I Got Up at 4:45am For A Month—This Is What Happened

Plus, how growing up on welfare shaped this beauty editor's career. If you have problems viewing this email [click here](. [allure logo]( DECEMBER 25, 2017 BEAUTY TRENDS [Why So Many of Your Favorite Beauty Personalities are Mormon]( Any insomniac who has tried to convince herself that “just a few minutes” on Instagram will beckon back sleep has landed, circa 3 a.m., on the feed of a Mormon lifestyle blogger. Although she probably has no idea that’s where she is. The blogger’s faith is never foregrounded. It’s obvious, though — once you know what to look for. She’s white and under 30 and married. Fit and given to flattering dresses that hit the knee and cover the shoulder, she has multiple children and Lady Godiva hair. She knows her way around a braid. She is wholesome but not dowdy; her posts are relentlessly positive but never pious. Until you Google her name and see that she was married at the Salt Lake Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), you might not know that she routinely asks herself... [READ MORE >]( WELLNESS [I Got Up At 4:45am For A Month—This Is What Happened]( A few years ago, and for the entirety of my life before that, I was a morning person. Then I quit my job, moved to Bali and just generally checked out for a while. My new freelance existence no longer required that I get up early, so I stopped. When I joined The Zoe Report, I had to find my inner early riser again, but this meant waking at a relatively modest 8am. To be clear, I’ve never, ever gotten up at 4:45am, aside from stumbling out of bed and into an Uber X before a flight. Here’s why I started, and how I went from being a snooze-button addict to someone who’s lived half a day before most people even begin to stir. [READ MORE >]( [Advertisement]( [Powered by LiveIntent]( [AdChoices]( BEAUTY LIFE [How Growing Up on Welfare Shaped My Career in Beauty]( As a teen, I spent hours wandering down drugstore makeup aisles, touching, testing, and wishing to take home the products that lined the floor-to-ceiling shelves. My eyes would dart from the pink-and-green tubes of Maybelline Great Lash to the neon-colored, flip-top Smackers Flip Glosses, taking everything in, hoping that for once, just once, I'd be able to blow $10 on makeup rather than on milk and toilet paper for my family. Money was, and always has been, tight in my family. Long before I became a beauty editor [Ed Note: And a damn good one] and had access to endless products (a perk I am thankful for each and every day), I could hardly afford to spend what extra cash my family managed to scrounge up on mascara and lip gloss. Hell, I didn't even know what Sephora was, let alone step foot in one, until.... [READ MORE >]( SKIN CARE [The Face Triangle of Death — and All the Potential Dangers, Explained]( As a beauty editor, I pride myself on my extensive skin-care routine. Every day, I spend at least 30 minutes on my regimen, and while I'm dedicated to my laundry list of steps, I'm also 100 percent guilty of picking and popping. And I'm especially fond of squeezing the blackheads speckled across my nose. But it wasn't until recently that I found out attempting to manually draw out these bad boys in a certain zone of my face — known colloquially as the "triangle of death" — could lead to way more serious damage than a bloody spot or an unsightly scar. To be clear, the facial triangle of death is not to be confused with the geopolitical one, which was an area south of Baghdad in Iraq marred by violence in the early aughts, or even the Bermuda Triangle, which is that mysterious zone in the Atlantic Ocean where ships and planes seemed to disappear into thin air. What all three triangles do have in common is.... [READ MORE >]( [Instagram]( [Pinterest]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( Subscribe to Allure magazine Get the Allure Beauty Box [ORDER NOW]( [Conde Nast Logo] ©2017 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Allure Magazine, One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (effective 3/21/12) and Privacy Policy (effective 3/21/12). [Unsubscribe](. Your California Privacy Rights. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Conde Nast. Ad Choices