Welcome to Skin Talk With Laura Love, our video series in which stars of fashion, film, television, and beyond share their beauty secrets with the licensed model and esthetician.
In the latest episode, host Laura Love is joined by not one, not two, but three beauty savants, who are heavyweights in their areas of expertise: Iván Pol aka The Beauty Sandwich, brow guru Jimena Garcia, and facial wizard Raquel Medina-Cleghorn of Raquel New York.
Garcia begins by sharing the step-by-step technique behind her world-renowned brow shaping and sculpting services, which she applies to clients like Lily Collins and Chloe Fineman. That includes each and every one of her secrets, including using a lighter color for the middle of the brows, using a lash primer ahead of brow gel, and the many benefits of a good spoolie—a must-have tool to achieve Garcia’s brushed-out, meticulously measured beauty look. For an added luxurious step, spray an eyebrow brush with some hair perfume to lock everything in (hers, obviously, was Chanel No. 5). “So if you’re going to kiss your husband, or your boyfriend, or your lover, they’ll smell it,” she says. As for the return of the skinny brow, Garcia admits she can’t get enough of the beauty trend. There is one caveat, however: “I really love it, but on certain people. You have to have the personality and you have to be able to carry it.”
Next up is Medina-Cleghorn, whose New York City-based practice draws Simone Rocha (the designer tapped the esthetician for her 2023 Met Gala skincare) and How Long Gone host Chris Black. “I always look for products that have an irrefutable scientific basis,” she tells Love. As far as skincare wisdom goes, Medina-Cleghorn is filled with quick tips—but her biggest suggestion is to allow the skin to turn over, and if you’re trying a new product, give it time. “It takes about three months to really tell if a product is doing what it says it’s going to do,” she says. “If you have acne or pigmentation, you’re going to want to give it a good-old college try.” Medina-Cleghorn then shares with Love her favorite pregnancy-safe skincare products—a vitamin A serum among them. “Vitamin A is one of those ingredients that people tell you to stay away from when you’re pregnant,” she says. “But my hot take is that it’s actually pregnancy-safe. When you apply vitamin A topically to the skin, it’s not getting into your bloodstream. What vitamin A does in the skin is so incredible, that not being able to use it during a time of massive potential skin change would be sad.”
Finally, Iván Pol, who goes by the moniker The Beauty Sandwich, tells the story behind his signature facial, which is beloved by stars like Emma Stone, Jenna Ortega, Kim Kardashian, and Anna Sawai. The “Snatched Facial” starts with a “hydrating snack: the Amuse Bouche,” Pol says, from his own line of products inspired by The Beauty Sandwich facial. Step two calls for SS02, the Snatching Lifting Vitamin Sauce, which uses sandalwood and jasmine to lift and add glow (this is the “invisible shapewear,” as Pol refers to it. “Like the bra for your cheekbones, the Spanx for your face”). The facialist breaks down how to give a facial massage for each vector, or area of your face. Gua sha, naturally, is key—but the esthetician is also a fan of cold laser therapy. “Elastin is what lends our skin that snap, that bounce,” he says. “This is gonna give you more of that bouncy plumpness that we want.”
To see every episode of Skin Talk With Laura Love featuring Carolyn Murphy, Paloma Elsesser, Devon Lee Carlson, Karen Elson, and Gabbriette, head over to W’s YouTube channel and subscribe.
