup look that was simple and lovely, but the illusion devolved into a greasy reality after a few hours of wear.
Facts: my face is so greasy you could probably fry chicken with it. This is actually a good thing, as it keeps my wrinkles at bay and my skin youthful, but I still get acne on occasion and tinted moisturizer can at times turn into a messy, gross, bronze-colored oil slick. It’s greasy in the T-zone. It’s greasy on the cheeks. It’s greasy everywhere. I don’t like it, but I hate wrinkles more, so I accept it as my skincare burden, meaning I have to always have tissues or blotting papers on hand and makeup is futile in the summer months.
So I needed a routine that could reduce the oil without stripping me dry. One that kept my skin clear and my pores relatively unclogged. What I developed was simple, (because I’m impatient and lazy) creating a system utilizing one daily exfoliating cleanser, one moisturizer, one skin brightener to deal with my uneven spots and acne scars, and, finally, one eye cream to help me wake up these peepers.
First, the cleanser!
