Julia Restoin Roitfeld

Julia Restoin Roitfeld
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Julia Restoin Roitfeld
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Julia Restoin Roitfeld
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Julia Restoin Roitfeld
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Julia Restoin Roitfeld
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Julia Restoin Roitfeld
Julia Restoin Roitfeld
Julia Restoin Roitfeld
Julia Restoin Roitfeld
Julia Restoin Roitfeld
Julia Restoin Roitfeld
Julia Restoin Roitfeld
Julia Restoin Roitfeld
Julia Restoin Roitfeld
Julia Restoin Roitfeld

For me, beauty is more about prevention than anything. Especially now that I’ve hit 30, it’s more about being careful and maintaining my skin. I want to keep my youth and freshness and be wrinkle-free as long as possible because I don’t want to have to cheat—that’s what I call any cosmetic surgeries, cheating. So of course I like to be tan but now I try to avoid it. I don’t mind having a little glow, but now when I go to the beach, I put SPF 50 everywhere—either Avène or La Roche-Posay Anthelios. I have freckles, so as long as my little freckles come out I’m happy. I don’t like the dark brown look—I used to go on holiday competing with my brother on who’s going to be the most brown by the end of the vacation! Coqui Coqui, in Tulum, is one of my favorite destinations—my boyfriend’s best friend owns it. They have an incredible spa with their own products. I wear the Orange Blossom perfume.

I recently signed on with Lancôme, and I guess it’s any girl’s modeling dream come true. Especially being in a beauty ad, more so because I’m French. There are so many girls out there and I’m just so flattered they picked me. The Tom Ford fragrance ad was the first thing I did. Black Orchid is my winter scent, and of course it has a nostalgic feel.

In terms of skincare, I love the Eve Lom cleanser—I’m obsessed with it, I discovered it in London about a year ago. Your skin isn't dry after. Or I use Tracie Martyn’s cleanser, and she does a great mask/scrub that tightens. I’ve seen her twice, but she’s really expensive so I’ll have to wait a while now. I try to go to Mario Badescu for facials—it’s very basic, not too expensive. After cleansing, I apply Lancôme Génefique. They gave it to me on a shoot and I’m serious—it really is amazing. I got one for my boyfriend and he uses it all the time too. It brightens, and makes the skin super soft. And then on top of that I put the Embryolisse cream. And then I’ll do YSL Touche Eclat for dark circles, and a little bit of Lancôme Teint Miracle foundation—it’s very transparent but makes your pores disappear.

What I find is that you don’t need to go for fancy mascara—I always get the L’Oreal ones from the drugstore. I get the gold tube, Voluminous Million Lashes in black. It’s amazing; even my mom’s using it now. And the trick is, I use it on my eyebrows too, in black/brown: you just wipe off the excess before brushing it on. They sell you mascara brushes and stuff for eyebrows but you can really just use mascara. I also wear eyeliner every day—I feel naked without it. It’s more important for me to have eyeliner than blush, or bronzer, or whatever. I put it inside the bottom lash line—it gives you a finished look and takes two seconds. The Chanel one is quite greasy so it’s better to smudge on the top; for the bottom I like Lancôme and YSL crayons. I love liquid, to do the 60’s winged look, but it takes me so long to do so I save it for evening. For everyday, I’ll smudge a little eye shadow on the eyelids, usually Lancôme, or a khaki MACone; it depends on the mood. They’re all a little metallic. In the evening I’ll push it a little more. Right now I’m also wearing YSL blush but I also love the NARS sticks, The Multiple. I’m obsessed with these; really really good. When I moved to New York I became much more experimental with color—now I love playing with lipsticks and eye shadows. I have a month where I’ll commit to a certain look—its just periods and phases really. I used to wear a Chanel red all the time and I thought, ‘Everyone’s wearing red now, it’s getting a little boring’, so I switched to a YSL fuchsia. Fuchsia is my new red.

I never trust hairdressers so I always blow-dry it by myself. I go to Karen at Daniel Galvin in London for color—my boyfriend lives in London—and she makes me little bottles so I can do touch-ups at home. I’ve had a lot of grays since I was eighteen. It’s all vegetable colors so it doesn’t damage the hair. It’s between a gloss and a color. I want to keep my color as long as possible so I wash it every other day or every third day, with Kérastase shampoo, and use the Klorane Dry Shampoo in between. Sometimes I use that even just to add volume. It’s amazing. I also love the Chronologiste treatment from Kérastase, and another thing that I’ve been doing is using Borage Oil capsules—you get them at Whole Foods. I’ll split open the capsules and smooth them over the ends of the hair. It’s great for sunburned skin as well.

I go to the gym and I just do it by myself. I like to go whenever I feel like it and not worry about an appointment or classes. But also, and this sounds terrible, but the instructors here generally don’t have the kinds of bodies that inspire me…girls and boys, they’re very bulky—big muscles, and that’s not what I’m looking for. Pilates teachers look great; I go to re:AB Pilates when I can. And there’s an indoor pool underneath my apartment building—I’m really lucky, I love going there, but they need to heat it more! It’s really hard waking up in the morning and jumping into ice-cold water.

—as told to ITG