ME, MYSELF
Entrepreneur and creative Jessie Gurunathan shares her approach to beauty and skincare
Jessie Gurunathan’s beauty routine
My approach to beauty
has evolved a lot over the past few years, in particular now I’m in my 30s. Now it’s all about being cruelty free, effective, minimal and as sustainable as possible. The “less is more” ethos is now my mantra and that applies not only to a simplified skincare regimen but to my whole approach to beauty. There is nothing more timeless and attractive than healthy glowing skin and most of the time you’ll find me completely make-up free.
My first memory of make-up
is a tie between the kajal (kohl eyeliner) which my South Indian grandmother kept in an ornate bronze container that looked like a mini genie bottle. She would put it around my eyes before we would go to temple or special occasions like Deepavali. To this day it’s still something I love using to enhance my Indian features. The other memory is of watching my Pakeha mum apply her signature 80s pink lipstick. Anytime I see that bright fuchsia shade of pink lipstick I instantly think of Mum and my happy tropical childhood, growing up on Penang Island, Malaysia.
If I had a time machine I would go back and slather my younger self in sunscreen! I used to think that because I had brown skin and didn’t burn, that sunscreen wasn’t necessary.
A game-changer for minimising my dark under-eye circles
was a hack I picked up from one of my absolute fav beauty vlogger idols, Deepica Mutyala of Live Tinted who went viral after sharing a YouTube video where she uses red lipstick as a base primer on dark circles — as a colour corrector — and then applies normal skin tone concealer over the top. It works well on women of colour and our darker skin tones. I now use Deepica’s makeup brand, Tinted, and her colour corrector in the shade “Rise” under my eyes.
As a WOC I always struggled with feeling excluded from the narrative due to the unconscious racial bias within the local fashion and beauty scene here in Aotearoa, so I turned to social media and looked to overseas influencers, actresses and designers for inspiration.
This year I am finally starting to see the local scene truly make an effort to embrace more diversity, which is exciting.
Ageing is a privilege in the sense that as a woman, life just gets better as we age. I love the fact that as a woman in my 30s, heading towards my 40s, I feel more at peace with who I am and continue to become. That kind of contentment seems to give older women a magic inner glow that money simply can’t buy. That is the most beautiful part about ageing.
Beauty to me is about being unapologetically myself all the time. Not making myself smaller or quieter to make others around me feel more comfortable. There is nothing more powerful or attractive than seeing a woman step into her fullest potential.
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