Leandra Medine & Abie Cohen

Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
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Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
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Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
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Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
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Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
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Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
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Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
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Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
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Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
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Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
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Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
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Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
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Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
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Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
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Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
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Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
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Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
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Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
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Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
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Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine
Abie Cohen and Leandra Medine

Abie Cohen [analyst]: We moved in together this past June, the day after we got married.

ITG : How did you divide the bathroom cabinet space?

Leandra Medine [The Man Repeller]: Well, we have two, so I usually use the bathroom next to the home office. And, in the other bathroom, he has the cabinet closest to the shower and I take the other two.

Abie : She gets more space, but I get the prime real estate. When I moved us in, she was in Paris, so I picked the sides I wanted.

ITG : Had either of you ever shared a bathroom?

Leandra : No.

Abie : No, except with guys in dorms. That’s it. Now, we have a proper-sized bathroom with a few mirrors, plenty of counter space, and we have a second one with three more cabinets where she puts the gifted stuff.

Leandra : That’s the swag bathroom. Every time someone comes over I’m like, “Take a Chubby Stick!”

ITG : Abie, do you get to enjoy any of the swag?

Abie : I use whatever the prevalent shampoo and conditioner is in the shower at that point, which changes every week.

Leandra : It’s usually Bumble and Bumble Seaweed Shampoo and Conditioner. It’s great—I have oily hair and it makes it less oily. And, Abie, you like your Kiehl’s products, right?

Abie : I love Kiehl’s, but I’m not really loyal to any one brand. With girls’ products, it’s crazy. There are so many brands that— I think—make the same thing. I don’t know if there is anything like that on the guys’ side, definitely not for beauty products… I could relate it to golf balls. There’s a white, basic golf ball, but there are 50 companies that make them and put their stamp on it, and it’s profitable.

Leandra : I mean, the fundamental difference is that you swing at a golf ball with a…?

Abie : A putter?

Leandra : Yeah, a putter. But beauty products tell you that this one’s going to stop you from aging, this one’s going to remove wrinkles from your face, this one’s going to remove bags from under your eyes….

Abie : But aren’t they all just trying to make you, I don’t know, prettier? Actually, I don’t know what they do, or what they don’t do.

Leandra : I don’t wear very much makeup. So, he’s not really exposed to having to wait hours for his wife to put a face on.

Abie : And I appreciate that. I really do.

Leandra : It takes me 10 minutes to get ready. An all-inclusive 10 minutes. But that’s because I don’t do that much. You’re better than me about skincare.

Abie : I just use Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Moisturizer that I get on Amazon.com.

ITG : Amazon has everything.

Leandra : That bookshelf is from Amazon. I actually bought Abie on Amazon.

Abie : [Laughs]

Leandra : I don’t really moisturize my face. I do in the summer, I promise, and then I use Clinique Moisture Surge Intense. Sometimes I’ll use that before I go to sleep, too. Last year, I was really good about doing it every night before I went to bed…. But it is really not comfortable going to bed with cream on your face; it’s weird.

Abie : It goes away, it absorbs!

Leandra : I don’t know about that.

ITG : Apparently, the key to not getting wrinkles is to have super moisturized, oily skin.

Leandra : I feel like the key to not getting wrinkles is to stop emoting…. [To Abie] Can I tell a story about you?

Abie : What? Which one?

Leandra : Once, when we were first dating, I had to drop something off at your apartment one night and I came in and you were laying in bed watching TV. I got next to him in the bed and he was like, “Be careful—I’m wearing a mask on my face.”

Abie : Come on.

Leandra : You were wearing a face mask! And then he broke up with me a few months later and I was like, “Whatever, he must be gay.”

Abie : My acne must have been bad at that point, which is why I was wearing the mask.

Leandra : I don’t think so.

Abie : I’m telling you that must have been it. The thing is, I shave every day, except for the weekends. So, you are just constantly cutting your face up, ripping it up, and scraping it off. So if you don’t moisturize it and let it recover, your face will be a mess.

ITG : Do you like Abie clean-shaven or with stubble?

Leandra : I love him with stubble. This is my favorite.

Abie : It’s a Sunday, after not shaving since Friday. It feels the best, and it’s probably the best for my skin.

ITG : Abie, do you prefer her with stubble or without?

Leandra : He doesn’t have a choice. I always have stubble. I have to go laser. I haven’t lasered in, like, six months. I’m just really afraid that some study is going to come out about it causing serious, violent cancer. I mean, they are shooting laser beams into your body and stopping natural hair growth…. After lasering, I like to use lotion to keep my legs smooth. I like the Tocca Rich Body Cream—it just smells so clean.

Abie : I think you like the jar, too.

Leandra : [Laughs] Yes, it’s very stylized. But I don’t do much else. In terms of makeup, I wear red lipstick, that’s it. I don’t wear nail polish. I haven’t had a manicure in a year-and-a-half—I like wearing a lot of rings, and I hate the way nail color looks with rings—it too ‘accessorized.’ But red lipstick, I think, changes everything. I first tried it on last summer with a friend. I was like, “I wanna have a red lip, I just don’t think I can do it,’ so Emily actually gave me that YSL Rouge Pur Couture Glossy Stain to try. It was an orange-y red, and sheer. And now I’m in the big leagues with lipstick. I’ve been using Tom Ford Narcotic Rouge—it stays on my lips the longest. I also really like the new Clinique Intense Chubby Sticks, which are thicker and a little less of a commitment.

Abie : I like it when you wear lipstick. I think it’s sexy.

Leandra : Thanks.

Abie : I do notice it does stay on your lips for a while; you can’t take it off so easily. You’ll wake up in the morning and they’re still bright red.

Leandra : [Laughs] I used to worry that I’d look like Frida Kahlo with red lipstick, but now I like looking like Frida Kahlo. No, actually, I know what happened: I wore red lipstick to a Charlotte Ronson show a few seasons ago and people kept tweeting, “There’s front row Frida @manrepeller!” and I was like, “Ah, nuts…” But I’ve embraced it. I also thought, ‘Maybe I should just tweeze my eyebrows and then I’ll look fine.’

Abie : I feel like lipstick is now the only makeup thing you’ll do.

Leandra : It’s just so easy: to not have to put on mascara or a dab of eye shadow and be able to smear on a red lip instead makes it so simple to get up and go. You look ‘made up.’ If I don’t wear lipstick, I’ll do mascara, Lancôme Ôscillation—it’s probably the only product I still buy regularly. It’s thick, so it can get really clumpy the next day.

ITG : Wait, you don’t wash your face every night?

Leandra : No…

Abie : Are you kidding? Come on! [Laughs]

Leandra : Yeah, well, I don’t know. [Puts on mascara] This is what it looks like—it gives me like an ‘eye.’ But it can get kind of scary the day after.

Abie : See, that’s why you should wash your face once a night. You need to take care of your face!

Leandra : Because I have bags under my eyes? Those aren’t going to go away.

Abie : You could try sleeping with some cold compresses or masks on your eyes, right? Won’t that reduce the swelling?

Leandra : These are my eyes—they’re heirlooms. Genetic heirlooms. My mom gave them to me. I’m not trying to get rid of them.

Abie : But the Kiehl’s Facial Fuel Eye De-Puffer is good.

Leandra : Oh yeah! I was using it for a bit; it works.

ITG : [to Abie] Do you put anything in your hair?

Abie : I used to use gel— John Allan Rock Styling Gel, but I haven’t used it in three years probably.

Leandra : Because he looks like a Jewish club kid. When he puts gel in his hair, he literally looks like he’s going to Marquee.

ITG : [To Abie] You have great hair, though. It’s shiny and bouncy.

Leandra : Isn’t he handsome? He kind of looks like Paul Rudd, right?

Abie : [Laughs] He’s a funny guy. Anyways, no gel. Towards the end of the day, the gel would melt down your face and get all disgusting. Then I had some pomades, but it’s not my thing.

Leandra : I’m into Bumble Semisumo—I’ve started using it since I cut my hair…. Short hair is actually a lot easier to style because the products actually work—what’s the point of using a wax on long hair? It doesn’t do anything. Now, I use Bumble and Bumble Straight lotion when I get out of the shower to make my hair feel soft, some Semisumo on the tips, and then Surf Spray. That was such a Bumble-brag.

ITG : Any conflicts arise from sharing the same bathroom in a NYC apartment?

Abie : Ha!

Leandra : I mean, there are so many pet peeves that he could rattle off about me, but I just have one, which is that he does not clean the sink after he brushes his teeth. There are always clumps of Sensodyne in the sink. I have to scrub them off with my fingers, since he leaves for work an hour before I wake up. It’s so gross.

ITG : [To Abie] What time do you have to be at work?

Abie : 7:30am.

Leandra : Living the life of a banker. But my nights are longer.

Abie : Yeah, I’m home by 6:30pm usually.

Leandra : I’m still by my computer until 8pm.

ITG : At least you guys don’t overlap shower times.

Leandra : He will never overlap with me for shower time because I don’t shower. I literally shower like twice a week.

ITG : Abie, any pet peeves that you have about her?

Abie : All the hair everywhere—in the shower, in the sink—is kind of weird to me. Especially when you use your [flat] iron. It just pulls the hair out!

Leandra : He has one sister and he always had his own bathroom, so he’s not used to it.

ITG : Speaking of which, what is that Darth Vader contraption on the toilet?

Abie : This is a Phillips Norelco groomer thing. I maybe use it twice a year.

Leandra : What do you shave on your body?

Abie : Things!

ITG : So, what are you guys doing for Valentine’s Day?

Leandra : I’m flying to London. We never really celebrate Valentine’s Day.

Abie : Last year, I think it was during New York Fashion Week and we had dinner reservations and they got cancelled.

Leandra : I was busy winning a Bloglovin award, ok! [Laughs] But seriously, I’m married to the most understanding human on this planet. We don’t have fights about these types of things and that’s why I keep pushing him because I feel like we’re at this stage in our lives where we can be so wholly selfish without having to wonder what’s going to be because, at the end of the day, we come home to each other. It’s not like I’m working really hard on the blog and also wondering what’s going to happen to my personal life.

Abie : You don’t have to worry about it. It’s the best thing ever.

Leandra Medine (in a Hanro jumpsuit) and Abie Cohen photographed by Emily Weiss in New York on February 10th, 2013.