What They Don’t Tell You About Pregnancy: Beauty Edition
"Are you familiar with Yzma, from 'Emperor’s New Groove'? That’s what happens to your boobs."
As a team of mostly women, we have a lot of moms on the Allure staff—and all of them are pro yappers. In honor of Mother’s Day, I (decidedly not a mom) spoke with Kassidy Silva, the social director for Allure and SELF whose daughter, Allison, is five months old, and Shanna Shipin, Allure’s shopping director, who has two daughters: Rowan (three and a half) and Sadie (seven months), about all of the pregnancy-related beauty and mental health changes that they wish more people talked about.
Kara: Kassidy, you look so glam.
Kassidy: Monica [our producer] said to look nice! She was like, “Kassidy, brush your hair.”
Shanna: I was promised there would be no footage of this.
Kassidy: Well, there’s footage of it.
Kara: I am recording the Zoom, but it’s going to be a written Q&A…though Monica keeps threatening to use clips.
Shanna: Well, it will be two different vibes. This [points to self] is what it looks like to be a mom of two and that [points to Kassidy] is what it looks like to be a mom of one.
How Pregnancy Affects Your Hair, Skin, & Nails
Kara: Let’s talk about beauty-related pregnancy things. What were some of the first changes you guys noticed with your skin and hair when you got pregnant?
Shanna: My hair was glorious. Glorious! [When you’re pregnant] you hold onto the hair that you’re supposed to lose, so it’s thick, it’s shiny, it’s soft. I would get hormonal acne every time my period came around, so obviously that stopped. With my first pregnancy, the glow was happening for real. For the second pregnancy, the glow wasn’t as bright, but the hair was still rocking it.
Kara: What about you Kassidy?
Kassidy: My hair was terrible. That was the first sign of pregnancy for me. I was on our very belated honeymoon and in every single photo my hair is up because it just looked awful.
Shanna: Well, you had a high bar because your hair always looks amazing.
Kassidy: I’m very obsessed with my hair, but it was so bad!
Kara: In what way?
Kassidy: It totally changed texture. I’m very ritualistic in how I do my hair. But everything that I normally use—the shampoos, the oils, the hot tools—went completely out the window. My hair was incredibly coarse. Everyone’s like, “Oh, my hair is so thick and full!” And I was like, “This is ruining my life.” The equivalent, I would say, is horse hair.
Shanna: OK, that [horse hair texture] happened to me like three or four months postpartum.
Kassidy: My hair has gone back to normal postpartum. In terms of skin: I’ve had psoriasis and eczema my entire life. Both of those conditions cleared up immediately. That should have been the tip off that I was pregnant: both evaporated overnight. All of my plaque psoriasis, virtually gone. My derm told me she’s had this happen with other patients, but mine was unusually instant. It came back with a vengeance the minute I had my baby, but I loved those 10 months that I had without it.
Shanna: I have suspected nail polish allergies. My derm and allergist think that my facial eczema is due to something in the nail polish. That eczema went away for me during my pregnancy, and I think it’s because I stopped doing anything to my nails. It has since come back, but look what else has come back? [Shows beautifully manicured hands to camera.] My nails.
Kara: Your nails do look very nice.
Shanna: Yeah, they’re thick! These are my natural nails with regular polish and they’re not breaking. I lost my hair, but I gained great nails.
The Beauty Products I Put Down While Pregnant
Kara: So what was your skin-care routine like that you didn’t have to change much about it during pregnancy? Was there anything else you cut out?
Shanna: Since I have lifelong eczema and dermatitis, I never used retinol. I never used anything severe on my skin. I have a routine that kind of leans French pharmacy. The only thing I changed was just buying more of it, because a lot of those French pharma brands have great baby and kid lines. So many of my girlfriends had to stop their hydroquinone and retinol usage in pregnancy and through breastfeeding, but I didn’t have to change much.
Kara: What about you Kassidy? Did you make any category-wide changes?
Kassidy: Oh, yes. For my psoriasis and eczema, I was using a lot of prescription creams.
Shanna: Yeah, you couldn’t use steroids anymore right?
Kassidy: Nope. So that was fun. But, like I said, my baby cleared up my psoriasis. I just wasn’t having flare-ups. During my pregnancy, I used all Joanna Czech products, because her products are mostly all pregnancy safe. My skin looked great! I was totally glowing—maybe from the hormones, maybe from the new skin care. I haven’t incorporated any retinols or anything like that back into my routine, because I’m breastfeeding.
Shanna: I was so keen on “pregnancy safe” as a phrase during the first pregnancy. There are websites where you can look into the safety of products…
Kassidy: Oh yes, I doom spiraled on that. You’re like, “There’s nothing I can use! I can only use water!”
Shanna: Exactly. So that was harmful and helpful simultaneously.
Kara: So once you started to feel like you could only use water on your skin, what did you do? Were you talking to your doctors?
Shanna: Yes. Your derm and your OB. Just go by what they say. I mean, to each their own, but you can go down a rabbit hole, especially if you have hypochondriac tendencies. You can never have a perfect routine. I just leaned on my ob-gyn and dermatologist, who told me what the big Nos were. Then I carried on with my life.
Kara: And what were those big Nos?
Kassidy: No retinols. No steroids. My doom spiraling was around sunscreen. Going outside, I always need to be wearing sunscreen. But what is safe? What is not safe? Ultimately, I landed on mineral sunscreen. The amount of notes I sent to my OB in the portal…
Shanna: There’s a lot of potential mom guilt! The phrase bouncing around in my head was, “Will this cross the placenta?” There’s just a lot that, as moms, you’re pressured to wrap your head around while also being pregnant and going through crazy hormonal changes.
Kassidy: For me, beauty is so personal. I use products that make me feel great. Then having to think of a second person in your routine? I hadn’t considered that. Even now, when I’m testing things in the office, I’m thinking about my baby.
My beauty routine is no longer an individual experience.
Shanna: Understanding your risk tolerance is such a thing when you’re pregnant. My first pregnancy, I was definitely far more careful about the things you’re “technically” not supposed to eat, like pre-cut fruit or deli meat. My second pregnancy, I definitely loosened up. I was eating runny yolks from day one! During my first pregnancy, I was like, I can’t walk around the house without traction on my slippers. The second pregnancy, I was sliding around in socks.
Kara: Right, a lot of it is about risk tolerance, because we don’t have studies on a lot of these things, because it’s not ethical to test on pregnant people. Kassidy, back to fragrance, am I remembering correctly that you did wear fragrance when you were pregnant but now you’re not?
Kassidy: Yes I did. A lot of women stop wearing fragrances, but I didn’t. In the beginning it was all “clean” fragrances. By the end I was like, give me any small delight that is left. I feel like a whale, so I am wearing my Gucci Flora and I don’t care. But, post pregnancy, I don’t like wearing perfume because then I smell it on my baby instead of her newborn smell. If we could bottle that smell, we would all be billionaires. But I’m also not telling other people they can’t wear perfume if they want to hold the baby. And I still put it on when I get to the office, because it’s worn off enough by the time I come home at the end of the day. I still get my perfume fix.
How Breastfeeding Affects Your Boobs
Kara: OK, let’s get into breastfeeding. Tell us about this pump that is the talk of the town.
Kassidy: I am very passionate about wearable pumps! I am in many Facebook groups with moms talking about different pumps. I like the Elvie Stride 2 best. The freedom that you get from being able to just put it on and go out and live your life—incredible. I don’t know how I would find an hour or even 30 minutes in my day to just sit down facing a wall pump. I take my pump to all my meetings.
Kara: You just wear it all day and then it goes off every three hours?
Kassidy: No, no I take it off, then I bag my milk, put it in the fridge, clean my pumps, and do it again every three hours. We do have a pump room at the office, but I’m always on the go. I don’t want to sit down in a room for half an hour. I don’t feel like there’s anything I can’t do now.
Shanna: I had the worst time pumping and breastfeeding. I despised pumping. I liked the Evie Stride, but I’m actually a passenger princess. I really enjoyed sitting on the couch, being connected to the wall and having my husband bring me things. I was like, this is my time to sit. I’m normally so on the go, it’s rare for me to be chill. Breastfeeding, despite how painful and terrible it was for me, did allow me to just rest a little bit.
Kassidy: I’ve learned how to sleep through my middle of the night pumps.
Shanna: Excuse me?! You sleep through pumping?
Kassidy: Yeah! I have a skin-care fridge that I’ve repurposed into my milk fridge. So in the middle of the night, my alarm goes off at 3 or 4 in the morning. I roll over, grab my pumps, put them on, prop myself up, sleep through the 30 minute session, wake up to my next alarm, take off and bag the milk, and go right back to sleep.
Shanna: Kassidy, do you sleep on planes?
Kassidy: Yes, I can sleep anywhere.
Shanna: We have very different life experiences.
Kara: I can’t even sleep in a bed not pumping.
Shanna: It makes sound! Also it’s painful. Well, I realized after the fact that pumping and breastfeeding are not supposed to be painful. During my first pregnancy, I attempted to breastfeed. After month four or five, I was drip dry. I mean, really, it was just like… powder. Second pregnancy, I did not breastfeed.
I stand by the Keurig for babies, which is called the Baby Brezza. My mother-in-law and my mom were like, we’re getting you the Brezza. You need this to survive. Everyone’s obsessed with it. At my old apartment building, after I had my first kid, the Brezza made its way around the building. I shared it with all the other moms because it was life changing. It’s like a K-cup machine for powder baby formula. We bring it on trips. We let it take up space in our suitcases, because it was so valuable to us.
Kassidy: It’s amazing when your child is screaming their face off in the middle of the night.
Shanna: Yeah, it’s done in 30 seconds!
Kassidy: My sister-in-law has a Brezza and all my friends who have done formula have the Brezza. They say there’s nothing else as worth it.
Shanna: The nips get tired! God bless you, Kassidy. Go for as long as you want. But my nips were kaput. I was just talking about this at dinner last night. A woman who’s nine months pregnant asked, “So, what happens to your boobs?” And I said, “Are you familiar with Yzma, the character from Emperor’s New Groove?” That’s what happens.
Kassidy: I am a very big chested person. I wear a 34E. I told my husband, in exchange for breastfeeding, I’m getting a boob lift when I am done with this.
Shanna: Yeah, my friend was like, “What do you do [about the Yzma boobs]?” And I said, “Mommy makeover.” That’s the only thing you can do. I have really small boobs and even then the shape is just… It’s comical what happens.
Kara: So are mommy makeovers on the docket for both of you guys?
Kassidy: Oh, I am absolutely getting my boobs done. My stomach? I don’t care. I got stretch marks, but they don’t bother me. But boob job? Absolutely.
Shanna: Boob job’s on the table…
Kassidy: They’re totally uneven! My left boob, I call it my super boob. The amount of milk I pump out of my left boob—incredible. She is an overachiever. My right boob, I call her my slacker boob. Now they're uneven in size, and I'm like, alright, we just at least have got to even out and lift.
Shanna: This is getting very TMI, but my nipples were destroyed. I'm talking like, Grand Canyon size fissures. I didn't realize this is not normal until later, but thus is life when you have eczema all over your body. There are so many nipple balms. I was overloaded with balms, lanolin, etc. The only thing that saved my nips were the silver red cups. Do you use those? Life changing. That's what I went to sleep in. I went to sleep in silver nip cups every night.
Kassidy: The brand I use is LaVie. I was like, is it worth spending the extra money? They’re like $45. But my best friend was like, I’m buying you these. Shout out to Kim for that because they are totally worth it. I went through every type of nipple cream. My lactation consultant was like, just get coconut oil. My husband, bless him, went to Whole Foods and brought back three different types. Coconut oil is the best.
Kara: So what do the silver cups do?
Shanna: They have healing powers in silver. I don’t know! The silver does something to reconstruct and heal your boobs.
Kassidy: It helps protect the nipple. Science!
Shanna: I use it as a shield as well, because your nips are so sensitive that everything just hurts. Touching silk would be like… ow.
Kara: That’s what I was thinking. I didn’t realize the silver also had healing powers.
Shanna: God bless any mom who is breastfeeding. It’s a whole other job.
Kassidy: It is. I’m reminding myself all day that I have to pump in order to feed the baby. You can’t skip a session, because then you’re in pain and she doesn’t have milk. I am by no means anti-formula. I think it is one of the greatest inventions of all time. Fed is best! But yesterday was the first time my husband had to give her formula at home and I cried. Not because he gave her formula, but because I wasn’t there. It was this emotional moment of feeling like I didn’t make enough milk, so she didn’t have enough to eat. But my daughter didn’t care! She doesn’t know the difference. She sucked that puppy down and passed out for a two hour nap.
Shanna: You have to store the milk at the right temperature and get it into the little plastic thing without spilling it.
You can cry over spilled milk if it’s your own breast milk.
Kassidy: I have cried many times in the kitchen. You know when you think the little pack is sealed and you put it into the freezer and it explodes? It’s like, that’s 40 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.
Dealing With the Aftermath of Pregnancy
Kara: Let’s talk stretch marks. Kassidy, it sounds like you have them but you don’t really care about them?
Kassidy: I didn't get stretch marks until the last month of my pregnancy because my daughter got really big really fast. She went from measuring around 50th percentile to 89th in the span of a month. I was super concerned, but she came out normal sized. Those stretch marks have already started to fade. I've talked with my derm who was like, Do you want to get rid of 'em? We can laser 'em off. You want to try some creams? We can try some creams. It's whatever you want to do. But there are so many other things that I have going on with my baby. I just don't even think about it. My mom had them and I always liked them. I thought they were kind of cute! Something to remember the experience by. But also, it’s only been five months. Will I feel the same in five years? I don’t know. I don’t judge anyone for wanting to remove them. It’s your body. There are tons of solutions out there now that my mom didn’t have.
Shanna: So many changes happen during pregnancy. You look at yourself in the mirror and you’re like, what happened to my body? Stretch marks are so determined by your genetics—I didn’t get any stretch marks, my mom didn’t get any, my sister didn’t get any—and there aren’t any creams that can reverse course once the stretch marks have come. I also grew immensely in the third trimester for my last kid. I had gestational diabetes and crazy amniotic fluid going on down there, but I still didn’t get any stretch marks. I was using hyaluronic acid serum for your face on my belly because my derm said it might help prevent them. It’s just so fun to rub creams on a big ass belly. So I did have this ritual constantly of moisturizing my belly, but ultimately I think it was just my genetics.
But so many of my friends in my DMs were like, how do I undo these? The really purple red ones like you mentioned were just kind of messing with how they saw themselves in the mirror. One of them was like, I wanted to wear a cute bikini with my belly on my babymoon, so please, how do I get rid of this? And like you said, I was just like, unfortunately, you just have to laser them off. But otherwise I was like, own it girl. This is you now. And I know it sounds a little like woo woo, but it's like you are truly nourishing a human life. How sick is that?
Kassidy: Right?! I miss my belly so much. I loved being pregnant. I had a fabulous pregnancy. I had very few issues and soared through that puppy, which I wasn’t expecting. Now I miss my belly, and the stretch marks are kind of what I have left.
Shanna: Another scary thing that's explained away is all the pelvic floor issues that come during pregnancy and postpartum. I told my mom. She has immigrant mom syndrome where she's like, Oh, that's just your body now. Oh, you pee when you walk. That's just your body. My doctor and my pelvic floor therapist were like, No, it's not normal. Your poor mother!
In my first pregnancy I had pelvic floor dysfunction. I had a super long, three and a half hour labor of pushing, and it destroyed me down there. And so I did pelvic floor physical therapy after. And then, during my second pregnancy, I did PT for the pelvic floor at a women's only therapy office throughout my pregnancy leading up to labor.
Kassidy: No, you should not have to pee when you laugh. That's not a thing. The fact that we tell women that that's okay is crazy. I did the pelvic floor therapy too. It was one of the things that my doula had recommended. I've convinced myself that that's one of the reasons that I didn't really tear during my labor and I also haven't really had any pelvic floor issues postpartum. I talked to [Allure executive beauty director] Jenny about how different it was for her. Pelvic floor issues weren’t something that they were really talking about when she was having kids just a little over a decade ago. Our insurance covers it with a $40 copay. If it didn’t, those sessions would be hundreds of dollars to see someone once a week. That's not sustainable for a lot of people, but it dramatically, for me at least, changed the experience, especially afterwards.
Shanna: There are so many things that women need in terms of improved care, but pelvic floor therapy covered by insurance during pregnancy and guaranteed postpartum would just be life-changing. I had to pay out of pocket for my second pregnancy. It was super expensive, but so worth it.
Kara: It’s almost like our health care system is finally realizing it’s actually a pretty big deal to give birth.
Kassidy: Eight pounds just came out of you! We’re going to need some help after that! Even in terms of after care appointments. You just pop in for a six week checkup. My doctor does a four week one. The support we got was all from our two doulas. My husband agrees that the entirety of how well everything went for us in the immediate two weeks after was because of our doulas and how informative they were on care just for me, for my body recovery, for breastfeeding, taking care of yourself. But that's a private expense. We were paying thousands of dollars for that service.
How I Prioritized Mental Health Post-Pregnancy
Kara: I want to chat a bit about mental health during and after pregnancy. Kassidy, you pre-scheduled therapy sessions, right?
Kassidy: Yes. I’ve been working with my therapist since 2021. I’ve suffered from anxiety for years and have had bouts of depression, which screens you a lot higher to be susceptible to postpartum anxiety and depression. So my therapist and I pre-scheduled our sessions for after I gave birth and I had her work text number so that if anything came up and we needed an emergency session or to reschedule a session, I could reach out. Having those sessions already on the calendar is like, alright, I just have to do this. It’s already on the schedule, it’s on the agenda. Your brain is definitely not thinking about yourself.
It was also helpful for adjusting to getting back on medication. I went off all of my medication right at the beginning of my pregnancy. Meeting with her to talk about that made me feel very supported. The health care professionals are important, but having the village around you of close friends, family, people checking in on you is also invaluable. Being able to have maternity leave for almost five months was something that I definitely needed, but I know a lot of women don't have that. The amount of times that I just cried thinking of single moms in the first month of my daughter's life… My husband would be like, are you okay? And I was just like, I dunno how anybody does this alone.
Shanna: Yeah, I can confirm the village makes everything better. I had my first kid during the early peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. I was supposed to wear a mask while giving birth. Nobody except my husband was allowed in the labor room to visit. But even my husband wasn't allowed in my 20 week scan. It was a super isolating experience. I wasn't able to see anybody or talk to anybody. We were in Brooklyn at the time and I wasn't really feeling like I could even take walks. I had prenatal depression. My second pregnancy was just sunshine and rainbows by comparison. I was back in LA, my hometown, and my family was around. I could take nature walks. I felt so good during the second pregnancy. My body requires physical movement to regulate my anxiety and my emotions. Being able to do that in my second pregnancy helped in a huge way.
Kassidy: Getting out and moving, and just making sure you’re seeing the light of day and getting some fresh air is so important to your recovery. Also, one of the hardest things that I think people experience during pregnancy is that a lot of it is just sitting and resting. I trained with my therapist for two years before I got pregnant on how to just learn to relax, to sit down. Your productivity does not equate to you doing laundry or doing dishes or moving a pile of stuff from here to there. Sitting down and resting is really, really important, especially when you just had a baby.
Mentally, it is so challenging to feel like you’re not doing anything. Like, I'm just sitting here and you're looking at a pile of dishes. You're looking at a pile of laundry. I had to spend two years teaching myself that resting is important and productive. But once again, I had the ability to do that because I had a village of people around me. My husband was making meals and getting water, and making sure we had food in the house. My mom was cleaning and doing laundry. I could take the time that I needed to actually rest and recover because I had a support system. That’s a very privileged thing to have. And I think it's so important to be able to acknowledge that and acknowledge that everyone should have that. Is that realistic? No. But I do wish that everybody had that similar experience of just being able to rest and recover and watch every single episode of The Good Wife again.
Shanna: Paid leave in particular is so important. Obviously, having a child is incredibly expensive. All the gizmos and gadgets that you need, all the clothes… You shouldn’t have to worry about how much money you're budgeting and your expenses. I totally agree, Kassidy, that it is such a luxury that you and I were able to experience a five-month paid leave. Even in contrast to my husband's leave: He was granted four weeks the first time and then I think 12 weeks the second time. Both parents deserve paid leave! I'm sure my mental health would've been in a totally different place if I had to fend for myself.
Kassidy: You just have to have so much stuff. And we are very blessed that my sister-in-law just had a baby. My best friend also just had a baby. They both dropped off so much stuff to us. Her son's crib is our crib, the swings, the bottles. Even so, it all just ends up adding up so astronomically. Sure, I got a lot of stuff secondhand off of Facebook Marketplace, but after you've just had a baby… No, I don't want to go meet a random person off the internet to get this thing.
Final Advice for Any Future Moms
Kara: Do you have any final words of wisdom for our readers?
Kassidy: So many people are going to tell you that certain things are normal. Don't let people explain it away. Feel empowered to get a good team around you of doctors or people in your life that support you through this. If things don't feel normal, remember that you know your body better than anybody else. Keep pushing until you find people who are going to listen to you. I had an incredible OB and she listened to absolutely every single thing that I told her and didn't try to just wave off my concerns. She took everything seriously and it made it a much better experience for me.
Shanna: I totally agree. In addition to just moving your body, despite how badly you might not want to, don't be afraid to pivot and change your care team as needed to find the right fit. I was so kind of embarrassed to do it. I was like, no, I'm sure it's just me. This is a fine doctor. Don't underestimate the power of a great care team. Be picky because it's your right to be picky, especially when it comes to pregnancy and your body. Try to set aside any awkward feelings. You're not breaking up with someone. It's just a doctor. Go to the doctor that's right for you.