[gentle music]
- Hi, my name is Salem Mitchell
and I'm gonna show you my everyday skincare
and beauty routine.
I use Cetaphil Daily Facial Cleanser.
It's pretty basic drugstore brand. I love it.
If it's not broken, don't fix it.
I wasn't allowed to wear makeup growing up.
My parents really wanted me to feel confident in my skin
and in my freckles.
So I really got into skincare after modeling
and coming home from photo shoots
and having like tons of makeup on,
and that's kind of how I learned
about all the different products I use now.
Next in my skincare routine,
I use Kiehl's Cucumber Herbal Toner.
I realized, even with cleansing,
sometimes I would still have mascara
and residue in my inner eyelids and stuff like that.
So toner has definitely helped eliminate excess dirt
that I thought I got and didn't at all.
I would say a really good piece of skincare advice
I've gotten from my mom is not to do too much makeup
and too much skincare.
My mom also has freckles
and I think that that's helped me feel super confident
in my own skin.
Okay next, I do this really early in my skincare routine.
This is the Fenty Beauty Pro lip scrubber
and I love this as like a lip exfoliator.
My lips are kind of big
and in the winter, they get so dry and flaky
and it's ridiculous
so exfoliating them is a very pivotal step
to the success of my beauty routine.
Obsessed with Rihanna.
I've been blessed to work with her on Savage x Fenty
as well as Fenty Skin
and that was a big deal for me.
And actually when I modeled Fenty Skin,
that was where I learned about this lip exfoliating brush.
Okay, another favorite of mine that I also learned on set
is these Peter Thomas Roth Eye Gel Patches.
Anything that has cucumber or "hydra" in the name,
somehow that's like a buzzword for me to buy it.
Something about it just sounds
like it's going to refresh me and change my life.
It's a little spa tease, you know.
Having a platform where you know I get tons of feedback,
both positive and negative,
it's really difficult for me to balance
keeping an authentic connection with my audience
while also keeping my boundaries and protecting myself
from people who wanna be rude and to bring me down
and maybe say negative things about my freckles or my hair.
My rule of thumb with clapping back
is always it's only necessary
if it's going to help more than one person
and more than just me.
My next step is this Tatcha Dewy Skin Mist.
I really love this and when I do this,
I take a nice deep breath
and just release everything for my day.
This is my favorite moisturizer. I use about this much.
My favorite makeup look that I've ever done for a shoot
is I did a photo shoot with this amazing makeup artist
and photographer named Raoul Alejandre
and he gave me this amazing, worldly,
alien-esque beauty look.
And I had this egg in my hand.
I felt so transformed.
I think he found the perfect balance
between transforming me,
but also accentuating my natural features.
My next step are my Skin Worship Dew Drops.
These are combined of different natural oils.
I don't use too much because oil is a lot
and my hands are already oily
and I can't really always put the excess on my body.
I like to pole dance, and so if I'm going to pole dancing,
you can't have any lotion on or you will slip off the pole.
I enjoy doing it as a hobby,
but I have so much respect for women who dance to survive
because it's really challenging to get on a pole,
not prepared for the conditions of the pole.
Next, I use this Paula's Choice sunscreen.
I really like this because it's SPF 50
which is super strong and I prefer a dewy look on my skin.
This is great because I don't think it's super matte
and it keeps me looking all glossy and shiny all day.
I have lighter skin,
but it's really hard as a Black woman
to find sunscreen that doesn't leave a white cast
on your face.
My dad is darker than me and he would always say,
"We're Black, we don't need sunscreen."
And that was the biggest myth that I ever heard.
I remember being in high school.
I went to the beach, did not wear sunscreen.
I got a sunburn and I peeled right here
and I lost a freckle.
From that day, I was like,
"I'm not listening to my dad.
I'm listening to the professionals,
and I'm going to be wearing sunscreen."
All right, the last step to my skincare routine
is a little lip care.
I use the Laneige Overnight Lip Mask.
I really value my skincare routine more than makeup.
One, because I am not super well versed in makeup yet.
But also I just think my skin is super important
and the way that beauty has been marketed
to me throughout my childhood is not the same
in the way that it is now.
When I was younger, having freckles,
it was more seen as something that you should cover up,
something that you should hide.
So beauty and makeup wasn't that inclusive
to someone like myself and it wasn't as empowering
as it is today.
Back when I was 15, 16, because of my freckles,
I would always get this repeat insult
that I looked like a bruised banana with spots.
I told myself like, "What can you do Salem
to stop this from happening?"
So I found some bananas that had spots at my dad's house
and I took a picture with all of them and I said,
"Okay, this is my family."
And I posted it everywhere and that ended up going viral.
And a few months later, this photographer who I love,
her name is Mayan Toledano, she saw me on the Explore page
and she reached out to me to shoot.
And in May, she cast me for my first shoot in New York
which was "100 Ways to Wear Gucci" for vogue.com
and that was where everything took off.
And I'm really grateful for that.
And I'm super happy that she was persistent
in wanting to shoot me.
Moving on to makeup. My makeup routine is super simple.
I start with the Glossier Boy Brow in Brown.
It's so funny.
I remember being 16
when the Anastasia Beverly Hills Dip Brow was a trend
and everybody was doing that really strong brow.
And I was so jealous because my eyebrows,
while they're full, they're a little short.
So I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm never gonna get this arch.
I'm never gonna have this strong arch."
And I'm happy I grew out of that
because I think we all look back at those pictures
and we think that was crazy.
I don't do anything to my brows.
I don't wax them and I don't tweeze them.
And I learned that from my grandmother
because my grandma tweezed her eyebrows so much growing up
and now her eyebrows are really thin.
Everybody in my family was like
"Don't touch your brows 'cause you will tweeze them
and you will not get them back after a certain age."
Next is mascara. I use the Saie Beauty Mascara.
I think my best experience is on set,
it's, overall, I think the friendships that I've made.
I've been doing this since 2016, it's 2023 now,
and I have some friends now
that I think that I'll have for a lifetime.
Or even if not, they've taught me so many lessons
about life and love and friendship and connection.
I think that my relationships with people,
but especially women, are super important
to my mental health and my growth.
And I'm so thankful that the majority of the relationships
that I've made with women through this journey
have all been positive.
Last step of my daily beauty routine
is I use this Tom Ford Luxury Lip Gloss.
This is the color 20 Phantom.
So continuing on with getting ready for the day.
This is my next step.
It may be a bit controversial,
but I like it and I was able to find it,
so I'm gonna use it.
I usually will just use a little bit of hair oil
in the parts of my hair to keep it shiny.
I try not to use too much.
I usually get my hair done every month to a month and a half
after taking a two to two and a half week break from braids.
I love having braids.
It's an amazing protective style,
but it does still create a little bit of tension
on the head.
So it's really important to make sure
that I'm taking care of my scalp in between.
All right, my last step in getting ready for the day
is I use this Nairobi Foaming Lotion.
So basically the types of braids that I have,
they're knotless braids.
The top is braiding hair and the bottom is human hair.
So this is a little mousse that I use
to keep the bottom ends that are open
like nice and wavy and cute.
I love it.
You can also use it on your whole head.
I usually do if my hair is a little more old
and if it has more fly-aways.
I don't necessarily need to do that right now
'cause I kind of just got my hair done
in the last couple weeks.
All right, this is my final look.
I'm ready to go about my day.
I feel amazing and beautiful,
and I hope everybody else has a great day.
[gentle music]