Susan Cernek (Kunst)

*****

Executive Online Editor, Fashion & Beauty, Glamour. New York
Born and raised in New Hampshire (as she puts it the “live free or die” state), Susan Cernek has always been influenced by fashion…and its historical traces. She interned at the MET during the Jackie Kennedy exhibition, wrote her art history thesis on Tom Ford and the Gucci advertising of the mid 1990’s, and jumped into the editorial world where she acted as an assistant to the Fashion Director at ELLE Magazine. Since 2008, she jumped mastheads and landed at Glamour, a publication she has since stayed at. Now, she helms the title of Glamour’s Executive Online Editor, Fashion & Beauty where she oversees their daily cutting edge content. A lover of all things ‘nautical’ (“My husband and I are obsessed with all things nautical—it started when we were in the process of tying the knot and continued during our honeymoon on the Amalfi Coast”), but recently, she’s gone for a new spin on her sartorial choices. “Lately I’ve been dressing like an ‘80s or ‘90s soccer mom from Greenwich or Bel Air” states Cernek, including “elbow-pad blazers, roomy button-downs, Timex watches, ripped skinny jeans, muted palettes and lots and lots of Coach”. She’s a resident of the East Village where she lives with her husband, and as she puts it “he hoards books and I hoard shoes”– seems like a fair trade.

Digital Inspiration
•Svpply
•Fab.com
•JAK & JIL
•WhoWhatWear
•Into The Gloss
•From Me To You
•Lined & Unlined
•A CUP OF JO
•Glamour Tumblr
•@SusanCernek

“After the shower I try and put on a body oil, Johnson’s Baby Oil, or Nivea cream on really dry areas. I’m really into moisture—for years I wasn’t, but I just feel like women who are older who have fantastic skin, all they talk about is moisturizing. For face, I’ve been using either the SK-II Facial Treatment Essence or the Shiseido Hydro-Balancing Softener as a base, and then I do a more serious moisturizer on top, like SK-II Skin Signature. Sometimes I’ll just use Vaseline, because my grandmother who’s 92 and looks like she’s 72, the only beauty routine she ever, ever did was Oil of Olay and Vaseline on her face. Which sounds really heavy and really gross, but she barely has any wrinkles!

In terms of makeup, I’ll do a few dabs of YSL’s Anti-Cernes Multi-Action concealer to start with, and then Benefit’s Ooh La Lift, which is an under-eye concealer and the perfect complexion-perfector. I love Anastasia’s Go Brow Universal Brow Pencil, actually on my lids, to create kind of a neutral base. Bobbi Brown makes the greatest eye shadow and blush—she says she packs all of her powder colors really tightly, so they don’t cake on. Sometimes blushes are too loosely packed and then it, like, explodes color on your face. I love Covergirl Eyelights mascara and eyeliner, which is designed to accentuate your eye color. I bought the deepest navy/black, for blue eyes, and it just makes a world of difference. Sometimes straight black against fair skin and blue eyes can look really jarring, but this shade is perfect for everyday. And Hillary Kerr of Who What Wear is my patron saint of mascara—she knows every single mascara—she recommended Bottom Lash mascara by Clinique, which I love for a night out. Another tip came from a makeup artist who I sometimes work with—he curls the lashes so close to base it’s almost painful, and then applies CoverGirl LashBlast waterproof mascara at the base and the regular formula at the ends. It really ‘sets’ the curl without looking too spikey at the tips. It looks amazing—like I have fake lashes—and lasts throughout the day. If you’re doing a full face, L’Oreal Studio Secrets Magic Perfecting Base is amazing—it gives your skin the most amazing silky, luminous quality. When I was getting married, I wasn’t convinced about the makeup I had booked, and one of our beauty gurus, Beth Shapouri, was like, ‘Why don’t you just do it yourself? All you need to do is get this L’Oreal base, get Nars Orgasm, teach yourself how to apply a few fake lashes, and that’s all you need.’ So I did it myself and I was totally happy.

I love to switch my bags but I always lose makeup in the bottom, so I got this tray and every day I ‘drop off’ whatever’s in my bag, in here. Like when you put your keys in the same spot when you get home—that’s what I do with whatever products I have in rotation. And I have this little vanity inside my closet with my perfumes and some jewelry. I’m very fortunate that my husband loves the perfume that I love: Coco Mademoiselle, in every form. I was coming home from Paris fashion week one time, and discovered at Duty Free that they made Coco hair perfume. It’s a little more powdery than the regular perfume. I also just love that there’s such a thing as ‘hair perfume’!

I set my hair in old-fashioned hot rollers every other day. My mom would throw in six curls every day before going to work, and she has the most amazing hair. So I started doing the same thing at the end of high school and have ever since. I tried really hard during college to have ‘cool’ hair; blowouts were really in, and ironing it pencil-straight. But I could never get it right, so I finally resigned myself to bouncy, curly, girly hair. I don’t use that much product—Bumble and Bumble Thickening Spray and Shine Spray, or John Frieda Root Awakening Spray, and once a week I’ll do Neutrogena Anti-Residue Shampoo, which is amazing. I am convinced that water quality plays a huge role in the way hair looks—that’s why all those Parisian girls have chic bed-head-y hair—it’s the water, not products. Though my hair tends to get really greasy when I’m in Paris, and my friend there told me, ‘Sometimes we just rinse our hair in Evian.’ I couldn’t believe it, but one day before a big meeting I tried it, and it really did make a big difference.

I’ll sit on the couch a couple of time a week and do my nails. It’s my zen moment. I remember reading a story somewhere about finding the perfect clean nail color and having really pure clean nails, but that’s so hard to maintain in the city so I mostly do a dark red or some bright color. I’m loving Essie Geranium right now; it’s a really fun pop-y red. Lately it’s been about trying to track down the various peaches and corals and oranges and reds, that the J.Crew catalogue girls wear—the lipsticks and the polishes are impeccable! I’ve been trying to track down that information, from J.Crew, for a while.”

—as told to ITG

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http://thecoveteur.com/Susan_Cernek