Learn how Co-Founder, Georgie Greville, of milk makeup handles her day to day routine.

When I first met Georgie, it was in a board room shortly before Milk Makeup launched. I left the meeting thinking she was quite possibly the coolest, most down-to-earth person I had ever met. She is naturally creative in everything she touches, an incredibly supportive friend, a crusader of human rights, a beautiful person inside and out, and someone whom I deeply admire both in business and in her parenting.

Georgie is busy as can be, but that doesn't mean she neglects her beauty routine. Rather, she finds the time and the right products to help her move quickly in the mornings.

Everyone at SHEN is inspired by her and all that she accomplishes, which is why I want to introduce you to my dear friend Georgie as this week's feature on the Regimen. I asked her to give us the lowdown on her time-saving beauty methods when she's in a rush but needs to look and feel her absolute best.

Walk us through your daily beauty routine (skin, hair, makeup): 

Wake up, lie in gratitude prayers/ thoughts for 5-10, and have a glass of lemon water or a dissolved tablet of 8 Greens Skin, "the facial in a glass". 

I then cleanse in the shower with DR AJ STURNHAM Light Cleanse Daily/AM cleanser (I use the DEEP version at night), spray Tammy Fender Bulgarian Rose Water mist, tap in some Tammy Fender Awakening Eye Gel to de-bag, apply Venn Advanced Multi-Performing serum, Environ Antioxidant Defense Cream and lastly Elta MD UV DAILY SPF 40. 

For body, I am loving the Costa Brazil Para O Corpa Jungle Firming body oil and Dr Barbara Sturm Anti-Aging body cream. 

If it's a no makeup day. I simply apply Hydro Grip Primer over my sunscreen for an all over, healthy glow and some swipes of cream blushes (Milk Makeup Lip + Cheek in Werk, various Olio E Osso balms- loving No. 2, No. 6 and No. 9 at the moment). 

If it's a makeup day, I start with Milk Makeup Hydro Grip Primer, then apply Milk Makeup Kush Mascara and Kush Brow Gel while the primer sets for a minute. Next I apply Milk Makeup Sunshine Skin Tint in Honey, then a light bronzing contour under cheekbones using either Westman Atelier Face Trace in Biscuit or Milk Makeup Bronzer in Baked. Sometimes I apply the bronzer on my eyelids for a muted shadow look. I then swipe on a combination of different blushes including Milk Makeup Lip + Cheek in Werk, various Olio E Osso balms (loving No. 2, No. 6 and No. 9 at the moment) and some strategic dots of Milk Makeup highlighter in Lit down the bridge of my nose, tops of cheekbones and a bit on my cupid's bow. Most days, I apply a bold lip color - I am always trying new shades and love a super pigmented, semi-matte lip. My current faves are Milk Makeup Lip Color in Wifey and Hype, Fempower Lipstick in Lilith or one of the shades from Westman Atelier's Lip Suede. I am loving the hot pink and the mauve purple at the moment. 

To set my hair, I simply comb some Iles Formula Finishing serum haute performance while it is still wet to get a sleek, paired-back look. If I need more hold, I will use a little R+Co Continental Glossing Wax, appling the ends of my hair with my finger tips. 

What is your philosophy on beauty? 

I am all about high standards and low maintenance. Hydrate and infuse grace and joy into your life in any and every way possible. Start with a gratitude practice. I love using the 3 Minute Morning gratitude journal as well as practicing an 80/20 lifestyle, 80% healthy/ organic/ vegetarian- 20% YOLO. Usually it's more like 60%-40% though. 

What is your best beauty advice? 

Give more than you receive energetically so that you are always in a state of flow. Also, learn what works for you to self soothe and destress. Meditation, walks, baths, and blasting music while I cook are my go-to de-stressers. 

I love this quote when it comes to living beautifully, "Time is how you spend your love." Via Zadie Smith 

What is the best beauty advice you've ever been given, and by whom? 

The best beauty advice is to seek out therapy so that you can untangle your subconscious knots, build compassion for yourself and connect to your purpose aka find your beauty. I would have to thank Shaniqwa Jarvis, who introduced me to my therapist, for that crucial lesson.

I also love the Jung quote: "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." 

For skin problems including eczema, go to a homeopath and take as many nuanced/ specific allergy tests as possible to figure out which inflammatory habits are affecting you. I spent three years dealing with horrible eczema after having my son (constant legs and arms bleeding kind of itching that feels like your bone marrow is on fire)...it wasn't until I got the contact for Dr. Woodson Merrel (Jess see's him too!) from beauty legend Emily Dougherty, that I actually figured out what was causing it. I was highly sensitive to gluten, dairy and fermented foods like kombucha (which I was drinking every day thinking I was being healthy) and red wine. I cut those out for a few months  and my skin problems went away entirely. Now I just minimize any gluten, dairy, and wine and my skin is very happy. I also do a parasite cleanse and no drinking once or twice a year depending on how much I am traveling.

What are your 3 must-have products and why?

DECREE DEEP CLEANSE DAILY/ PM- I love the detoxing, unclogging effect of this cleanser, especially after a day of SPF, makeup changes, riding my bike through the city and mask wearing. 

ILES FORMULA FINISHING SERUM HAUTE PERFORMANCE- Perfect every day hair serum for control, I also love the light fragrance. 

COSTA BRAZIL ANTI AGING BODY OIL- Sexy, decadent body oil that makes you feel and smell like a Deity. The packaging is so chic. 

Do you have any special tips or techniques for how you apply a product to get the best results? 

I love applying a face oil with my white jade Maison Quiquine Gua Sha in the am- it really gets the circulation going, de-puffs my eyes, and delivers a natural glow that you can go anywhere with. 

I also love doing mini facials in a detoxing epsom salt or Dr. Singha mustard bath so you get a full body reset. The hot bath naturally opens your pores, so I cleanse, do a resurfacing acid flash mask of some sort, then a clay pore-clearing mask and finish with a hydrating serum/ face oil like Vintner's Daughter while still in the bath. 

What's the biggest beauty mistake you've ever made?

Bleaching my mustache hairs in college with Jolen...sigh. 

What do you love most about your job?:

The ability to combine all my passions- socially conscious branding, video-forward creative direction and ways of integrating philanthropic action directly into the culture of the business. 

What is it like owning and running a business? How do you separate work life from home life?

Luckily I share the stress load with my three other Co-Founders, so we all take on different roles and responsibilities. While we are still relatively small in terms of our team size, we function as a top ten beauty brand in the US (#1 clean color brand in Sephora) and are scaling our global reach as we speak. All this to say, owning and running a business is an always on kind of thing, but you learn how to schedule and create the balance of work and life sacred time. 

Since I am on the creative/ vision side of things, work ideas and diverse cultural inspirations are constantly flowing through my head- you can't really shut that insatiable curiosity and creative problem solving off, but you can learn how to flow with the creative process. As in, know when to be passively learning and collecting data/ inspiration and when to be most effective when you are actively executing a concept. You never know when inspiration will strike. Sometimes that means taking the afternoon or day off if you are not being productive or working late night and weekends when you are...it all balances out in the end. 

How do you balance the role of working mom?

My husband and I share the duties of taking care of our 7 1/2 year-old son. We just ebb and flow with the care schedule as our careers morph and change. Sometimes my husband is directing a film, so I end up shouldering the load and sometimes I am traveling on work trips so he has to do it. If I have learned anything about being a working mom, it's having the confidence to ask for what you need. The current work culture is not built with childcare in mind, so you have to actively modify it to meet your needs and create your own balance. As always, friends, neighbors and family come in huge as support- it takes a village for real. 

Tell us a bit about how your beauty brand came to be. What was it like creating Milk Makeup from scratch? What were some of the challenges and what were your favorite parts?

Milk Makeup grew organically out of Milk Studios in downtown NYC. I had been a creative collaborator with Milk for 7 years and worked together with my co-founders to harness Milk's inclusive, expressive creativity and NYC's work-hard-play-hard, savvy standards to create the vision for Milk Makeup.

Since creative innovation was at the core of the brand, creating sleek, inclusive, utilitarian design and effective, clean, vegan, cruelty-free formulas was our focus. While inspiring, those high standards were challenging in practice because they naturally called for custom formulas, product design and delivery systems- bespoke everything, essentially. There was lots of iterating and problem solving in the process, but the superior formulas and unique multi-functionality of the products makes it all worth it. In the end, we wanted to impress ourselves and be fans of our own products.