Welcome to Take the Edge Off, a monthly series where we break down the beauty and self-care routines of influencers, CEOs, professionals, and celebrities to discover how they unwind and decompress, while taking a closer look at the holy grail beauty essentials they’re currently raving about.
Celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Emma Stone count themselves as fans of KNC Beauty’s Instagram-ready lip and eye masks, which have been a viral hit since the brand’s launch in 2016. KNC Beauty—named after its founder and CEO, Kristen Noel Crawley—was inspired by a visit Crawley took to Tokyo’s Don Quijote market.
“I’m really fortunate to be able to travel with these super-luxury brands, and one of the first trips I ever went on was a Dior trip to Tokyo,” Crawley tells BAZAAR.com. “I had a few hours of free time, so I decided to stroll through the aisles of Don Quijote—which is like their Target—and I saw lip masks. I’m from the Midwest and used to have chronically chapped lips no matter what I did, so I loved the idea of these products, and they worked well. But I also noticed that they contained a lot of chemical ingredients, and I thought that it was weird to put those on your mouth, you know? So when I came back to the States, I looked for a natural alternative, and there wasn’t one, so it just kind of took off from there.”
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In addition to launching a bevy of KNC Beauty products, including the popular Big Set Trio, and partnerships with major brands like Champion and A Bathing Ape, one of Crawley’s most impactful brand ventures has been the creation of the KNC School of Beauty, a mentoring initiative for up-and-coming beauty entrepreneurs that the founder says helps her give back to her community.
“I’ve mentored quite a few young women in the past, but it wasn’t really structured; sometimes they’d call or text me, and we’d have conversations or go to lunch. So I was already kind of doing that, just more on a personal level with people I had relationships with,” Crawley explains. “But after George Floyd was killed, I remember sitting at home watching all these brave people protesting during the pandemic, putting their lives on the line and standing up for what they believe, and I was just at home with my kids feeling kind of useless and powerless. And I thought to myself, ‘How can I help my community? And how can I make a difference during this really difficult time?'”
After connecting with her agents at Brooklyn-based company Sun-ny Side Up, Crawley decided to formally launch the KNC School of Beauty to make her sage mentorship advice more accessible on a larger scale. “My agency loves the idea and is really integral in bringing it to fruition,” she adds. “It was a direct response to what’s going on in the country,” Crawley says of the mentorship initiative, “and me just trying to make a difference in any way that I could.”
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For our latest installment of Take the Edge Off, Crawley gives us a closer look at the habits that shape her current beauty and self-care routines while minimizing stress and encouraging grounding. In addition to the beauty boss being a certified “candle girl,” she’s also very into body care as a form of relaxation, and she’s a master at the five-minute no-makeup makeup look.
What are you reading these days?
So I’m not currently reading anything, but it’s because my eldest son and I have a Christmas movie marathon going on right now. So every day, we watch a new Christmas movie for the whole month of December—we just finished watching 8-Bit Christmas, so I don’t really have much time to read anything at the moment.
What are some of your go-to bath and/or shower products?
So I have a few. I just moved back to Chicago, but in L.A., I had this amazing Korean spa place right by my house. And I would go and get these full-body scrubs. And they would, you know, scrub you with that mitt, and all of your dead skin would come off, and then you’d get in the bath. It was amazing, and I’ve been missing that a lot. So I purchased the Exfoliating Mitt from this beauty brand called Elle Effect, which is actually a tanning brand. The mitt works to remove all of your dry skin, which primes it for tanning, but I generally use it with soap in the shower. My skin has been so, so soft—I use it almost every day.
In the wintertime, I get really dry, so I like to lock in moisture right out of the shower. After I’m done, I’ll lightly dry myself off and reach for the Kiehl’s Creme de Corps Nourishing Dry Body Oil, which comes as a spray. It’s really convenient for me, since I can just spray it on and rub it in, and it feels like it locks in a lot of the moisture my skin needs. I’ve also been using the Aman Skincare Purifying Palo Santo Salve, which is, like, super fancy and swanky. I was sent a bunch of the brand’s products to test out, and this one smells amazing. I like to put it on my elbows, my knees, on the bottom of my feet—all of my crazy-dry-prone areas. That’s my shower regimen right now.
What beauty or self-care products do you use on a regular basis to help combat Zoom fatigue?
What I just did before I got on with you was just a very light kind of no-makeup makeup look, which consists of Simihaze’s Sun Flush All-Over Face Tint in Blaze, which is so nice and adds an instant kind of flush to my face to help wake me up. I also use the Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk Concealer under my eyes and Glossier Play’s Nightshine Highlighter on my nose in the pearl color for a little highlight. Lastly, I apply my Supa Balm, and that’s it.
Do you have a favorite hand sanitizer, soap, and/or cream right now?
Nordstrom
As I mentioned, I’m in Chicago, and it’s cold as hell. And with COVID, I’m washing and sanitizing so much more than usual. I always wash my hands, but now it’s before and after everything I do, so I had to bring out the Byredo Rose Hand Cream. It’s so thick, but it’s not greasy, so I really like using that one. When I’m traveling, I like to keep a travel-size version in my purse. I also love the Elevator Music–scented cream from the Byredo-by-Off-White collaboration, which is just a little tiny tube that fits in every purse. I really do love Byredo’s hand creams the most out of all the ones I’ve tried so far.
Do you ever light a candle or stick of incense to decompress? If so, what are some of your favorites?
Yes! I love taking a bath and having a candle going. I’m really into Dior‘s range of candles, they’re really nice! I still also love Diptyque‘s—I’ve been a big fan of the brand for over 10 years and never get tired of them. I also just started burning the Trudon candle, which smells like a forest, like, a really bougie forest, and it’s amazing. I think in the winter, it’s nice to have, like, an evergreen smell or something with a little cinnamon in it, so, yeah, I burned through that one already and need to order some more. I’m a candle girl for sure.
What was the last beauty product you put on today?
The KNC Beauty Supa Balm. I always do my lips last, because when I get my makeup done, they always do my lips last, so it’s just habit. But also, I just needed to give them a little shine before my interview.
Are you into bold makeup, no makeup, or no-makeup makeup right now, and why?
No-makeup makeup is the way to go. And it’s funny because I shoot a lot of content, and for a while, it was like, “I can’t do anything without having my makeup done!” And when I lived in L.A., I would just have people come over and do everything at the house. Now I have to go into the city to get my makeup done, which is so annoying! So I’m pretty much forced into doing no-makeup makeup for content shots, but actually it’s fine. It’s a lot easier and more relatable, and I still feel pretty. Plus, it’s a lot better for the skin.
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What’s the last fitness class you streamed or attended in person?
So that’s something I haven’t done much of lately. I do want to attend this breath work class that Nadia Josse hosts. And she always posts about this class on Instagram, and I would love to try it one day. It’s over Zoom, and it teaches you breathing exercises, which is super important—I had both of my children with no anesthesia, no nothing, and the only way I got through it was by really focusing on my breathing. When you do that, you can pretty much get through anything, so I want to try out that class and see what it’s all about.
What’s one piece of self-care advice you’d recommend to our readers?
Sometimes self-care isn’t doing your 15-step routine; sometimes it’s just going to bed. Sometimes it’s not washing your face. I’ve found that, yeah, it feels nice to go to bed super clean and all that, but sometimes I don’t feel like doing it. So I would say that self-care, for me, is doing whatever you think you need at that time and not feeling bad about it.
The past few years have been really hard for everybody with a lot of burnout and a lot of sadness and tragedy happening around us all the time, and it’s just really hard to do life right now. So I think we need to give ourselves that kind of grace that we didn’t really extend to ourselves before. Because it was always like, “On to the next, working, working”—you know? Life was so fast-paced. I really realized in the last two years especially—like, I’ve lost people that are close to me, I’ve seen people lose their jobs and their homes, and it’s just a really, really tough time for everybody. So my advice is to just give yourself grace, because sometimes self-care is just getting through the day.
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10 Self-Care Essentials Kristen Noel Crawley Swears By
Source: Filipino Journal Articles
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