Photos: Ekaterina Starostina
Interview: Margarita Virova
For the heading "Available" we study the contents of beauty cases, dressing tables and cosmetic cases of characters we are interested in - and show all this to you.
Maria Chekalina
BEAUTY EDITOR OF THE BLUEPRINT
I love painting, but I don't know how to draw with dignity, so my face is my canvas
About mindful care
I have sensitive skin, prone to oily, pigmentation and redness - all "joys" at once. Therefore, cleansing, moisturizing and sun protection are important for her. In the morning, this is micellar water, eye cream, antioxidant serum, moisturizing serum, and then moisturizing cream with SPF. In the evening - a cleanser, micellar water, again a cream for the skin around the eyes, a regenerating serum (now anti-couperose) and a night cream. There are three brands in my locker all the time: La Roche-Posay, SkinCeuticals and Ultraceuticals. I love face masks, I have a lot of them. I like the fact that more and more three-minute products appear, for example, oxygen Bliss or Night Wear Plus from Estée Lauder. Sometimes it is difficult to lie still for ten to fifteen minutes, especially when you apply three successively (my salvation in the morning after a party).
I am in favor of listening to cosmetologists and other experts, but listening first of all to myself: I chose all the care intuitively. There are no good and bad products, there are those that do not work with your skin. For example, my skin reacts to La Mer cosmetics with rashes - apparently, an allergy to some component, and my friend's scars on her face healed faster from the same cream.
On the extremes in makeup
As a child, I remember a character from the book "Ozma of Oz" - Princess Langweder. She had a wardrobe of thirty heads, one for each day of the month. Each had a different eye color, nose and lip shape, hair texture and shade, skin tone and character. It's a dream - every day you can change and play a new role; make-up performs this function for me - I set the desired mood with cosmetics. The process of application itself is like meditation, there are no other thoughts at this moment. On the other hand, I love painting, but I don't know how to draw with dignity, so my face is my canvas.
I often go to extremes: either nude makeup (in my case it is five to seven means, otherwise I am a person without a face), or glitter, dark lipstick, bright colors. If I met a person when I was wearing a lot of makeup, the next time he might not recognize me. I found my first make-up scheme in Yes! Magazine, so I still believe in the materials “how to make such and such a make-up”. Although inspiration can be found everywhere: at the university I wore crimson eyeshadow with black eyeliner around my eyes - I spied on Olga Shelest in one of the issues of Cheerful Morning. After the opera-promenade "The Queen of Spades" took out shimmering shadows and a highlighter from the bowels of her cosmetic bag - she was inspired by the image of the main character. I didn't use lipstick until I was twenty-five, when I got to work at Glamor magazine and found the right shades; Before that, any lipstick turned me into a porn star. The search for the right shade of the eyebrow product ended only four years ago - the MAC powder shadows in the Omega shade were ideal.
As for the manicure, the blue color for me, as for many - red: universal and does not irritate the look. I played enough with nail design back in school: at the age of thirteen, after a vacation in America, I returned with a set for nail art Kiss. There were six bottles with fine tassels, and I painted on my nails islands with palm trees, electric guitars and patterns (Burberry checks, for example), for which I looked for inspiration in fashion magazines. All my friends and colleagues know that I need a wide range of shades, so I look for long-lasting products in a wide range of Essie, Christina Fitzgerald, Smith & Cult. I do manicure mostly at home on my own, but I go to the salon as needed and only on unedged ones.
About dermatitis care
This is not the first winter I have experienced only with La Roche-Posay Lipikar body balm, because with the arrival of cold weather and heating, atopic dermatitis appears. I tried other moisturizers, only Lipikar saves and it is balm. The rest of the time I use body creams of different brands to maintain elasticity. I don’t go overboard with scrubs, the principle “better less often, but better” works with my skin. I love any massage, the best at Mandara Spa, Chavana Spa, Decleor Spa by StandArt, Natura Siberica and BeYoga studio.
About volatile scents
Perfumery for me is an endless journey into the world of smells, like food - into the world of tastes. I keep looking for something new, because preferences change over the years. I used to love only fresh light fragrances: Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue is my first long love. Then there were perfumes with a soft leather note, such as Tom Ford White Suede. Now I am a big fan of Atelier Cologne. Its creators, husband and wife, even manage to make oriental chords light and not suffocating. Even if I don't use all of the brand's fragrances myself, I can appreciate how cool they sound. Now I have two scents: Camelia Intrepide and Mimosa Indigo, but I hooked one of my friends on Atelier Cologne so that he already has four brand fragrances.
About a healthy lifestyle
Ten years ago, I asked a friend what he does to look good after thirty. He said: "I don't drink, I don't smoke, I eat little, I sleep a lot." It turned out he lied, but the formula works. I try not to abuse alcohol, get enough sleep and eat right. I always have a glass bottle of water on my desk so that I don't forget to drink during the day. Water is what I start the morning with and what is always at hand - in the office, on the plane, in the hotel.
I started eating right at the age of fourteen, thanks to women's magazines: then a green salad first appeared in the family refrigerator, then I was the first to refuse mayonnaise olivier even on New Year's Eve. In general, I try not to go on "fast" diets, although there have been times like this, but just eat healthy food, excluding soda, mayonnaise, and fast food from the diet. But everything has to be balanced, so a juicy burger with a pint of cider in a pub is my gilty plege.
I do not regularly go in for sports, but I constantly try something and try to get used to being systematic: even at school I went to tennis and yoga, then to fitness, I got carried away with body ballet for several months, the last six months I was cycling. But my main load is brisk walking. I walk and take the subway at a very high speed - this is also a kind of cardio. When I remember, I do exercises in the morning or twist the hoop for twenty minutes, and the bar helps to reduce back pain.
Over the past year, I fell in love with herbal preparations instead of tea: with chamomile or mint - at night to calm the nerves, in the morning - with cinnamon for vigor. In a good way, I got hooked on aromatherapy: sometimes I take relaxing baths with essential oils or spray a spray with them in the room. Somehow she even eased a runny nose without drops: I did steam baths with eucalyptus and pine essential oils in the morning and in the evening, and fought with echinacea tincture with sluggishness of the body after a cold.
