RENÉE LAPINO BY MADISON VOORHIES PHOTO BY LULULOVE PHOTOGRAPHY NOLA
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Occupation: Licensed Medical Aesthetician/Medical Facialist Partner: Nicholas Gernon Children: Ophelia (2) Hobbies: Pilates, working out, reading British murder-fiction, dating her partner
Aside from being a celebrity facialist, superstar mom, and Starbucks aficionado, Renée Lapino, above all, is keeping it real when it comes to sharing her story and the silly antics she gets into with her “mini-me,” Ophelia. As a born-and-raised New Orleanian, she hadn’t planned on moving back home from London, England until after discovering she was pregnant. Ophelia was born in London (hello eternal bragging rights!) but Renée knew she wanted to raise her daughter in the same streets she grew up in. Read on to discover more about her jet-setting journey and how she juggles contemporary caregiving in New Orleans.
WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO PURSUE YOUR CAREER? RENÉE: I had really reactive skin when I was younger. If I used any new product, I would get breakouts. I went into bridal modeling in my late teens, and when you have new makeup artists using heavy makeup, you don’t really have a say over what they put on your skin. So I would break out all the time. I started getting facials once a week to keep it cleaned out and keep it as smooth as possible. I was going to school to be a child therapist at Texas Women’s, and my sister passed away. I didn’t know what I was going to do, and I took a leave of absence from school. I was telling my facialist— who I was still seeing every week— “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” She said, “Well, Renée, why don’t you do this?” So that’s how it started; my facialist said, “You should do this.” And I was like, okay, then I’ll do that. WHAT DO YOU LOVE MOST ABOUT YOUR JOB? RENÉE: When you change somebody’s skin, you change their life. If somebody has really bad acne, or they have really bad or even just moderate pigmentation, they don’t feel confident getting out of bed and leaving without makeup. During the pandemic when I couldn’t treat, I didn’t realize how much value I took from that. You develop such a strong relationship with your patients and you really do impact their feeling of well- being and even their appearance of well-being. And then I get messages from all my patients— especially in London— that say, “Oh my God, I need you! I can’t see anybody else!” So yeah, that’s probably what I love the most. WHAT ARE YOUR TOP SKINCARE TIPS? RENÉE: The main thing that I always have to debunk is that people will tell me, “Oh, well, I don’t need to cleanse [my face] morning and night,” or “Oh, in the morning I just rinse my face with water.” Every time you cleanse your skin, you’re removing the dead skin cells. If you don’t want to wash your face every morning, maybe you don’t get pimples, but you’re slowing down your collagen production and your new healthy cell production by doing that. So I tell everyone to wash morning and night with an oil-based cleanser. Oil-based cleansers remove dirt, debris, and oil from our skin, and they also help to hydrate our skin. Now, anyone over the age of 16, I’ll tell to
use an oil-based cleanser for at least one of their cleansers. It’s also going to remove all your makeup, and if you use the right oil-based cleanser, it’s going to deep clean any congestion. When it comes to skincare, less is more. You need to use professionally-prescribed products. Don’t just go to Sephora and buy whatever they tell you; they’re not professionals, they’re just salespeople. You want to go to a professional. We’re passionate about what we do, which is helping people with their skin. My most important tip is that there’s only so much you can do to the surface of your skin if you aren’t taking supplements. Liquid collagen is the most important thing you can take because your whole body is made out of collagen. By taking a collagen supplement, that’s where you’re actually going to feel a difference overall, and it allows your body to use that energy for your face. It doesn’t translate to: drink this, your face will look good. It translates to: drink this, your body’s going to function as best it can, which means your face will also look better. WHAT ARE SOME JOYS AND CHALLENGES OF BEING A MOM? RENÉE: I would say that every day is joy after joy. This child has just changed my whole life. She wakes up, and she has a running commentary about everything we’re doing; she asks questions; she’s very opinionated about all of it; you never know what she’s going to tell you; and she doesn’t want to do everything the same every day. It’s also challenging in a sense that I don’t think I’ve taken a bath by myself in a year, and it’s really hard to prepare food when a tiny person has to sit on the counter, sit on my hip, get down, climb up, run in the other room saying, “Mommy come with me outside!” The lack of showering alone and sleeping for more than four hours straight or going literally anywhere quickly, that’s probably the challenge: there’s this whole other person now. WHAT IS YOUR AND OPHELIA’S FAVORITE THING TO DO TOGETHER? RENÉE: We are at City Park a lot. Sometimes we ride— well, we don’t ride our bikes, I ride my bike. She hangs out on the back of it— we’ll ride our bikes over there. We’ll go to Cafe Du Monde. The whole Children’s Museum knows us. They really
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14 APRIL 2024 | NOLAFAMILY.COM
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