Beauty Secrets: Mandi Woodruff
This week’s muse is Mandi Woodruff. I met Mandi several years ago when she was at Business Insider and I was at RetailMeNot. In addition to be an all-around awesome lady, Mandi is a long-time personal finance journalist and editor, and currently, she is executive editor of personal finance site, MagnifyMoney. She also produces and co-hosts the fantastic weekly podcast Brown Ambition, offering money and career strategies to women. I reached out to Mandi to learn her beauty secrets.
Giving up dairy in all forms was like a magic pill.
Here are Mandi’s beauty secrets:
- “Three years ago I finally came to terms with the fact that I am severely lactose intolerant. I thought I was just saving myself some embarrassing stomach issues but the payoff has been huge in other areas as well. All of my skin problems — acne and redness — that had plagued me since childhood totally stopped.
2. My other skin secret weapon is Clinique’s Dramatically Different Gel. Only the GEL version, not the cream. It has something magical in it that makes my skin very bright after a good night’s sleep. Between the no-dairy rule and this moisturizer, my skin has never looked better. I rarely wear foundation these days. I just wish Clinique would get their act together and add SPF to it and then it would be perfect.
3. Simple Sensitive Skin Light Moisturizer. A huge drawback to the Clinique Gel is that it doesn’t have SPF. So in the a.m. I follow it up with this moisturizer from Simple. It’s fragrance-free, has SPF and doesn’t weigh down my skin. For my body, I use Neutrogena® Ultra Sheer Body Mist Sunscreen Broad Spectrum SPF 50. It doesn’t stink like other sunscreens and it doesn’t leave me all sticky. I go through this stuff like water during the summer.
4. I use triple filtered coconut oil from Trader Joe’s as my daily moisturizer for everything but my face. It has all the benefits of coconut oil but it doesn’t have the strong coconut smell like others because it’s triple-filtered. It’s also way less expensive than other fancy brands. I like to put it on my feet before bed and put on fuzzy socks.
5. Listen up if you have multi-ethnic curly hair! I am obsessed with the Miss Jessie’s haircare line. I’m bi-racial and my mother relaxed my hair at an early age because she could not deal with my curls and there weren’t any of the awesome natural hair care products that we have now back when I was a kid. I finally gave up relaxers (which I hated) 2 years ago.
Transitioning was painful and expensive (there is a graveyard of products under my sink). I was about to chop it all off when I finally got around to trying Miss Jessie’s. It has given my hair new life and the wash-and-go life of my dreams. After rinsing my hair, I use their Leave-in Condish, detangle, air dry for a few minutes and then add a few squeezes of their styling cream called Pillow Soft Curls. I am done. I haven’t touched my hair dryer or straighten in months. They have many other awesome products I use as well but that is my day-to-day routine.
Follow Mandi!
Twitter: @Mandiwoodruff
Instagram: @mandimoney
Facebook: BrownAmbition