Alexis Page is a lifelong beauty junkie and indie product developer based in the East Village of Manhattan. Known as “the most important person in beauty you’ve never heard of,” she has worked with brands like MAC, Glossier and Pat McGrath. She recently launched a Substack, Self Involved, where you can find all her personal product recommendations, beauty opinions and sicko health protocols that she’s decided to finally share with the public at large. I’m eternally grateful for that, and for the related tidbits she’s about to share with us.
What is your fridge philosophy?
Little of this, little of that. I like cooking, but more often employ the meal-cobbling technique of having a bunch of little things together as a full meal. I like having multiple flavor profiles and textures at once.
Your fridge is always always always stocked with ____.
Various forms of dairy: whole milk, raw milk, kefir, yogurt, cottage cheese
Lemons: I started craving this whole lemon/coconut milk/olive oil concoction 24/7 and am now burning through lemons at a psycho rate.
Carrots
An unreasonable amount of dips for a single-person household: hummus, tzatziki, tyrokafteri, salsas, tapenades
Feta cheese and kalamata olives
Top 5 condiment picks, go.
Zhug
Maldon
Really coarse peppercorn
Specialty mustards: I like Edmond Fallot, obsessively finding all the flavors Pokémon-style. Gotta catch ‘em all.
Frank’s Red Hot - I’m from Buffalo, legally required to just have it on hand.
Fine, I’ll open it up to pantry too. Let’s hear your favorite snacks / pantry staples:
Chickpeas and cannellini beans
Sourdough
Peanut butter
Unusually shaped pastas
Tuna
Random crunchy toppings: crispy fried onions, gomasio, seeds, nuts
Treats are jalapeño kettle chips and some form of gummy candy
A meal that’s on heavy rotation these days:
Giant bowl of chopped cucumber, red onion and feta with olive oil and lemon. It lives in said bowl, with spoon included, where I pop into the fridge and eat it in passing over the course of the next 48-72 hours. Then the whole cycle starts again.
I’m on a real toast kick out of nowhere, which gives me a reason to now hoard weird jams and spreads.
When I have people over, I tend to go a little nuts with making a charcuterie/crudité spread. This ties into my regular eating philosophy where I need to ensure I have a little bit of everything and that all flavors, textures, and categories are covered.
I somehow got into baking, which I’m not exactly great at and I don’t even really care about desserts, but find it soothing and the logistics of it are easier for me to understand than making an elaborate entree. Recent success stories have been a gluten-free grapefruit olive oil cake and a berry clafoutis.
What’s the mantra you keep coming back to?
“You already know what to do.” I’ve gotten really good at trusting my intuition and blocking outside noise and opinions.
What products / practices are part of your regular mental wellness habits?
Mental health wise, I spent my 20’s and 30’s going the traditional therapy/pharmaceutical route. It was maybe what I needed at the time but later on I felt like I’d hit a wall and was not necessarily any “better.” I believe that focusing on “your stuff” too much for too long keeps you stuck in the idea that your issues are your identity and, for me, prevented me from taking real action or moving forward.
I did a full course of ketamine therapy. I turned into an exercise person. I turned into a TM head. I figured out a way to balance my need for alone time with also being social. I stopped taking birth control because it made me feel bad. I stopped drinking because I noticed that it had an outsize effect on my mood and anxiety. It ended up being kind of basic stuff that made me feel the most better so I kept up with it. A form of when I got busy, I got better mentality.
Walking while listening to music, TM, watching Bravo, calling a friend and cleaning my apartment are the easiest ways for me to center and self-soothe.
And your physical?
Pilates, calisthenics, ballet class. I get a facial usually once a month. I like to steam when I can. I use a red light mask and Normatec recovery boots while watching Housewives. I got pretty into the vibration plate, which I use while scrolling and the 15 minutes fly by.
What do think is the most underrated part of wellness?
The basic stuff. It’s not particularly interesting, there’s truly not much you can say about it and everyone thinks you’re a grandma if you do. Sleep, movement, sun, breathing. I’m super into all the newer forms of wellness and hack-y stuff—peptides/devices/etc—but it’s all kind of a waste if you don’t have the foundational elements dialed in tight.
And overrated?
The obsession with going to Korea for beauty treatments. I have a much more extensive soliloquy on this but the TLDR is that I think it’s all fake. I’ve been to Seoul for work multiple times and have found that the beauty landscape there is one giant hype machine, stuck in an endless trend cycle that completely changes course every six months. This renders everything sort of meaningless. It’s definitely fun to shop for product there, it’s weird and cool and you find stuff you won’t see anywhere else. And then you go back less than a year later and all those items are gone and suddenly you’re told to buy completely different items and there’s always some new laser that no one can explain but it’s “the newest and the best” and around and around you go. I find it quite spooky and depressing.
Another unpopular wellness opinion—micro-dosing mushrooms is rotting everyone’s brains. I won’t elaborate further.
Picture this: you wake up one morning and feel like shit. What’s your next move:
Chug pomegranate juice, orange juice, coconut water, Wellness Formula, hot shower, new sheets, as much sleep and horizontal rest time as possible. And if I’m truly sick, I allow myself to eat Saltines in bed.
Give us your ride or die wellness products:
I work with a longevity doctor in LA who took me from fine to really good through bloodwork, hormones and peptides. I’m pretty obsessed with this oxytocin nasal spray and all my little tinctures from her. I don’t know that I really believe in supplements for the most part, but she made a few OTC recommendations that have worked for me and I’ve stuck with them for over a year:
Ion Gut Support - tasteless liquid you drink with water first thing in the morning; helps heal gut inflammation.
Metagenics Adreset - have never really bought into the adaptogen conversation but I do feel like this helps with overall resilience to stress.
Integrative Therapeutics Cortisol Manager - I’m a good sleeper but if I need extra help, this keeps me asleep. Melatonin-free.
kitchen staples
One thing you do everyday that makes you the most YOU version of yourself:
Workout early and listen to music while walking there.
Whose taste inspires you?!
Lisa Eisner, the queen. My friends Kaitlin Phillips and Natasha Stagg, who are both aware of every single thing going on culturally without being beholden any form of trend.
Big thank you to Alexis for sharing this incredibly fun dose of her life with us. I’m loving her Substack, Self Involved, so I suggest you make your way over there. You can follow her on Instagram and find her fridge favorites + more here.
Feel free to leave a comment or respond to this email with questions you want asked, people you want featured, or anything else that’s on your mind. Don’t be shy, I love hearing from you.
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