don't google yourself

This Week:

• The Google Notifications Sends My Stomach Dropping Into My Butt

• My Haircare Makeover (Postpartum Edition)

• My Skincare Makeover (Postpartum Edition)

• On The Podcast

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The Google Notifications

I googled myself this week. I kind of couldn’t help it.

The Laguna Beach press day happened (the reunion comes out April 10) and the notifications started coming in and I had one real question: would the reactions reinforce everything I have always known to be true about reality TV and the internet, or has the tide actually changed amongst keyboard warriors.

My stomach went tight immediately. That specific dread I do not have a great word for except maybe: the feeling of being talked about in a room you are not in.

I have been here before. I was 17 the first time.

What I have learned over twenty years of being occasionally and involuntarily in the public eye is that the internet is very committed to the version of you it first met. Rivalries that were never really rivalries. Storylines that got written around you. A whole personality constructed from footage of a teenager who had absolutely no idea what she was signing up for. And then twenty years later you are sitting in your pajamas with a baby and a medical situation and people are debating your absence like it means something about who you are.

I almost didn’t look.

I built a pretty full life out of not looking, honestly. Staying quiet felt like protection for a long time. I left the TV world, went to culinary school, started Love Wellness, became a person with a private interior life and genuinely loved having one.

But I looked. And what I found was mostly kindness. Women who had been through having a new baby at home. Women who had complicated postpartum experiences. People saying “no explanation needed, real fans know.” Comments that felt personal rather than performed.

I sat in my apartment eating cold leftovers reading a Just Jared comment section and cried a little. Postpartum does what it wants.

The thing I keep coming back to is this: I spent so long being careful about what I share because I was afraid of being reduced to a version of myself I did not recognize. The best friend, the bitch. And the week I stopped being careful … pajamas, placenta, toast, full honesty … is the week people seem to really see me as a person. An actual one.

Maybe the only way through is just to keep being the full complicated human thing and trust that people can feel the difference.

I am still figuring that out.

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My Haircare Makeover (Postpartum Edition)

Somewhere in the middle of this week, between the notifications and the cold leftovers and the general chaos of being a postpartum human with a public history, I decided to do something just for myself. Not for anyone else. Not to look good on camera or show up somewhere. Just because I deserved to feel a little more like me.

I dedicated some real time to self care and it helped more than I expected.

My hair has been through it. Postpartum hair changes are real and nobody fully prepares you for the specific sadness of watching your hair behave like a completely different person’s hair. I want SHINY hair. Not meh hair.

Here’s what I got:

I started using the Epres Bond Repair and I genuinely cannot believe I waited this long. If your hair feels weak or damaged this is the one. It works and it is not fussy about it.

For everyday washing I have been on the Redken Color Extend Magnetics which keeps my color looking fresh between appointments and does not strip anything.

The Pureology Strength Cure conditioner has also become non-negotiable. My hair feels like my hair again after using it which sounds like a small thing and is actually not a small thing at all.

After washing I use the Redken One United leave-in and finish with Moroccanoil Treatment Light. The whole routine takes maybe ten extra minutes and the difference is significant enough that I noticed it immediately.

Abbey was right. Abbey is always right. Listen to your colorist.

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My Skincare Makeover (Postpartum Edition)

Same energy, different category.

I had let my skincare routine collapse into the bare minimum for a few months and I am not judging myself for that because survival mode is real. But this week I got a package of new things to try and it felt like a tiny holiday and I went all in.

Here is what I rebuilt my routine around:

Morning starts with the Round Lab Birch Juice UV Lock SPF 45. Sunscreen is the one thing I will not negotiate on and this one layers beautifully under everything without pilling or leaving a cast. It is genuinely the best daily SPF I have found and I have tried a lot of them.

At night I double cleanse. First the Tatcha Camellia Cleansing Oil which dissolves everything including sunscreen without feeling stripping, then the La Roche-Posay Toleriane Hydrating Gentle Cleanser which is gentle enough for postpartum skin that is doing unpredictable things. This five minute routine has become the part of my day that belongs entirely to me. Nobody needs anything from me for five minutes. Warm water, quiet, done.

I am also back on the Elizabeth Arden Retinol + HPR Ceramide line now that I am not breastfeeding and my skin has already started to respond. If you have been waiting to reintroduce retinol this is a gentle and effective place to start.

None of this is a ten step routine. It is just the right things done consistently and that is all skin actually needs.

Taking care of myself this week felt like a small act of rebellion against everything that was trying to make me feel like I was not enough. I recommend it.

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On The Podcast

Episode 2 of Tell Me I’m a Good Mom is out. It goes into the loneliness of new motherhood, what it actually felt like to grow up on reality TV at 17, and why being perceived publicly for twenty years changes you in ways you are still figuring out.

Watch here on YT, listen here on apple, or here on spotify.

See you next Sunday.

xo Lo