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Jasmine Luv

Source: Jasmine Luv / Jasmine Luv

Self-made millennial Jasmine Luv started her career as an accountant and now she’s a comedic content creator with over 1.4 million Instagram followers. What a turn of events, right? Though she’s continuing to use her platform to enlighten women in the financial and financial literacy space, Luv is taking her talents from your iPhone to the television screens for her new role on BET Her’s The Waiting Room, premiering this Saturday, October 17th.

The two-part special directed by Vanessa Bell Calloway and Sheryl Lee Ralph follows the story of two women awaiting life-changing breast cancer diagnoses. In collaboration with the Tiger Lily Foundation, BET Her is working to bring awareness to breast cancer and the mortality rate of Black women, which is 42% higher compared to White women.

For October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month, HelloBeautiful spoke with the 2018 Refinery29 Social Star about her role in The Waiting Room, how social media has impacted the beauty and fashion industries, and her skincare secrets.

What made you transition out of accounting into acting and content creation? Is it something you’ve always wanted to do or was this a newfound passion of yours?

When I was younger, I always wanted to act. My parents still have videos of me in school plays and everything, so I always had a passion for acting. My parents were very strict about going to school and putting education first, so I kind of put that on the back burner and went to school for accounting because I’m a nerd and I like math. (Laughs) After I graduated, I got an accounting position at a healthcare company. I was working there and I just realized I didn’t like it; I didn’t feel like that’s what I was meant to do. 

That’s when Vine was out and I started seeing there were no women on Vine. I would just be at work creating content other than my accounting job. I was supposed to be over there doing work,  I was creating content and I would go home and shoot it. I realized accounting wasn’t for me and I had a true passion for making people laugh, writing content and just being myself. I felt really uptight doing my 9-5 and I felt like having a voice on social media allowed me to be myself. That’s really how I transitioned – I basically just stopped working.

How did the rise of social media play a role in your career transition?

As my social media increased, that allowed me to be in rooms with people that I never could have imagined. [Social media] played the most vital role in everything because when people see you online, they feel like they’re your friend and it makes it so much easier when they want to meet you. That’s what laid everything out and got me to where I am now.

How do you see social media impacting the fashion and beauty industries?

It’s the world we live in now. If you ever want to figure out the hottest: top, bottom, dress, color, or style, you can go right on social media. That’s what I do. I go on social media like, “What’s the newest trend now? Let me go right to social media and see what they’re wearing.” I do it and I know everybody does, too.

What’re your thoughts on the rise of the Black female influencer on these platforms?

I don’t know how it is for beauty and fashion, but I know within the comedy world, us Black women love to stick together and we help each other out. If they have a post, we’re always liking it. At least with women I’ve met, there’s never any jealousy or animosity and everybody’s in their own lane. We’re uplifting each other because in the comedic world, there are not a lot of Black women. The women that are, we definitely love to stick together and support each other.

What advice do you have for influencers, content creators and entrepreneurs who are looking to use social media to build their brand?

Be patient because a lot of people think, “I’m gonna put this out there and I want it to blow up tomorrow.” It takes a lot of time, dedication and being consistent. Be consistent, be patient and stay dedicated. Those are my three main things that I tell people when they want to use social media as a tool.

Let’s talk about your skincare routine. Walk me through it, and is there a difference between your day and night routine?

My face gets dry and it changes every once in a while based on the seasons. Sometimes I’m dry, sometimes I’m oily. I wake up in the morning and I like to use a Clinique facial and lock it in with a face oil – I do that night and day. I live and die by face oil; it always makes my skin smooth, soft and bright. I’m not really a moisturizer person. I love to exfoliate my skin two times a week. I think that’s very important, so I’ll do a mask or sometimes I’ll use a facial steamer. I absolutely love it because it opens up my pores and I’ll do that once a week. Hopefully coming soon, we’ll drop a skincare line. That’s in the works.

What’s your skincare secret and ultimate makeup hack? 

I love a primer, so my makeup hack is to always have a good primer nearby. That always helps.

What is the best piece of beauty advice you’ve ever received?

Keep your face moisturized and always have an SPF moisturizer, especially in California. The sun out here and the atmosphere is crazy, so it’s always safe and best to have that on hand. Now do I use it all the time? No, but I’m doing better with that and it’s probably still the best information I’ve received because I never knew about it. I didn’t know how much wear and tear the atmosphere does on your skin. 

Tell me why self-care is so important to you. What do you do to implement it everyday?

It comes with your mental and mental [health] is so important. For the BET show I’m in, I play Raven, I’m a blogger and my boyfriend just proposed to me. I’m planning a wedding, I’m living my life and I find out that I have Stage IV breast cancer. That is why checkups are so important. There are a lot of women out there who feel like they’re perfectly fine and there’s nothing wrong with them, and a lot of times, Black women do that because naturally we’re so strong and we always feel like we can weigh the whole world on our shoulders. You have to get checked up even when you feel okay. 

Self-care is important because I lost an aunt to breast cancer, so I’m constantly checking, telling my friends to check, and it doesn’t even have to be breast cancer. It could be going to the doctor and just getting a regular check. I do my own personal check ups and make sure I take time to myself because I can get overwhelmed and there’s a lot of stuff going on. I have to take time to sit down, breathe, I say a prayer and do a meditation. I wake up in the morning with a prayer, go to sleep with a prayer and in-between the day, I like to rest and do a woo-sa type of thing.

What would you like to dispel about breast cancer awareness? Do you think you’re ever too young to have the information?

When you do get a certain age, you definitely need to go to the doctor. Even when you’re young, there’s nothing wrong with doing a self-examination. At all ages, we all need to practice that. My younger generation still needs to practice that because there are cases in younger women. A lot of younger people, even with [COVID-19], they think, “I’m not gonna get coronavirus because I’m young.” It doesn’t matter because these cancers have no age limit to them. They don’t care how old.

How do you think social media influencers can do a better job of raising awareness?

We need to keep talking about it and not just for a month or two. We need to always bring it up on our social media and continuously bring awareness to these things because that’s what’s gonna make people do it. The more and more you see the people you look up to talk about it, it’s gonna make you talk about it.

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Jasmine Luv Spills Her Biggest Beauty Secret And Talks Breast Cancer Awareness  was originally published on hellobeautiful.com