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Christina “Tinx” Najjar knows a rich mom when she sees one. In fact, the TikToker, who is often referred to as the platform’s “big sister,” has a whole series devoted to decoding different types of rich moms. There’s the Southampton mom who exclusively wears Hermès sandals and works out at the Barn. There’s the Malibu mom who wears Chrome Hearts and short UGGs and drives a G-Wagen. And then there’s the West Village mom who wears Lingua Franca and dines at Cafe Cluny.
Like the kinds of women she lovingly parodies online, Tinx is a fan of Botox — but unlike a lot of them, she’s happy to talk about it. She discovered the miracle of injectables during a trip with her mom to see board-certified plastic surgeon Dr. Lara Devgan. “When I first went to Dr. Devgan, we did baby Botox just on my forehead, but now it’s like my whole face,” she explains. “Dr. Devgan uses it to lift my brows, I put it in my jaw, and I even put it in my neck. It’s called a Nefertiti lift, and it makes your neck look slimmer and helps with ‘tech neck.’ I’m not shy. I don’t like to have any movement. If I can move my eyebrows, I’m going back. Also, I’ll say this about Botox: It’s not only that it stops wrinkles but it makes your skin kind of glassy in a really beautiful way, so I go three or four times a year.”
Tinx also sees celebrity facialist Sonya Dakar every couple of weeks (“She’s a skin whisperer!”) and gets cortisone shots for particularly bad breakouts. But she also believes that, like anything in life, skin care is about balance and points to her diet as an example. “I eat really healthy, I would say, 80 percent of the time. I love salad; it’s my favorite food. However, I drink heavily three or four nights a week, I love sweets, I drink a shit ton of coffee, and I love ice cream and Froyo and candy. I love Chipotle, too — I have my own order on the Chipotle app. And all of that’s really bad for your skin. I know that a zit that I have right now is because I’ve been partying like an animal the past couple of weeks. You get a party pimple, and that’s okay. All of my followers are always asking me like, ‘Oh my God, you’re gluten free, but you ate that pizza?’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, it happens, you know? Just do your best. Eat the salad, but also eat the Froyo. Get a salad, and get fries. You can mix and match. It doesn’t have to be these hard-and-fast rules because then you just feel trapped.’”
If this all sounds unusually candid coming from an influencer, that’s by design. Tinx knows her following is composed mostly of people in their teens and 20s, and she thinks it’s important to be transparent: “Now that I have a platform, I don’t want to create any unrealistic standards. So if I look a certain way and people like how I look, I want to tell them exactly what I did to get there.” She’s mindful of the impact that skin can have on your self-esteem. “I remember when I left college, I had a bad bout of acne, and I went into Sephora bawling, being like, ‘Can you help me?’ I didn’t really know what to do,” she says. “Let me back up. Are there bigger problems in the world? 100 percent. Can you get over it? Sure. But when you have ‘bad’ skin, you feel so desperate. You’re like, ‘I would literally do anything to fix this,’ because you can’t concentrate on anything else.”
Below, the TikToker walks us through her intensive (and, yes, expensive) skin-care picks, including a cleanser she has used for six years, a cream she calls a “smoothie for your face,” and the resurfacing mask she swears is a Sonya Dakar facial in a bottle.
The Cleanser
“This is the most unbelievable cleanser — I’ve never recommended it to someone and not converted them. I started going to Tracie Martyn many years ago, and I was like, ‘Wow, I love the smell of this cleanser,’ and they were like, ‘Yeah, you gotta try this.’ It honestly changed my skin. It brought everything down — it made me less red, and it really cleaned up any acne that I had. It gets your face clean without drying it. I don’t even care what’s in it. I’m like, There could be tar in there, but I don’t care because it works so well. I have used it for six years, no joke.”
The Toner
“My skin has a lot of redness, and this toner helps calm it. My mom has rosacea, whereas I just get a little red. I mean, I do all the wrong things. I drink a lot, I love spicy food, and all of that can bring out redness. This toner is the only one I found that does not dry my face out. It has a very, very light smell. If anything, it’s very fresh. I like the smell of everything Sonya does; it’s always superlight and non-offensive.”
The Serums
“This hyaluronic-acid serum makes your skin look so dewy and helps it retain moisture. It totally transforms your face. You can be looking really gray and kind of flat, and you put it on and it makes your skin look supple and juicy.
“I mean, Dr. Devgan is amazing — I would trust her with my life. Because she’s a plastic surgeon, you know she’s thinking deeply about each product, and she’s not going to put her name behind anything she hasn’t totally tested. My mom actually found her, and it was just by the grace of a good God that we stumbled into the best plastic surgeon in the world.”
“I use this serum morning and night. I would drink it if Dr. Devgan told me to. I used to use the Skinceuticals C E Ferulic — the one everybody uses — but I like this one better. You know, my theory is that if it smells nasty, it’s working. Like, this just doesn’t smell the best. It’s hard to articulate the difference I’ve seen with it, but I just know it’s something that I need to do and I use it religiously.”
“I tried many different retinols before, and my skin freaked the fuck out. I know there’s an adjustment period with retinol products, but my skin just never took to any others — it was constantly peeling and red, almost like a reaction. I’ve been using this one for four months, and my skin’s texture has changed. It’s smoother. I have fewer brown spots. I’m just overall more youthful. I’m going to hopefully build my skin up to the 5x concentration soon because I want more power. For the first week, I used it three times a week, then I used it five times a week. Now I’m up to every night.”
The Moisturizer
“This cream is really rich in a good way. It’s like a smoothie for your skin. I always notice that the texture of my skin is beautiful the next day. It makes me look like I just got a facial without clogging my pores. But I don’t need it every day — sometimes I just don’t need this level of moisture.”
The Balm
“This balm helps with any redness or irritation or if my skin is having a meltdown because I’ve been on a flight. Sometimes I’ll wear it as protection on a flight, like a little barrier layer, but again, you don’t need it every day.”
The Eye Cream
“For the longest time, I didn’t believe there was an eye cream that worked. I didn’t think there was anything powerful enough but also light enough that would sink into my skin. And I love this one because it does both. With other eye creams, I would wake up and my eye socket would be greasy. And again, because it’s Dr. Devgan, I trust the eye cream and know that it’s actually helping my under-eye area and it’s not just goop sitting on my face. Since I started using it, my eye bags look less dark, and my eye creases are slightly smaller. I’ve been using it maybe six months, and I’m converted.”
The Face Masks
“I am a big masker. It’s super-ritualistic for me to do a mask and think it will solve my problems — so millennial, I know. I put my masks into different categories. I either have fun masks like sheet masks, which I use when I’m prepping for an event or I’m watching TV, or clay masks, or heavy-duty resurfacing masks that are going to take off that top layer of grime and make your face really smooth for makeup. All of the masks I have I use weekly — I have really big pores, and I get blackheads so I need to get them out.
“This is actually an unbelievable mask. It smells really good, kind of minty, and it tingles. Miranda Kerr is so smart, and she’s serious about beauty. I’ll use this and then also use my retinol because I’m addicted to retinol and I feel weird if I miss a night. But I’ve built up to it. If you’re new to retinol, you have to be very careful and work your way up, for sure.”
“I’ve used this mask for about five or six years. It takes any crap off your face, and if you’re breaking out, it will clean it up. Sometimes I even use it as a spot treatment. Like, if I have a pimple, I’ll take a little bit and let it sit for an hour. I also love using it before I put on makeup because it makes my skin all one texture.”
“When I would go see Sonya, I was like, ‘What is this thing that you’re using on my face because it always looks so clean afterward?’ It was just completely resurfaced, and it was this Flash Facial. It’s Sonya away from Sonya.”
