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Laurel Pantin, Associate Accessories & Shopping Editor, Glamour

Laurel Pantin
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Laurel Pantin
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Laurel Pantin
Laurel Pantin
Laurel Pantin
Laurel Pantin

“When I was in eighth grade, I cut my hair off. My dad ended up buzzing it for me. I just really liked how easy it was on a day-to-day basis. I also liked having to not worry about my hair because I feel like when you have curly hair, especially when you dye it, you’re always taking care of it, worrying if it’s frizzy or if it’s doing something. I cut it again last year—I felt like I was always taking home products and trying new stuff in my hair and always focusing on my hair and then at a certain point I was just like, ‘It’s just a waste of time!’ I always wear it up anyway. I also feel like, you are never going to look as good as you do right now. Like, I’m only getting older, so if there was ever a time to just not have anything but your face, now is the time. I also have no emotional attachment to my hair. When I cut it, I wasn’t upset. Everyone was like, ‘Did you cry?’ and, ‘What made you do it?’ and there was nothing that happened in my life, I just wanted to have short hair. People really read into it. Everyone was like, you know, ‘Did you break up with your boyfriend?’ or, ‘Did you get dumped?’ People just assume that there is something in your life that made you cut it off. But there was nothing, I just got sick of having hair, basically. I like the way it looks, and in the mornings it’s really easy. I have to get it cut like every two weeks, which is a pain. I bounce around for the color. I go to a million places. I think I’m going to start doing Manic Panic myself, bleaching it. When I couldn’t get in to get a color appointment and the roots were really bad, I used Jolene, the mustache bleach, and just did it along my hairline and it totally worked. It looked awesome, basically. So, I figure it can’t be that hard to bleach it myself. And the other thing about having short hair like this is that if you do something wrong and make a mistake, it doesn’t matter because in two weeks you’ll basically have all new hair anyway.

I like having my hair this bleached but I’m sort of wanting to go back to something more natural because of the maintenance. I’m super super low maintenance in terms of my upkeep. When I first cut my hair, everyone would say, ‘Oh, you’re going to have to start wearing earrings and start wearing makeup and everything.’ I just prefer the blankness of it. I also feel like the nose ring and all these little earrings that I have and my hair, it’s all so extreme that if I start painting my nails with glitter again or anything like that, it’s just too statement-y, so I have to keep everything else super super pared down. When I cut my hair, I was so afraid that everyone was going to be like, ‘Oh, she’s the quirky girl with the short hair! She’s so spunky and eccentric!’ That quirky, spunky, zany thing is the opposite of what I want, so now I think I have to be very conscious to keep makeup simple and not wear big earrings, and keep everything really really simple. And I also didn’t want to cut my hair off and then start dressing super feminine. So, I’ve been really conscious of that too. I just wanted to keep everything the same as before and not go too extreme with the short hair and little dress thing. I wear jeans all the time, I’m very tomboy-ish; I don’t wear dresses, I own six dresses maybe.

I feel like if you’re not going to wear a ton of makeup and if your thing is to be very minimal and whatever, like I am, I have to take really good care of my skin. So, on a day to day, I use La Prairie Tinted Moisturizer and it’s really really sheer, it’s SPF 20, and I also think it’s really moisturizing and really good for my skin. I like wearing mascara sometimes, that’s kind of the most I’ll do. I like CoverGirl LashBlast 24 Hour, something like that. I basically will use any CoverGirl mascara—they’re my favorite ones. And Joe Fresh actually makes these really amazing lip stains that I'll sometimes wear. They’re neon and they go on and it dries like a stain so it’s not gloss or sticky or anything, and it shows up kind of neon. There is an orange one that I like to use if I’m going to wear anything product-y. Other than that, I have really sensitive skin and I’m allergic to a lot of stuff, so I use a Vitamin E stick for chapstick all the time. I use a lot VMV products. It’s called VMV Hypoallergenics. They have a coconut oil—VMV Hypoallergenics Know It All—that I use kind of for everything; it’s extra virgin coconut oil and that’s it. It’s like a moisturizer—it’s like anti-bacterial, anti-microbial. I think it’s kind of expensive but a little bit goes a really long way. And their face wash is really moisturizing, really really gentle, Moisture Rich Creammmy Cleansing Milk. It works really well. I mean, the more that I’ve worked in beauty, I like to try a lot of stuff but I’m just finding that in the end, it’s the best to use the simplest things. I can’t really use a lot of stuff with a ton of fragrances, so I just have to basically use stuff for infants, stuff for babies.

I have always wanted to have the septum ring. When I was littler, when I was in eighth grade, I went through a really serious punk phase and it was like, ‘I’m gonna have a septum ring and get full sleeves of tattoos and do all this crazy stuff!’ I love tattoos and I love piercings and everything, but obviously I can’t and I wouldn’t want that now. But I’ve wanted a septum ring and I really wanted to do it before my birthday. So, at a certain point, I was just like, ‘I have to do it if I’ve wanted it for this long, I have to do it.’ And then I saw the septum chains, Colby’s [at New York Adorned] septum chains, and that was like, ‘Ok. I’m just gonna do it,’ because it’s so pretty and feminine even though it’s a big manly piercing to have, kind of. I never wanted the one on the outside of my nose and I never wanted any other kind of facial piercing just because of the scar or mark that it left, but this is so invisible during the day because I flip up the retainer so you can’t even see it if I tilt my head back which is partially because I have a tiny nose and tiny nostrils. It’s been healing fine. It doesn’t hurt at all unlike ear piercings; it’s been relatively easy since I did it. And it didn’t hurt when he pierced it either.”