Salem Mitchell’s Guide to Embracing Freckles and Maintaining Knotless Braids

[gentle music]

Hi, my name is Salem Mitchell

and I'm gonna show you my everyday skincare

and beauty routine.

I use Cetaphil Daily Facial Cleanser.

It's pretty basic drugstore brand. I love it.

If it's not broken, don't fix it.

I wasn't allowed to wear makeup growing up.

My parents really wanted me to feel confident in my skin

and in my freckles.

So I really got into skincare after modeling

and coming home from photo shoots

and having like tons of makeup on,

and that's kind of how I learned

about all the different products I use now.

Next in my skincare routine,

I use Kiehl's Cucumber Herbal Toner.

I realized, even with cleansing,

sometimes I would still have mascara

and residue in my inner eyelids and stuff like that.

So toner has definitely helped eliminate excess dirt

that I thought I got and didn't at all.

I would say a really good piece of skincare advice

I've gotten from my mom is not to do too much makeup

and too much skincare.

My mom also has freckles

and I think that that's helped me feel super confident

in my own skin.

Okay next, I do this really early in my skincare routine.

This is the Fenty Beauty Pro lip scrubber

and I love this as like a lip exfoliator.

My lips are kind of big

and in the winter, they get so dry and flaky

and it's ridiculous

so exfoliating them is a very pivotal step

to the success of my beauty routine.

Obsessed with Rihanna.

I've been blessed to work with her on Savage x Fenty

as well as Fenty Skin

and that was a big deal for me.

And actually when I modeled Fenty Skin,

that was where I learned about this lip exfoliating brush.

Okay, another favorite of mine that I also learned on set

is these Peter Thomas Roth Eye Gel Patches.

Anything that has cucumber or hydra in the name,

somehow that's like a buzzword for me to buy it.

Something about it just sounds

like it's going to refresh me and change my life.

It's a little spa tease, you know.

Having a platform where you know I get tons of feedback,

both positive and negative,

it's really difficult for me to balance

keeping an authentic connection with my audience

while also keeping my boundaries and protecting myself

from people who wanna be rude and to bring me down

and maybe say negative things about my freckles or my hair.

My rule of thumb with clapping back

is always it's only necessary

if it's going to help more than one person

and more than just me.

My next step is this Tatcha Dewy Skin Mist.

I really love this and when I do this,

I take a nice deep breath

and just release everything for my day.

This is my favorite moisturizer. I use about this much.

My favorite makeup look that I've ever done for a shoot

is I did a photo shoot with this amazing makeup artist

and photographer named Raoul Alejandre

and he gave me this amazing, worldly,

alien-esque beauty look.

And I had this egg in my hand.

I felt so transformed.

I think he found the perfect balance

between transforming me,

but also accentuating my natural features.

My next step are my Skin Worship Dew Drops.

These are combined of different natural oils.

I don't use too much because oil is a lot

and my hands are already oily

and I can't really always put the excess on my body.

I like to pole dance, and so if I'm going to pole dancing,

you can't have any lotion on or you will slip off the pole.

I enjoy doing it as a hobby,

but I have so much respect for women who dance to survive

because it's really challenging to get on a pole,

not prepared for the conditions of the pole.

Next, I use this Paula's Choice sunscreen.

I really like this because it's SPF 50

which is super strong and I prefer a dewy look on my skin.

This is great because I don't think it's super matte

and it keeps me looking all glossy and shiny all day.

I have lighter skin,

but it's really hard as a Black woman

to find sunscreen that doesn't leave a white cast

on your face.

My dad is darker than me and he would always say,

We're Black, we don't need sunscreen.

And that was the biggest myth that I ever heard.

I remember being in high school.

I went to the beach, did not wear sunscreen.

I got a sunburn and I peeled right here

and I lost a freckle.

From that day, I was like,

I'm not listening to my dad.

I'm listening to the professionals,

and I'm going to be wearing sunscreen.

All right, the last step to my skincare routine

is a little lip care.

I use the Laneige Overnight Lip Mask.

I really value my skincare routine more than makeup.

One, because I am not super well versed in makeup yet.

But also I just think my skin is super important

and the way that beauty has been marketed

to me throughout my childhood is not the same

in the way that it is now.

When I was younger, having freckles,

it was more seen as something that you should cover up,

something that you should hide.

So beauty and makeup wasn't that inclusive

to someone like myself and it wasn't as empowering

as it is today.

Back when I was 15, 16, because of my freckles,

I would always get this repeat insult

that I looked like a bruised banana with spots.

I told myself like, What can you do Salem

to stop this from happening?

So I found some bananas that had spots at my dad's house

and I took a picture with all of them and I said,

Okay, this is my family.

And I posted it everywhere and that ended up going viral.

And a few months later, this photographer who I love,

her name is Mayan Toledano, she saw me on the Explore page

and she reached out to me to shoot.

And in May, she cast me for my first shoot in New York

which was 100 Ways to Wear Gucci for vogue.com

and that was where everything took off.

And I'm really grateful for that.

And I'm super happy that she was persistent

in wanting to shoot me.

Moving on to makeup. My makeup routine is super simple.

I start with the Glossier Boy Brow in Brown.

It's so funny.

I remember being 16

when the Anastasia Beverly Hills Dip Brow was a trend

and everybody was doing that really strong brow.

And I was so jealous because my eyebrows,

while they're full, they're a little short.

So I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm never gonna get this arch.

I'm never gonna have this strong arch.

And I'm happy I grew out of that

because I think we all look back at those pictures

and we think that was crazy.

I don't do anything to my brows.

I don't wax them and I don't tweeze them.

And I learned that from my grandmother

because my grandma tweezed her eyebrows so much growing up

and now her eyebrows are really thin.

Everybody in my family was like

Don't touch your brows 'cause you will tweeze them

and you will not get them back after a certain age.

Next is mascara. I use the Saie Beauty Mascara.

I think my best experience is on set,

it's, overall, I think the friendships that I've made.

I've been doing this since 2016, it's 2023 now,

and I have some friends now

that I think that I'll have for a lifetime.

Or even if not, they've taught me so many lessons

about life and love and friendship and connection.

I think that my relationships with people,

but especially women, are super important

to my mental health and my growth.

And I'm so thankful that the majority of the relationships

that I've made with women through this journey

have all been positive.

Last step of my daily beauty routine

is I use this Tom Ford Luxury Lip Gloss.

This is the color 20 Phantom.

So continuing on with getting ready for the day.

This is my next step.

It may be a bit controversial,

but I like it and I was able to find it,

so I'm gonna use it.

I usually will just use a little bit of hair oil

in the parts of my hair to keep it shiny.

I try not to use too much.

I usually get my hair done every month to a month and a half

after taking a two to two and a half week break from braids.

I love having braids.

It's an amazing protective style,

but it does still create a little bit of tension

on the head.

So it's really important to make sure

that I'm taking care of my scalp in between.

All right, my last step in getting ready for the day

is I use this Nairobi Foaming Lotion.

So basically the types of braids that I have,

they're knotless braids.

The top is braiding hair and the bottom is human hair.

So this is a little mousse that I use

to keep the bottom ends that are open

like nice and wavy and cute.

I love it.

You can also use it on your whole head.

I usually do if my hair is a little more old

and if it has more fly-aways.

I don't necessarily need to do that right now

'cause I kind of just got my hair done

in the last couple weeks.

All right, this is my final look.

I'm ready to go about my day.

I feel amazing and beautiful,

and I hope everybody else has a great day.

[gentle music]