Let’s rewind — not just your mixtape, but your mindset. In a world that’s always rushing, 90s self-care is your permission slip to slow down, glow up, and romanticize every little ritual. From bubble baths to body lotion, we’re embracing the art of soft living — one cassette tape at a time.
🔯 Bubble Baths & Candlelight Vibes
Set the scene: dim the lights, light a vanilla-scented candle (or something slightly floral like your mom’s old favorite), and fill your tub with warm water and bubbles. Press play on a retro playlist — think Sade, Madonna, Mariah Carey, or lo-fi 90s beats.
✭ Vibe Upgrade: Use a waterproof speaker and play a “Cassette Tape Chill” playlist on Spotify. Bonus if you sip on sparkling water in a wine glass — extra soft girl points.
📲 Face Masks & Landline Chats
Slather on your favorite cooling gel mask or creamy clay, wrap your hair in a towel, and grab your cordless phone (or just pretend your smartphone is a landline — we won’t judge).
Whether you’re catching up with your bestie or journaling “as if” it’s a diary entry, this is about connection and slowing down.
✨ Pro Tip: Try a guided self-care chat with a friend — share what’s been bringing you joy, what you’re letting go of, and your slow girl goals.
💆♀️ Soft Hair Rollers & Body Lotion Rituals
After your bath, it’s time to pamper like it’s 1995. Apply your favorite body lotion (or body oil) slowly — this is about luxury, not speed. Slip into a robe and pop in some soft hair rollers for that effortless volume.
Finish with a few spritzes of a vintage perfume — like CK One, Sunflowers by Elizabeth Arden, or a modern dupe with nostalgic notes (think light florals, citrus, or powdery musks).
✨ Mood: You, lounging in bed with glossy lips, fluffy socks, and nothing on the schedule except relaxing.
🛌 Bonus: Your 90s-Inspired Night Routine Checklist
Candle lit? ✅
Mixtape playing? ✅
Skin glowing and soft as silk? ✅
Vibe: Brenda Walsh meets self-love queen ✅
📝 Soft Living is Always in Style
Self-care doesn’t have to be complicated — just intentional, cozy, and a little nostalgic. Let this 90s-inspired ritual be your weekly reset — a moment just for you, your glow, and your peace.
✨ Tried this vibe? Tag @BeautyLeeBar and show us your retro self-care night — rollers, robe, and all. #SoftLivingClub #SlowGirlSummer #BeautyLeeBar
You know those article headlines that make your heart stop when you come across them (or is that just a weird us-thing)? Imagine our excitement when we came across this story in Vogue about Jennifer Aniston’s self-care routine and her secrets to looking (and feeling!) as good as she does. Yes, please! After reading the entire interview about five times, the inspiration came to us like a wave. As wellness editors who love a good self-care ritual almost as much as we loved every season of Friends, we wanted to get as close as we could to being Jennifer Aniston and try out every detail of her self-care routine for one week.
So, what happened when we swapped out our self-care rituals for a Hollywood A-lister’s? Did we achieve her effortless beauty and lit-from-within glow? Did Jen and us (finally) become best friends, as having the same rock-solid self-care routine would make happen? Read on for Jennifer Aniston’s self-care rituals we added based on her interview with Vogue and our experience trying out each of them.
No phone for the first hour after waking
The first step in Jen’s self-care routine is what we need the most: less phone time. As a group of people who rolls over and checks Instagram within 30 seconds of waking up, it’s time for a morning routine makeover. As for the details (we’re all about the details), Jennifer keeps her phone stored elsewhere and uses iPods or old iPhones for alarm clocks and sleep apps. We charge our phones across the room and set an alarm on our echo clock.
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Jen talks about finally checking her phone after about an hour to find text messages wondering where she is, which we can only assume is from her team of assistants, BFF Courtney Cox, or maybe Brad Pitt finally realizing he can’t live without her (we’ve known that for 20 years, Brad!). We don’t have a team of assistants or Brad Pitt caring about why we haven’t answered their texts, but at least our boss would notice if we were MIA, right?
At the end of the week, we have to be honest: Our mornings weremuch better. We had more time to fit in meditation (more on that below), and we swear we felt less stressed when the first thought of our day was not centered around catching up on other people’s lives or texts we had missed. We are inspired to keep our current phone when we get a new one to use for sleep apps and alarm clocks. That’s some bougie-ish, but it’s also pretty genius.
Use the Pattern app
While this is technically not a core piece of her self-care routine, Jennifer did mention that her phone is for texts, emails, and the Pattern app, which we needed to try. If it’s good enough for Jennifer Aniston, it’s good enough for us (also, it’s free, so we are game). We have never heard of Pattern, and TBH, it blew our minds. It uses data to help you better understand yourself and others for deeper connections. In a world where most of our screen time is spent watching people, we don’t know dance or cook feta pasta, it was cool to spend some time exploring our personalities and what’s going on in our life.
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You can use it as a tool to understand yourself better, a reference to make goals (it gives you peak days/times), or even as a way to connect with people who share similar personalities and values. Think of it like a dating app, only instead of swiping left-on gym selfies, you will be matched based on your deepest personality traits. Some of us learned that we are self-critical, deep, and passionate. It’s cool, and we thank the app gods and Jennifer Aniston for bringing such a fascinating tool into our life for free.
DIY a collagen latte
Probably the best thing to come out of this experiment is that we finally know Jennifer Aniston’s coffee order. Scratch that—she calls it a coffee routine. So, when we order Starbucks, we will no longer tell the barista that a Grande cold brew with one pump hazelnut and an inch of oat milk is the order, it’s our coffee routine. In a pleasantly surprising twist of events, Jen’s morning coffee is pretty doable. She adds a scoop of collagen from Vital Proteins, a dash of cinnamon, and a packet of Stevia because she has a sweet tooth. Meanwhile, she steams her almond milk while this concoction is forming and will occasionally indulge in her guilty pleasure, hazelnut Coffee Mate (that’s the relatable queen we know and love!).
Luckily, for this experiment, we already had a milk frother ready to go, oat milk on hand, and some collagen that we typically add to smoothies. We prefer the taste of iced coffee, but we quickly learned that collagen plus iced coffee does not equal a Jen-approved superfood latte. Collagen needs heat to dissolve or else it will turn into goop at the bottom of your cup (and not that kind of Goop). But once we nailed the hot coffee routine, we liked knowing we were getting some extra nutrients and protein in the coffee.
PSA: Your mouth and stomach are not the only body parts that digest. Jen is protective of her boundaries by limiting news sources, social media, and negative content. It makes us happy that Jen is protecting herself because we would protect her at all costs. But this is a great point because health is not only about choosing the best way to nourish our bodies with food but also about how to nourish our minds and souls. The podcasts we listen to, the people we spend our time with, the shows we binge on Netflix, the accounts we follow on Instagram, and the way we speak to ourselves (and others) are all things that feed us too.
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We always try to be conscious of this by unfollowing or muting accounts that don’t serve us, watching comedies that make us happy over horror movies or sad shows, and limiting news to what we need to know. But this week, we were not only thinking about what not to watch, listen to, and read, but we also made a conscious effort to consume more of what to watch, listen to, and read. Instead of scrolling through Instagram or watching Netflix, we read inspiring books and listened to motivating podcasts. To no one’s surprise, it was truly the most motivated we had been in a long time (and not just because we’ve been comparing ourselves to Jennifer Aniston a little too much).
Meditate after making coffee
Spoiler alert: Meditation was by far the most drastic change that came out of this week for some of us. It’s something we think we should do but never really make time for. We tell ourselves we will meditate after we take a smoke break, on our lunch break, or before bed, but it doesn’t always happen. Having a specific time built in to meditate (i.e., right after making coffee) was the game-changer because we did fit it in.
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Jen explained that she meditates after “a few sips of coffee,” so we panicked because we weren’t sure if she takes the rest of the coffee with her to meditate (will that be a distraction and ruin the purpose?) or lets her coffee sit there and get cold after a few sips (maybe normal for the rich and famous?). We need a detailed play-by-play, Jennifer! We ended up sitting on our yoga mats with our bougie latte in hand for about five minutes of meditation (we couldn’t let collagen go to waste).
Jen uses Insight Timer, so we used it and tried the courses she mentioned: lowering anxiety and how to create gratitude and abundance. Through this experiment, we learned that we prefer guided meditations. There’s way too much going on in our big brains to sit in quiet stillness, and we don’t always know what to write when journaling. Insight Timer achieved what it promised for us—we instantly felt a little less anxious throughout the day, and we felt major gratitude. This is nothing groundbreaking to the self-care world, but we give a morning meditation 5/5 stars.
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Adopt a pro-aging mindset
As someone in their mid-twenties, whether we are for or against aging is not a topic we’ve put much thought into. we like to think we are already a “pro” because we regularly pretended to be 21 years old before we were. But we think we can all agree that of all celebs, Jennifer Aniston is the first one to come to mind when thinking of the Buzz phrase “aging gracefully.” Not only does she look phenomenal at every age (like, how?), but it also seems like she hasn’t resisted getting older. Rather, she’s slightly adjusted her hair, beauty, routine, and relationships to each phase in her life without trying to look like Season 1 Rachel Green.
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The biggest lesson we got from Jennifer Aniston’s pro-aging mindset is something we also learned from our mom’s aging mentality: We are lucky to be able to get older because a lot of people don’t get the chance. We are sure we might feel less hunky dory about it when we get crow’s feet and gray hairs, but we do believe there’s something to be said about enjoying every age of life instead of wishing we could be younger. This week, we made an effort to make decisions for our future selves by eating fruits and veggies, getting enough sleep, and moving our bodies more, knowing that taking care of ourselves now is an investment in our future selves. As Mrs. Aniston (Jen’s mom) used to say, “This is about longevity. It’s a privilege to grow old, but we don’t have to grow sick.”
Keep learning and educating yourself
It’s relatable that Jen casually mentioned to her manager that she wanted to educate herself more, so her manager arranged conversations with icons like Jay Shetty, Jessica Yellin, and David Sinclair (to be read in your best Chandler Bing-level sarcasm). We guess when you are an icon yourself, you have access to all the other icons. But as total wellness nerds who grew up loving to read (yeah, we were and still are that girl), we love that learning is a key part of Jen’s self-care routine. The goal of wellness is just growth: growing in health, growing in self-love, and growing in knowledge. When we’re constantly learning, we’re constantly growing.
We try to make more of an effort to attend lectures, listen to podcasts, and read books to grow our health knowledge, but the major change from this week was how we saw those efforts. We typically see education as an extension of our career, like we are staying up to date to be the best we can be at our job. But seeing it instead as a way to care for us transformed what we got out of it. Education, even in the name of a career, helps us grow as people, not just as a job title. If you ask us, that’s caring for yourself more than a face mask or smoothie ever could.
Supplement your health with products that work
To quote Jennifer Aniston quoting Dr. Sinclair, “As we age, our cells start to shut down and the lights in our body turn off. But you can turn those lights, those genes, back on.” One of the ways Jennifer likes to turn those genes back on and age as healthy as possible is through tried-and-true supplements, like the aforementioned collagen (she uses Vital Proteins, of which she is the chief creative officer for the brand).
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We are typically wishy-washy with supplements. We get excited about a new multivitamin and take it religiously for a couple of weeks before forgetting about it altogether, or we know we feel our best when we are consistent with our probiotics but can’t always seem to remember to take them. This week, we were more consistent than we’ve typically been with taking the supplements and vitamins our doctor decided were best for us. A major shift was (yet again) mindset: Rather than just another thing we were “supposed” to do, we thought of these supplements as another way to invest in our future self and to “keep the lights in our bodies turned on” as we get older. You bet we won’t forget to take multivitamins again.
The Verdict:
Overall, following an A-lister’s self-care routine was surprisingly doable. We loved spending a little extra time prioritizing the things we typically forget about, like tech-free time or meditation. However, the biggest takeaway we got from spending a week as Jennifer Aniston (we mean basically, right?) is that mindset is her secret. Don’t get us wrong: We are sure she has a team of the best beauty gurus and wellness experts on speed dial and the best products that only money (and fame) can buy. But her actual routines are fairly simple. No two-hour workouts, strict diets, or 5 a.m. wakeup calls are needed to achieve Jen’s lit-from-within glow.
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We love that the way she cares for herself is built around her mindset. She’s not using self-care rituals as a mask to achieve an “ideal weight” or to stay young forever; she cares about health because she wants to live the longest, happiest life possible. Now if that doesn’t sound like the moral of a movie where Jen would play the lovable protagonist, we don’t know what does.
If there’s one thing, we know to be true, it’s that you cannot feel anything but empowered when listening to Lizzo’s music. A confident queen, Lizzo is known for many talents: singing, songwriting, rapping, dancing, and even playing the flute. To top it off, she exudes self-love (on and off the stage). Needless to say, we think we could all learn a thing or two from her.
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After scouring the internet for Lizzo’s top tips, we learned that her journey towards self-love and body positivity hasn’t been easy. In an interview with People, Lizzo explained that after being “body negative” for a long time, she needed to find ways to love herself to survive. Lizzo explained that she shows up and chooses to love herself every day. Over the years, her advice and quotes on body positivity, confidence, and self-love have been the subject of many interviews. Here, we have rounded up six of Lizzo’s best tips that will have you feeling good as hell all summer.
Accept yourself
According to Lizzo’s op-ed with NBC, the first step to self-love is acceptance. “Acceptance is hard. I’m still accepting myself which is a day-by-day thing; I’m still working on it.” Self-acceptance can be a challenge when we are bombarded with images and products, we are told we need to be our best selves or look a certain way. Accepting yourself doesn’t have to be anything extreme. It can simply mean accepting yourself where you are while knowing that there is always room to heal and grow.
Sometimes the truth hurts. In her op-ed, Lizzo explained that self-love is rooted in honesty. “We have to start being more honest with what we need, what we deserve, and start serving that to ourselves.” If you find yourself putting your own needs on the back burner to fulfill the standards or needs of others, it may be time to take a step back and reflect on what you deserve. Try journaling to tap into your highest self and start putting it into practice. Learning to be honest with yourself not only strengthens your relationship with yourself but also with others.
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Practice positive self-talk
As Lizzo toldPeople, “Most people are taught that body negativity is normal, right? Then I became body positive, which is the opposite of that. It’s disruptive.” How often do you find yourself making a negative comment about yourself in your head? Probably often, right? According to Lizzo, the narrative around negative self-talk needs to change. Although you don’t have to love your body every day, you can still be kind and grateful for all it does for you. And if you need a little reminder, the opening lyrics of Lizzo’s Juice have got you covered.
Mirror, mirror on the wall
Don’t say it, ’cause I know I’m cute (ooh, baby)
Follow people who represent you
I remember the days when #fitspo abounds. And although I’ve seen a positive shift on social media, there are countless ways to edit and enhance photos at our fingertips that our insecurities pay the price for. Lizzo credits a shift in her mindset toward body positivity to following people that look like her. Take Lizzo’s lead and quickly check who you’re following. Are they representative of you, do they bring positivity, and do they align with your values? If not, it might be time to hit that unfollow button.
Like most celebs in the limelight, Lizzo has faced criticism for her body–but she isn’t afraid to clap back. In a TikTok video from 2020 (which now has 17.6 million views, we might add) her voiceover states, “So it may come as a surprise to some that I am not working out to have your ideal body type. I’m working out to have my ideal body type” she said. And you know what type that is? None of your (expletive) business. Because I am beautiful, I am strong”. We love an unapologetic queen. Although we’ve been taught to exercise for aesthetic purposes, exercise has many other benefits, such as reducing the risk of disease, boosting your mood (endorphins make you happy, duh), and improving sleep. Find workouts that you enjoy and think about why you want to work out, whether it is to feel strong and confident or for your long-term health.
While it is unrealistic to love every part of your body all of the time, you can reframe your thinking. Lizzo told CBS Sunday Morning, “I had to address every layer of insecurity because I can’t just be like, ‘Alright, my arm’s not jiggly and lumpy anymore.’ That’s delusional. You have to be like, ‘That’s not ugly to me anymore and it’s not wrong to me. It’s beautiful to me.’” We all have body parts we’ve picked apart, but it doesn’t mean we have to feel shame moving forward. Reframing how we think about our bodies and focusing on what they do for us rather than how they look brings us one step closer to self-love and acceptance.
To say Sydney Sweeney is a rising star is an understatement. Her on-screen resume reads like a must-watch TV ad: Euphoria, The White Lotus, The Handmaid’s Tale, Everything Sucks! Clementine, The Voyeurs, and Sharp Objects—to name a few. And she made her first debut at fashion’s biggest night out (AKA the Met Gala) this year, proving she can add fashion “It Girl” to her experience. It’s not all fame and fashion for the Idaho native—she restores cars, sweats it out in the MMA cage, spoils her rescue pup, and prioritizes her mental health (a far cry from her Cassie and Olivia characters). We turned to our trusted celebrity sources to get the details on how Sydney finds balance. Read on for five ways Sydney looks after her mental well-being. Celeb or not, we can learn a thing or two from her.
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Make time for self-care
Carving out me-time has never been more embraced than it is now, but I’d argue that we could all still use a little nudge now and then. Sydney backs me up on that. She reminds us that self-care is individualized and can shift depending on the day or season in your life. “You can be OK one day and it’s OK if you’re not the next because I think you have to start every day new, and you have to start every day trying to appreciate and love yourself, which can be difficult sometimes,” she said. Sydney’s form of self-care? Uses her nifty ice roller, getting lost in HGTV, setting relaxing vibes with candles, and chills with her dog.
Deciding what you need to take care of yourself can be a challenge (let alone finding the time to squeeze it in). But self-care can make a world of difference between feeling burned out and empowered. So, whether it’s building your sense of self-worth, working on catching more Zzzs, or moving your body, prioritize your mental wellness.
Stretch your budget
You probably don’t think of your finances when it comes to boosting your mental health, but Sydney encourages thinking twice about how you spend your hard-earned cash. “My family has always ingrained value in stretching a budget and the importance of money to my mind,” she toldYahoo Life. “When you don’t save correctly and don’t spend your money on important things where it’s supposed to be spent, [I saw] what the damage can be.” Sydney was taught the value of a dollar at a young age, and that has translated into her spending habits to this day.
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Start by creating a budget and start tracking your expenses to see where you can save (yes, there are apps for that.) If you’re ahead of the game (kudos to you!). There are other simple money-saving tricks of the trade: Give yourself 24 hours before checking out for any impulse and got to-have-it-now buys. Use coupon sites like RetailMeNot and Honey for necessary purchases, and unplug any unused electronics (looking at you, TV). The silver lining? Save a la Sydney, and you won’t cramp your hot girl summer style.
I know, easier said than done, but take comfort in knowing this: Even celebs get self-conscious and need to be reminded to practice self-love. Sydney told Glamour that she gets nervous before every red-carpet appearance because she has to put her IRL self out there, instead of a character she’s playing. In her interview with Yahoo Life, she said self-confidence is a daily process. “Some days I will feel great and some days I don’t want to get out of bed, and I think that it’s OK if you feel both ways… And sometimes I’m not happy with myself or something just doesn’t feel right. I think it’s important for everyone to know that everyone has feelings, and it’s OK if you don’t feel confident one day, but just know that you’re beautiful, no matter what.” Our bodies do so much for us, and we only have one for the rest of our lives. Bottom line: Do yourself a favor and take care of your body.
If “I love my body,” feels out of reach, that’s OK. Take a page out of Sydney’s book and start with honing in on all that your body is capable of doing, rather than what it looks like. There’s so much more to us than physical bodies after all. Try to take judgment out of the equation, and accept that self-love is a journey (with twists and turns, U-turns, and detours), not a race.
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Sweat it out
Sydney isn’t just a badass on screen: BTS, she is killing it in her workouts. From practicing mixed martial arts (AKA MMA) to two-a-day walks with her dog, Tank, it’s no wonder she has rock-hard abs to go with her crop top and red carpet looks. Admitting she’s not a fan of the treadmill, she takes to her neighborhood or the beach for quick runs to clear her mind. And if she has more time for a workout, she gets her heart pumping with a workout video. (Is anyone else wondering if she needs a workout buddy? Same.) To make the most of your exercise routine, mix it up like Sydney. Try a new workout you may be intimidated by, or head outdoors for a stroll, hike, or run. It’s the perfect way to switch up your current routine if you find yourself in a fitness rut.
As if her acting resume isn’t impressive enough, Sydney channeled her love of academia into business school classes while filming The Handmaid’s Tale. “I want to be able to read my contracts and know what the hell they say, so I’m not getting f*ed over,” she told Cosmopolitan. In 2020, she even launched her own production company, Fifty-Fifty Films, to support first-time female authors, nascent directors, and promising screenwriters. Could she be any more lovable?
If you’re having car troubles or find yourself stranded on the side of the road, Sydney is your girl. Taking ride-or-die to another level, she told Pure Wow that she has always been interested in cars. And that’s no joke—she took apart and rebuilt a Ford Bronco. Whether it’s the Virgo in her or not, she’s doing her mental health a lot of good by continuously cultivating new experiences. Researchshows that learning new skills improves your mental well-being by helping you raise self-esteem and build a sense of purpose. So, if you’ve been contemplating picking up a new hobby (think: journaling, reading, cooking), take this as a sign to get at it.
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