Frank Ocean On His Skincare Regime Making Him Feel Beautiful & How “Love & Hip Hop” & MSNBC Are Similar 

Frank Ocean

Frank Ocean On His Skincare Regime Making Him Feel Beautiful & How “Love & Hip Hop” & MSNBC Are Similar

Frank Ocean hasn’t released music since 2016, but he has found a way to remain a private, but visible entity within entertainment. One way, was during the midterm elections. Ocean offered free merchandise to fans in swing states who could prove they voted.

As fans still await new music from the artist, he has given an interview as a brief update to what’s been going on his life. He shares how uses social media as an advantage, his skin care routine, why he decided to make his Instagram public, and why he moved to New York. Check out a few excerpets below.

Why he decided to put his Instagram on public:

I feel like there was dissonance between how I was seen by the audience and where I was actually, so that contributed to the decision to make my Instagram public, for sure. But there’s also the idea of dialogue and discourse and conversation—like theater where the audience can interrupt you versus the television.

How he uses social media to his advantage:

That dissonance—the word being a big container for what I was feeling…the way I was seen was not even close to correct. It’s still not correct, either. With some pop stars, the idea of them is maybe more balanced or fully formed: a half-dozen magazine covers, x amount of interviews, a daily influx of media. There’s a way you wanna be in the visual press, although you could potentially be misrepresented; when you’re completely minimal with media, there’s a lot of pressure on whatever one thing you’re doing, the stakes are higher. Social media helps that, ’cause you’re fully in control and can message that how you want.

How he feels about living in New York:

In New York, it’s the first time in a minute that I’ve had my own space that’s not a hotel and not some rented home, where everything around me is mine, and that’s been really cozy and comfortable this past year.

Why he exercised his influence during midterm elections:

The stakes feel higher now. I was excited about the idea of incentivizing people to vote and to get excited about midterms, because people aren’t usually excited about voting at midterms. Getting seven or eight thousand people who might not have otherwise voted to participate like that is a testament to what public figures can do or encourage with their voice. It feels responsible, especially at this time. Maybe also at many times prior, but it feels less like responsibility and more like a great opportunity that I had and still have.

His skin care routine:

Man, listen…some days, like today, I feel very beautiful. But some days, like in the winter, when I wear a lot of knit hats, my skin doesn’t like that. My mom told me years ago that you gotta get somebody to stitch the silk inside the lining of the cap so it doesn’t irritate your skin, ’cause your skin is sensitive. I didn’t listen to my mom, but I really do believe in a night cream. I feel like men just go to sleep. They may wash their face or they don’t even bother—they go to sleep with the day face on. You really need to do a gentle wash and put a night moisturizer on. You can’t have the retinol in your creams in the day because it makes you more sun-sensitive, so you wanna throw that on at night. I need the night cream because when I wake up I feel very beautiful, moisturized and ready to have people making eye contact with me, ready to look above my eyebrow, below the eyebrow. [laughs] That’s the life hack right there. It’s been all these years, and Pharrell still hasn’t given us the keys yet. He just says “exfoliate,” but it’s not just “exfoliate”: We need more keys.

His favorite vices:

I used to love mezcal. That’s like the adult/underground version of tequila…I sat outside in the fresh air for a couple of hours before I felt comfortable going back in. I haven’t had a drink since, so it’s not a answer to your question, but yeah. Maybe my vice is that I watch way too much TV news. I know that I’m not getting real information, but I still watch it. I wish my vice was VH1 reality-TV shows, but it’s not—it’s MSNBC. MSNBC is Love & Hip Hop with better vocabulary and more range, but it’s the same thing. Very much entertainment.

Finding new happiness while living in New York:

I don’t wanna give y’all the exclusive exclusive, but you know what? The new Christmas for me that makes me feel like a youngster is the night I come home from a long trip and I have boxes in the entrance to my apartment of things I forgot I had ordered or things people send me. That’s the new Christmas. I feel very blessed, grateful, and excited, happy chemicals rushing through my veins, when I walk into my apartment and I’ve got FedEx, DHL, UPS boxes, Worldnet boxes. As simple as that is. My box cutter is greasy from all the tape.

If he would ever write a Christmas song:

I’m never writing that.

See images from Ocean’s shoot below.