When Helena Christensen pops up on my Zoom, she’s in a swimsuit. Fresh from cold water swimming, she is bare-faced, tanned and glowing, her hair dripping wet and tousled. It’s the quintessential supermodel moment and only serves to prove how genetically blessed she has always been.
Born in Copenhagen to a Peruvian mother and Danish father, Helena Christensen rose to fame in the 90s as one of the original supermodels, an elite quintet of the most in-demand personalities on the catwalk, who graced the covers of countless fashion magazines.
She’s full of beans as we speak, putting her skin’s luminosity down to the power of Cellular Goods CBD skincare, which she started using about six months ago (she is the new face of the brand’s Rejuvenating Skincare Campaign), and her connection with nature. “When you grow up in a Nordic country, you also grow up with stories of trolls, mermaids, berries and the fairytale side of nature,” she says. “I feel really connected to that. I think I was meant to live in nature and just roam around out there in the forest.”
Here Helena walks us through her supermodel skincare secrets and the one thing she really wishes she’d done more of in the 90s…
I apply the same approach to my skincare as I do to my work out
I have always believed in mixing up your products and surprising your skin. This is also my approach to how I work out: surprise your body, surprise your muscles and keep mixing it up so that your body gets the reaction.
My face cleanser is from an amazing Danish brand, Sard, and I exfoliate with coffee grounds mixed with the Lumity Skin Nutrients Facial Oil. I save the grounds every time I grind the beans and use it to exfoliate my body and face – the rest I give to my plants. I really love exfoliating – the feeling of the little granules wakes your skin up.
I am obsessed with serums and oils. I put them on my face, my chest, shoulders, hands, elbows, knees, belly. Whatever is left in my hands, after using it on my face, I use on those parts as well. So I’ll add a few drops of Cellular Goods Cannabinoid Face Oil and SPF25 Rejuvenating Day Cream, which immediately makes my skin tingle and tighten and leaves it with a dewy glow. My whole life I’ve had this feeling that I need my skin to be thoroughly hydrated. I absolutely do not drink enough water, and it’s a lifelong process for me to remind myself to do it.
If I’m at home working, I will go through quite a few masks before I do anything else. Exfoliating masks, hydrating masks, deep pore masks… anything that actively does something to your skin that you can leave on for a while. I always see a change when I take them off. But also it feels good to touch your skin, to massage it and to stimulate and activate the blood flow and lymphatic drainage.
Cold water swimming is a primal form of connecting with nature and so good for your mental health…
I think cold water swimming is good for the soul, it’s good for the body. I mean, that circulation boost is incredible. We have a tendency to make everything more complicated and to go to the darkest corners of our minds and just look at everything from a very complex perspective. I go to so many dark places in my mind. But it really can be very simple if we just allow that to happen. If we just look at what’s around us.