the bossbabe podcast - 37. Is Your Instagram Engagement Dropping? You Need This Episode With Entrepreneur + Influencer – Sivan Ayla

Episode Date: September 25, 2019

In this fun episode, BossBabe Co-Founder & CEO Natalie Ellis is chatting with Sivan Ayla Richards to dive into all things blogging, business, and beauty. Sivan is an incredibly successful lifestyle blogger, influencer, and entrepreneur known for her very realistic approaches to styling, cooking, home decor, travel, and lifestyle. Sivan remains completely unfiltered, unapologetically ambitious, and always honest. Join them in an open conversation about Sivan’s journey into blogging and entrepreneurship, creating and cultivating a highly engaged audience online as a successful influencer, entrepreneur and lifestyle blogger, and knowing when to take the leap into your ideas. Together they discuss the importance of keeping consistent and being self-motivated in order to thrive, listening to your audience to create a brand and product-based business that sells, and the importance of asking for help. You’ll also gain insight into Sivan’s experience of balancing her career with motherhood as well as her go-to skincare and beauty routines.

Like a mistake that a lot of us make is that we don't listen to the audience. I had to make a decision, either commit 110% or what am I doing here? You do have to really put in your due diligence in order to make sure that you're picking the right people to work with. That's for sure one of the harder parts of starting the business. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance, and learning how to balance it all. I'm Natalie Ellis, CEO of Boss Babe and your host for this week's episode. So this week,

I'm sitting down with Siobhan Ayla Richards to dive into all things blogging, business and maybe a bit of beauty as well. Siobhan is an incredibly successful lifestyle blogger, influencer and entrepreneur. She's known for her very realistic approaches to styling, cooking, home decor, travel and beauty all while remaining completely unfiltered, unapologetic and always honest. Siobhan recently created her own swimwear company Tan Lines and sold out the entire collection in just minutes after launching which it's just such an incredible achievement and in my opinion she's the absolute definition of a boss babe and has really been able to create and cultivate an incredibly engaged audience online really leading by example of what is possible for influencers and bloggers to be able to create long-term diversified success. I love her no bullshit approach to life which is I think

just such a breath of fresh air and no doubt why her followers trust every single recommendation she makes. So let's just dive straight into this episode where we're going to go behind the scenes and as always I would love for you to screenshot yourself listening to this episode, share it on Instagram along with your biggest takeaway, tag me at IamNatalie at BossBabe.inc and tag Sivan at Sivan Ayla. This episode is brought to you by the Boss Babe Insta Growth Accelerator, a 12-week program designed to help you grow and monetize your Instagram account. If you're ready to grow your audience with your absolute ideal clients who are throwing their credit cards at you, then listen up. I've created a completely free 90-minute training to show you how to do exactly that. I'm taking you through the step-by-step strategy to attracting 10,000 ideal

clients as followers over the next 30 days. If you know that growing your audience with ideal clients who can't wait to buy from you would completely change the game, then this training is for you. As I said, it's totally free. I just recommend turning up with a journal and getting rid of all distractions as we waste no time getting into the nitty gritty specifics. You know that I love specifics. To get started with the training, just head to bossbabe.com forward slash IG dash growth, or hit the link in the show notes below. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping

outside her comfort zone to create her own version of success. Welcome to the podcast, Yvonne. Wow, what an intro. Prepping, doing the work. I love it. I love it. You did your homework. I'm very impressed. I was going to throw in there, you inspire me because you make me feel like it's okay to drink champagne at noon, but I didn't put it in. I know, I can sound like a bad influence sometimes. I would love to dive in and get started. Just talking about your journey as a blogger, like I know you decided to go into blogging because you had a job that you didn't love.

And it's not the easiest decision in the world to make. And I would love for you to just talk about what that was like for you. Yeah, so definitely it was not an easy decision to walk away from. I had been working in wholesale in fashion for years. And essentially, I just felt like I had no creative freedom. And I needed a creative outlet when I was done working nine to five to just kind of take my mind off of things and allow myself to really explore what I was interested in creatively at the moment. Being in wholesale, it's a lot of computer work and logistics, and you're not working with the most pleasant people. So for me, I had to take matters into my own hands and really just express myself creatively and a place where no one could tell me what to do. I could do

whatever I wanted. It was very much trial and error. And it took me a really long time to kind of refine my focus. But ultimately, I felt like while I was exploring this whole blogging thing, I felt like I learned a lot about what direction I actually wanted to take in this space. So you kind of just jumped and did it and then learned through trying and seeing what felt right? Yeah, I mean, it was, it took a really long time. To be honest, I did a lot of exploring in different categories. And at the time, because this was back in 2011, when blogging had really just taken off in fashion. And I felt like in order to become your quote unquote blogger, you had to really focus on fashion and show your outfits and you

had to have nice designer things. And it was something that I really couldn't keep up with. Obviously, I was young, I was broke, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't own a good camera. I didn't know how to edit. The only thing I really had going for me at the time was I have always loved to write. So for me, I look back at my content, my photos, and it's cringeworthy. But at the end of the day, I'm not like super embarrassed by my write ups, because that's kind of like remain the same. It's my voice throughout the entire process. So took a long time. So how long did it actually take you from kind of making the decision to stop blogging to leaving your job? Well, it was something that I hadn't exactly planned. So essentially, I worked for a showroom that went under and I was let go.

And I had to decide if I wanted to go back into the grind of working a job that I wasn't creatively getting fulfilled, I didn't love, or figure something else out. So I decided that I was going to creatively just consult brands. And I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know what I was going to even do or what services I was going to offer. All I knew is that I loved being in the creative space. I loved taking photos. I loved planning photo shoots. I loved editing. I loved putting lookbooks together, merchandising, helping with websites, cleaning

things up aesthetically. And so I did that for about three years. And I was simultaneously doing my blog at the same time. And I had no readers at the time. It was literally like three people would read my blog, my mom, my boyfriend, my friend. And I just kept doing it. I did it for myself. And after about three years, when I was getting married, actually in Greece, I had a little momentum on my Instagram page. And I remember I hit 10k in Greece on my wedding. So that's how long that took. So this was back in 2015. So I had started my blog 2011 2015 is when I got married. And like right after that is when I decided I needed to give it all my all because I was spending so much time doing my blog that I had to make a decision either commit 110% or what am I doing here? Because at this point,

it was eating up so much of my time that it was like, why am I doing this? So it was a big decision. I had to make a huge jump, but ultimately it paid off. Yeah, I love that. And I love talking about how it's not just the overnight success that it sometimes looks like. Because I was the same when I decided not to take a job after university and wanted to start my own business. I couldn't just decide and go and do it. I had to pay the bills. I had to consult. And it's nice to really hear that that's what it takes. And sometimes it takes being consistent when absolutely no one is reading and you're putting stuff out. And it's like tumbleweeds. How did you stay motivated to actually keep creating and producing stuff when you felt like no one even gave a shit? Yeah, well, that's something that I really do feel

is what carried me through until this point is that's something that I really do feel is what carried me through until this point is that I felt like I was doing it for myself. I didn't come into it thinking, oh, I'm going to make a bunch of money, or I'm going to start a business or this was going to even be my career. I really went into it purely for creative purposes, as an outlet as a hobby, something I really enjoy doing. And despite having no readership for the first few years, I wasn't affected by that. I wasn't bothered by that. I wasn't really focusing on the numbers and growing my audience. I was just like, hey, this is fun.

I like doing this. My boyfriend, who's obviously now my husband, Paul, didn't particularly love it because he was taking my photos and I was dragging him around on the weekends like, hey, learn how to use this camera and take my photos. And we'd get into arguments because obviously he doesn't know what he's doing. And in my mind, I thought I was doing a Vogue editorial. Meanwhile, it's the most amateur photo you could possibly imagine. And it was starting to affect our relationship, which is when ultimately he made me have to make the decision,

you know, either give it your all and start doing this like on a more professional level, take it to the next level or what are we doing here? Cause this is not healthy for our relationship. I've been there. Yeah. But that's great that he also supported and like really believed in what you were doing to go and do it. How has that been for you just going from having this blog that no one was reading to obviously having this incredible lifestyle blog and full brand now? Has it been hard to let people really into your life? Because I think one thing you're really known for is being fully transparent. And, you know, you've shared a lot of your life with your daughter and your husband and really letting people in. So does

that come naturally to you? Or has it been something you've had to really get used to? Now it comes naturally. But when I first started out, I really wasn't doing anything video related. It was only on the blog and Instagram photos. And then really a pivotal point for me was when I started using Snapchat. And I felt like I was very late to the game on Snapchat. I thought it was like this teenager app that was like really dirty. And so I had no interest. But I started seeing other bloggers that I followed using it and showing like a glimpse into their lives, unfiltered, raw, you know, just in the moment stuff. And I was really captivated by that.

So I decided I would start showing a little bit of my life on Snapchat. And I unintentionally started showing, you know, products and glimpses of my house, because it's just, you know, naturally part of your day. And I would get so many people asking me questions, hey, what's that chapstick you're putting on? What's that pillow behind you? What light fixtures above your head? And I was like, wait, what you care about this stuff? Like, I really, I was blown away by the simple things that people were interested in knowing. So instead of focusing my energy on creating like the perfect photo or this curated, you know, whatever it might be, I just started to transition into a more realistic look into

my life. And that's when video really started becoming a huge part of my content. And I started to really give more of myself and my life, my personal life and my relationship and my family. So that's when really things started opening up. And I had to start sharing more of my life because I started noticing that people wanted to know more about me. They didn't give a shit what stupid shoes I had on or, you know, what trends are coming for next fall. They wanted to know what I was doing that day, why I'm feeling sick, why my hair looks like this, what Paul and I are talking about, you know, what's in my suitcase. I mean, those are the things that people wanted to know. So actually it became easier because if I am just interesting to people

being myself and hey, why even try to pretend that I'm anything but myself so that was a very easy transition for me actually let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform Kajabi you know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity which I love not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place. So it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So, of course, I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things

as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial. Go to Kajabi.com slash Boss Babe to claim your 30-day free trial trial go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash boss babe i love that and it's so crazy it's like hard to imagine instagram now without stories i feel like it's it would be such a surface level relationship and anyone i think that isn't using stories when they're trying to build

their brand is crazy because it's such an amazing tool. Yeah, I fully agree with you on that. When it comes to blogging, so you were saying one thing you've always been really consistent and good at is writing and you post a lot of blogs still. And I feel like people are often confused if they want to build an audience online as an influencer or a blogger, whether they should start a blog these days, is it still worth it if they should just be doing Instagram, what's your take on that? I feel like there is two sides of this. So a lot of people say this, and I feel like if you're just starting out now, I don't think it's a matter of deciding which one is relevant. I think it's a matter of what you do with it. So for me, first of all, Instagram is not my end game. So I've

always felt it really important to maintain my blog because I have a really high readership on my blog till this day. So even though traditional blogging is kind of dying, and not many people are interested in reading these lengthy posts, I still have a completely separate audience that tunes into my blog daily is very much interested and they read and they engage and they comment and they wait for it and they really find value in it. So to me, I have no plan to stop blogging. I think that a lot of my value lies in my blog. As far as people just starting out, I think that it's a little easier, I guess, to start on Instagram. It doesn't take as much effort as it would to sit down and put a whole blog post together that can take upwards of four hours.

So it really just comes down to what kind of value you want to provide your audience. If you're strictly about beautiful images and a color scheme and the aesthetic, then I think Instagram makes sense. I think if you're trying to tell a story, if you're trying to be informative, that's when you really need to use a platform like a blog to communicate that and relay that information. Otherwise, how do you do that on Instagram? You know, it's you can microblog on Instagram. But honestly, I think your personality can come through so well on a blog, if that makes sense. Yeah, it does. And I fully agree with you. I love that you said Instagram is not your end game, because I feel the same way. And I feel like,

you know, I want to know that, say, God forbid, Instagram shut down tomorrow, that my business and my brand would still be okay. And I think that's what I really hope everyone listening to this podcast really gets because I think you do it so well. And one part of that is launching your brand. What made you decide to launch a swimwear line?

Well, like I said earlier, Instagram not being my end game, I wanted to create something with longevity. I wanted to create something that I could grow and build upon. Obviously, having been in this space now for, I think, over seven years at this point, it was kind of the next natural step for me. I have always traveled. Paul and I love to go to a tropical destination. A lot of my content, especially in the summertime is heavily in bikinis. So it just seemed like the right product for me to create.

I naturally love swimwear and it suits like our lifestyle and everything that I promote not organically. So I thought that creating a swimwear brand was going to just kind of be the next step for me to create longevity in my career in case Instagram went away in case I didn't want to be a 50 year old blogger in case all these things, you know, like, I had to think ahead. So yeah, I mean, that's ultimately the reason I wasn't again, I don't go into things thinking like, hey, I just want to make a quick buck or, you know, just I really think like long term when I make these kind of decisions. Yeah, I love that. I often think like long term when I make these kind of decisions.

Yeah, I love that. I often think about will we still be doing this kind of shit on my 50? Like, what does that even look like? Yeah, so funny. I know. So I mean, my guess is that creating your own brand and launching it has not been like an absolute walk in the park. I think business often looks like it is, but there's a lot that really goes into it behind the scenes. So what has it been like with doing that for you? It's definitely not a walk in the park. I will say that. At this point, I've gone through so many different roles that a business owner has. I mean, I don't have a big team. It's me, Paul, my management, and my family who helps me in any way they can. But honestly, I don't have employees. So for me, I take on everything because not only my OCD, I'm type A, I'm very controlling. And I want every last detail to be perfect. I want it to be on brand. I really pride myself on the details and making sure that everything makes sense.

So I also have trust issues. I don't want it like a stranger to come in who might even be an expert in their field, but doesn't necessarily know me. So it has to be like the best of both worlds where I find someone I can trust that can actually like carry through my vision. So that's like my next step currently is I'm trying to find that person who fully understands my brand and my vision and my goals and can help me execute them to just take a little bit off my plate. Because while I did it for the first drop and it worked and it was great, I feel like it's not healthy for me mentally to carry this much responsibility on myself.

So I think that's something I've learned in launching my first collection and starting a brand is that you really do need to find, or at least enlist the help of someone who's an expert in their field and not be ashamed of it and not be, you have to relinquish control a little bit because otherwise you're going to drown with all the things that go on behind the scenes. Yeah, I feel you. I think though, one thing is you do have to be obsessed with your brand. You have to be obsessed with the details. And I think it serves you really well to an extent I launched my first product company about five years ago now and I remember doing like staying up all hours of the night to pack

to like get orders off do customer service emails do every little detail and the first employee I ever hired was the hardest because you're really letting someone into, it's like your child and it's terrifying. But now I think my biggest secret is hiring people that are so much better than me at everything. Exactly. But it takes a really long time to get there. So I love that you said that.

And I do think there really is something to being obsessed with the details. I think if you let those things fly in the beginning, you're really not building a brand that you can pass on to someone else I was just reading for anyone listening the e-myth and it's all about just being an entrepreneur and why a lot of businesses fail and what they need and they were talking about this kind of thing in there and how the best thing you can do for your business is almost set it up like a franchise in that every little detail is systemized and you've got like

a full playbooks that when someone comes in they do it your way because I think that's important I think you bring a lot to your own brand and so you don't want someone just coming in and doing it their own way exactly definitely yeah so when it comes to it came to marketing it I mean obviously you sold out within minutes um one thing that you did, I think, which was great was you really talked about the product as you were doing it and made the audience feel super involved in the process. Is that what you think your secret to like marketing it and getting it out so fast was or was that other things you did too? Well, first off, it wasn't like a super fast process. I know like I only started talking about it closer to the launch because I wanted to be

certain that first of all, it was going to happen, that things were going to be in somewhat of a timeframe. So there was a lot of setbacks. I definitely launched later than I expected to launch. I had originally planned to launch in May at the start of summer, very beginning, kind of when a lot of swimwear brands launch and between going back and forth, perfecting the fits and sampling issues. And, you know, I do manufacture in Bali with a very small manufacturer that has all women working and sewing by hand. I mean,

it takes a long time. So the process was so drawn out that I think a lot of people felt like I busted it out because we started talking about it like a lot of people thought like I busted it out because we started talking about it like a month before. And then I was like, here we are somewhere line. But no, don't be mistaken. It definitely took a lot longer. But yeah, I think that taking my audience behind the scenes, letting them be part of the process and help me pick things as far as details go and colors and making sure that

I'm listening to the feedback. I think one of the things that a lot of brands, even influencers, like a mistake that a lot of us make is that we don't listen to the audience. We have these people literally dying to give us their opinion. And we don't listen sometimes. And it's the easiest thing because all you have to do is look to the people who are following you for their opinion, their advice, their suggestions, because they're the ones who are going to consume it and ultimately purchase it. So always think about that when it comes to content, as well as the products I'm creating. If people aren't interested in the things I'm creating, then why am I creating it as my business? Obviously, if you're doing it as a hobby, that's your own thing.

But if this is your business, why not listen to your listen to your audience? That's who's ultimately buying it. So I felt like not only was it interactive and engaging for my audience to be part of the process, it does give you a little bit to like how much love went into everything. So people truly understood that I am a small business. I'm a one woman operation over here. And I wanted people to really just appreciate that part of the business because there's such high expectations all the time for people to get like you know they want instant gratification so I wanted them to really understand that

this is how I'm building this brand and I need you to like support it and understand it in order to not get frustrated with the fact that it was going to take a little bit longer yeah I love that how was the process for you of finding the right manufacturer? I love that you're producing with women. That's so awesome. But how was that finding it? I feel like those steps alone can probably stop a lot of people in their tracks. Yes, that part is definitely the hardest because obviously, like I said, trust is everything. And it's also like a whole new relationship.

You have to learn how each other works and you have to understand how each other communicates. And it's just you have to nurture an an entire new relationship and it's also business. So it's day in and day out, researching things, interviewing people, chatting with people, FaceTiming with people. I can't even tell you how many times I was FaceTiming at like six o'clock in the morning. So at the time, yeah, with the time difference, I'm like feeding my baby. I'm like literally changing my clothes in front of this person that I've never met, you know, like putting bathing suits on being like, Hey, look at my crotch. You see that weird part over there?

Like, I don't like that. So I had to like really get into it. And it's just one of those things where you become super vulnerable, but you do have to really put in your due diligence in order to make sure that you're picking the right people to work with. That's for sure one of the harder parts of starting the business. Yeah, I love that. And I love, I love what you mentioned about just letting people know you are a small business. I think that's such a good thing to do. Because often, people can look at your brand or your follow account and think that you're this massive company. And they're expecting everything to be perfect and happen overnight.

And I think it's so nice to be able to really bring people behind the scenes and say, I'm just starting out and you've got to bear with me. So you mentioned changing diapers whilst on FaceTime 6 a.m. I love it. Obviously you and your husband

are both super ambitious and really like pushing forward in careers and you've just had your daughter. So how has that changed for you? And has it changed the dynamic in your relationship? Having the baby is definitely a huge curve ball. We kind of knew before we had a baby that we had a lot of personal goals

we had to reach in our career. And we both just felt like before bringing a child into our lives, we had to be at a place where we both felt fulfilled. So we didn't feel resentment later because obviously having a kid changes the dynamic of everything. Your priorities, your time management, everything is just basically out the window. And I've had to really work on figuring out how to manage my time better because I used to be really good at it. And I used to be

able to get away with a lot more, even if I wanted to steer away from my plan, because I didn't have anyone else to worry about except myself. But now with the baby, and it's, you know, I have my hours where I have help. So I know that in those hours, I cannot fuck around. I can't just like, take off and go take a workout class whenever I feel like it or go for lunch or whatever, everything, every minute basically has to count when I have help. So that way I'm productive. I get through what I need to get done because who knows if the next day I'm going to have help or, you know, if my baby isn't feeling well and she needs me, like I really have

to be super diligent about the way I'm spending my time. And so it's been a very big challenge for me to really find that balance because I want to spend time with her. I also work from home, so it can be very distracting to be working from home when you hear your baby in the background. And thankfully, Paul is super hands-on, so it's really nice that he understands the nature of my business. And even on the weekends when we're both home alone and we don't have anyone to help us, he has no problem taking her so I can have some quiet time in my office and kind of get through what I need to do if I didn't have a chance to do that during the week. So I'd say a support system is absolutely crucial. And again, asking for help is like necessary in my opinion. I don't care if you work or don't work. It's like ask for help and don't be ashamed about it. So

many people feel like it's something to be ashamed of if you have to ask for help or have a nanny or a night nanny, but like, no, you're a human, you're a functioning human being. You need your time, you need your space, you need your energy, you need sleep. So I say ask for help. I love that.

And I think, yeah, when you work from home, it could be like a blessing or a curse in that it's amazing you get to spend more time, but you're probably super distracted. I know me and my husband are totally not ready yet because of that exact thing like we really want to get super clear he works from home and I don't but I think it's something to really think about and I was always worried oh my god is my productivity gonna go out the window then I look at all my friends who are mums I mean they're the most productive humans I've ever met like they will not fuck

around if they've got 10 minutes like the amount of stuff they get done yeah and so I think yeah you just learn how to handle it but I love what you said about asking for help and I think even if anyone listening doesn't have kids I think that's that still I mean I think more as women but can be really hard I used to try and cook dinner every single night and I don't know who I was trying to please because it was the worst thing ever. And now it's so nice to be like tonight, I really don't fancy doing it. I mean, my husband's definitely not going to because he cannot cook to save his life, but it's so nice to be unapologetic about not wanting to do those things. Cause I feel like you can feel that pressure as women sometimes. Yeah. And you run yourself into the ground and you just feel like you're operating at 50% at all times and then everything suffers. So I've also come to the realization that if I

don't ask for help, I had to tell this to Paul recently because I felt like as an influencer, a business owner and a mother and just a human being, you know, like an adult with a social life and personal things to deal with, there's no possible way for me to deal with all of them at 100% with everything on my plate. It's just not possible. And so things were going to suffer, things have suffered. And I felt like this is when I had to come to terms with the fact that asking for help is absolutely fine. And there's nothing wrong with it. And honestly, it's been the best thing I've done because now I feel like I have a better grasp of my life and I'm not drowning in everything.

So definitely ask for help. Kids are no kids. I love it. Yeah. When people say balance, I think it has to be harmony. Like you can't perfectly balance everything. There's some weeks where my business gets 100% and my marriage might get like 20%. And then it's flipped the next week.

And I think that's the way you've got to play it. Sometimes you just can't be everything all the time. Agreed. I love it. So I would love to pivot just slightly and talk about beauty because you share so many tips, so many of your routines, products, favorite things. And I just want to pick your brain. And I know that a lot of people listening do too. So could you share your ideal morning skincare routine? Yes. So I'll say ideal because honestly, mornings are the hardest time for me to get any like self care because the baby. So at nighttime, I take my sweet time because she's sleeping and I really get to just indulge. But the morning, what I used to do before I had a baby was I'd get up, I'd wash my face with

water, like cool water, I would air dry, I would do a toner, I would do a serum, I would do my day moisturizer, and eye cream. And then I would go to my beauty fridge. And I would take out my eye patches that I keep chilled because I feel like chilling your eye patches is honestly the best trick in the game. And if you literally chill any one of them, it's fine. It doesn't have to be a specific brand. I personally like the gel ones. But you can literally put any eye patch on the beauty fridge and it's perfectly fine. And you can just use your own fridge. You don't have to have like a mini beauty fridge like I do. I like that idea though of having that feels like a good idea. Yeah, it's just it's really, really indulgent and like over

the top. But honestly, I don't care. It's very extra. So I put like my eye patches on and then I also keep in my fridge a couple different rollers. So I would take like a roller, whether it's rose quartz or my nurse Jamie roller, and I would just roll over the eye patches to kind of really like seep in the serum that's inside those eye patches into my skin. It takes away inflammation, it's going to help with puffiness, redness, all that stuff. So you kind of look like more chiseled, more awake, it really helps you wake up, obviously, the cold on your skin feels amazing. And so that was honestly how I started my day almost every single day pre baby when especially when I was pregnant, too, it really helped with the puffiness but now it's more like water toner moisturizer done because you know I gotta get to the baby so you kind of like adjust and make do and some days on the weekends if Paul's like got a good handle on the baby I'll take my time to do an eye patch or whatnot or whatnot or before an event but that would be the ideal situation so if you had like 15 minutes free to yourself and you can just

indulge in something would eye patches be like the go-to or do you have like a favorite face mask or something you would do as well? I love a face mask I tend to do those on the weekends I feel like for whatever reason on Sundays my day to do a face mask I used to love to like get into a robe do a face mask watch a show and it was like a whole thing every single week, my self care day. And now I just squeeze them in whenever I can. But I have an entire drawer full of them. And I love to alternate. So I love to do like a summer Fridays, the scrub mask, I think it's like the gold bottle. I don't know what it's called. But I just know by the color. It's like a rose one, right? They have a rose one. But I actually like the pumpkin one.

It's got like, like grain in it. It's like a good exfoliator. I rose one but I actually like the pumpkin one it's got like this like grain in it it's like a good exfoliator I like that one I like the Peter Thomas Roth gold one when I really want to like feel like anti-aging and like do all those like fancy schmancy things like that one's great um I personally don't love a clay mask because my skin tends to go on the dry side so clay masks really dry me out make me feel like really cracky so I steered more towards like a like a gel mask or something that kind of like doesn't harden as clay so I love everything honestly but just I love that not not clay yeah I love that you mentioned shows on a Sunday what shows are you loving right now? Oh my gosh. I'm watching Euphoria. Are you watching it?

No, I'm not. I'm watching Money Heist right now, which has been like the best show I've ever seen ever. Yeah, but I thought it was going to be like another like bullshit kind of robber bank situation where you've seen the whole story before and it's insane. But no, how's Euphoria?

Euphoria is very, very, it's like bittersweet because I love watching it visually. I think it's a beautiful show. They have like this crazy makeup and the way it's shot is really fun to watch. But the storyline makes you like hate kids. You're like, I'm never having another child. Capri will be locked in the house until she's 40. It's one of those things where it just makes you feel a little bit icky because it's I think obviously it's TV is an extreme example, but it's kind of painting teenagers to be really, really bad. So it's very scary, but I don't think it's quite this bad in real life. At least I just I'm hoping it's not

the case. But euphoria is definitely like what I'm watching right now. I'm also watching Working Moms, which is hilarious. I love Working Moms. Yeah. It's so good. That's hilarious. That's like when I need to like take my mind off of how dark euphoria is, I turn that on.

I love it. Okay. And then also I want to just pick your brain about hair. You have amazing hair. What are your secrets when it comes to hair? Thank you. Tell me everything. Well, I get a lot of hair questions, which is so funny because I feel like I'm very low

maintenance about my hair. I only get it colored about twice a year and I do paint it on highlights. And basically people think I have ombre or biolage or whatever it's called. I don't have that. That's not the process we do. We literally hand paint my highlights so they look a little bit more grown out. I always want face framing color to really like make my skin look youthful and tan. So that's like been my trick for years. But as far as like my hair health, I'd say I have trained my hair to not need to be washed more than

once a week. Depending on what, how, basically, like the biggest issue is your workout schedule, because depending on the kind of workouts you do, if you sweat, obviously, you're going to want to wash your hair. But I've planned it perfectly to a point where I do my worst workout is the day I wash my hair. So I get sweaty, I wash my hair, I blow it out, I do it, whatever. And it lasts me till the next time I need to wash my hair next week, unless I do some other rigorous workout, and then I'll wash my hair twice a week. So I always space it out at least like four days between them, though, because if you wash your hair often, your hair is going to start getting trained to getting it washed that often.

So your oil glands are reproducing more and more and more, your hair gets greasier. But there's like a period of time that if you want to train your hair, you're gonna have to look like a greasy ass mess. And you're gonna stink. But I promise you're going to have to look like a greasy ass mess and you're going to stink. But I promise you that if you like wait out like the two or three weeks that it's going to take for your hair to like adjust, your oil glands will slow down so that you don't have to wash it as often. And you'll see that you can go like longer and longer and longer. You can probably go like once a week once you're like fully trained, which is great. Can you use dry shampoo in the meantime when you're training?

A hundred percent. I like literally live and breathe off use dry shampoo in the meantime when you're 100 i like literally live and breathe off of dry shampoo like i can't live without it because by day three and four depending on the time of year like summertime i'm 100 hair is up in a bun i have my dry shampoo i've also started using um powder so there's a couple brands that make them unite is one of the best ones they're called expanda dust and you literally like puff it into your roots and it creates texture. It acts like a dry shampoo. It gives you volume. It's super easy to use. I think it's actually easier to use than dry shampoo. And I use a silk pillow

case because that is the best way to not have any hair breakage as well. So that's a good tip for keeping your hair healthy. I love that. I just got a silk eye mask too, because the normal ones give you wrinkles. So I just got on that train. That feels good, but I definitely need to do something about this. I mean, a week without washing my hair sounds like a dream. But it's like so time efficient, right? Like who has time to wash their hair, let it dry for three or four hours, then still do it. I felt like I was spending so much time at home trapped because of my stupid hair. Getting away from that has changed my entire work productivity because now I have more time to like be outside of the house because I don't look like a drowned rat. I love that. Yeah. Anything for more

productivity I'm here for. Yeah. Well, thank you so, so much for being on the podcast. This was such an amazing episode. So takeaways and for anyone listening where can they find you and where can they find out about your brand too and maybe hop on your wait list because I know you're always sold out yes yes so my bikini line is called tan line so you can find that at shop tan lines.com my blog where you can find lifestyle tips hacks is sivanayla.com and on instagram you'll get a glimpse of my day-to-day and that's just at SivanAla. Amazing thank you so much. Of course thank you for having me. If you loved this episode please subscribe and be sure to leave us a review. I want to hear what

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