Helene Ravlich, Pretty Beautiful

Helene is a gorgeous writer who mostly works in two distinct industries: music and beauty. A rock-chick at heart, she’s interviewed a stellar line up of rockers, rappers and all in-between including Guns N Roses guitarist Slash, who she describes as a pretty cool gentleman. Helene juggles her busy freelance workload with her blog, Pretty Beautiful, and her son Wolf.

“My daily routine is really simple, I don’t like loads of products. I think it came from years ago when I travelled a lot for work and I got sick of having to pack giant bags where my toilet bags were like way more than anything else. And so I started paring everything back. At the moment I’m trialling a lot of stuff which is why it looks like there’s heaps in my cabinet but everyday I don’t actually use that many things.

I don’t use any exfoliants on my face but I use them on my body, but definitely not on my face because I’ve got really reactive skin and eczema and it just makes it bright red and feel awful. I would never have microdermabrasion or anything like that. It just doesn’t seem right, to me.

I’ve started using muslin cloths for my cleansing and my skin has improved, so for me that is like exfoliation, that’s enough for my skin. I use those now religiously, I don’t use flannels I use muslin cloths and wash them every day. It’s great because I’ve recycled all the muslins that I bought for Wolf when he was a baby. I’ve chopped them all up into little cloths.

I’m also loving that new Stila brush that mimics the finger for foundation – it’s just brilliant, it gets into the tiniest little creavices when I’m doing my concealor. Really good.

I tend to use only organic or as organic-as-I-can-get-it for skincare. Not something that’s just put a couple of drops of lavender oil in it and an ingredient list that’s as long as my arm – I’d never use that. I think I got more vigilant about it when I was pregnant and realized how easy it is. A lot of people find it more daunting and they think, “oh I’ve got to go around and I’ve got to check all the ingredients” but once you’ve done it, it just comes naturally.

For someone that gets sent makeup all the time I’m so not adventurous. I’ve worn the same three lipsticks for the last ten years. They’re MAC Velvet Teddy during the day – always. At night either MAC Lady Danger or MAC Russian Red. And that’s pretty much IT. Tragic…

The foundation I like to wear during the day is Becca, their pressed mineral foundation, which is amazing, it means you can do your entire face in less than a minute. That’s really good. At night I use MAC Studio Sculpt but I water it down a little bit with a Smashbox Illuminator, I’m not sure what it’s called, it’s the white one. I get that and I mix it up on my hand with my Studio Sculpt and it just gives it a bit more of a glean. I really love that.

For my eyes I like to do a black liquid liner, I like to do a little wing or a really easy smokey eye and it’s not even really a smokey eye. I just get a big fat Nars pencil and rub it on or a MAC Greasepaint stick.

The only blush I use is Nars Orgasm cos I love that, you can wear it any time of the year too. I wear the powder version and I’ve probably been wearing it about ten years now, well for ages anyway.

When I was little my mum would put my makeup on me for ballet and I’d get stuck into the same makeup and try and do the same thing. Horrendous. And probably in my teens and early twenties I wore SO much makeup and looking back I didn’t need it so I don’t know what I was thinking. I just remember my face was caked permanently. It would take me half an hour to do it in the morning while I put on different concealors and foundation but I had incredible skin. If I could turn back the clock and have that skin now I’d be walking around with no makeup on every day. It’s the same as when you’re young and you worry about your body all the time and you worry about going to the beach in a bikini and now, I look back at my body and I’m like, ‘what was I worried about?’. I wish I could go back to me and say don’t worry about it you look great, stop stressing.  Stop putting too much makeup on and hiding yourself.

Probably my favourite fragrance is Comme de Garcon Insense the Avignon one and I really like Kiehls Original Musk – love that. That was the perfume, when I used to wear the body lotion all the time before I could get the perfume, I used to get stopped almost every day by people saying, “you smell amazing, what is that smell?” And I really like it. Jo Malone Dark Amber and Ginger Lily and Pomegranate Noir and Aesop Marrakech roll on perfume oil… I really love that too. I like that kind of, I guess woody, spicey smells, rather than florals.

Every six weeks I go and see Lauren at Stephen Marr but it’s been so much more low maintanence now than it used to be. All I do is get some highlights on the ends now and I’m in and out of there in an hour and a half. [In the past] I’ve done really, really blonde, I’ve done really, really dark and then that Ombre thing as well. At the moment it’s just natural to there [points to her ends] and then highlights on the end. I can go months and months without doing anything to it, if I want to. And since I chopped all my hair off I’ve been trying to grow it again but I’ve still been getting it cut every six  weeks to shape it. I want to get it past my shoulders again but not probably as long as it was…

When I cut it off I loved that I could wash and dry it so quickly. I’ve got so much hair and it was really, really easy. But I just want a little bit of length back.

I use Bestow beauty oil, it’s this incredible FlaxSeed Oil mix and I put that on my cereal every morning. I take Evening Primrose Oil morning and night and I take a Pro-Biotic and yellow diamonds three times a day.

I work out 7 days a week, I exercise every day. I do pilates (both mat and reformer), spinlates, spin classes and boot camps and yoga. I started off doing reformer because I’ve got a really bad back and so I found it easier to stabilise with the reformer but now I’ve got stronger I do mat as well and I find that harder. I’m getting more out of mat than I did out of reformer.

I do it every day – it’s me time, it’s meditation time, I guess because when you’re putting all that pressure on your body in some way it stops you thinking about all the other shit that clutters up your mind. You’re just concentrating on not dropping a dumb bell on your face. Or something like that. Rather than shopping… and deadlines. Usually one hour to one and a half hours a day. Always in the morning. I’m a lot stronger and I’ve got muscles but they’re leaner and longer.

I’d say my style was a work in progress. I’ve worked out that I do have a bit of a uniform. My wardrobe seems to be full of skinny jeans and jackets – I’ve got so many jackets of different kinds. So it’s skinny jeans, or leather pants and jackets with tee shirts. Or dresses. But there’s nothing in-between. I don’t own any skirts I don’t think. I don’t like too many bits and pieces… I’ve got lots of nice frilly, girly dresses and then tight jeans and high heels. That’s easy.

as told to bg – photos by tamsin