Namita Nayyar:
You’ve stated that beauty is important to you, but you don’t believe it is the most important thing about a woman. How do you balance the aesthetic part of your career with your desire to be seen as a serious, intellectual person?
Lily Ermak:
Yes, beauty is important to me. I love aesthetics, beautiful clothes, beautiful visuals and the visual side of life in general. But I have never considered beauty to be my main quality, and I definitely do not want it to be the only thing people see in me. Perhaps that is exactly why recently it has not been enough for me to simply show myself and beautiful aesthetics. At some point, I became interested in showing what is happening inside my head as well.
Over the last year, I have started sharing much more of my thoughts, observations and reflections with my audience. For now, I do this in my native language. I want there to be a person behind the beautiful image as well, with her own thoughts, questions and interest in history, psychology, physics and the way the world works. So I do not see these two sides as opposites. For me, beauty is what you see on the outside, while thoughts are what is inside, and I am interested in showing both.
Namita Nayyar:
Your relationship with your appearance has changed with age. You see aging as an “opportunity to discover a new version of yourself.” Can you walk us through a specific moment where you felt that shift in perspective?
Lily Ermak:
With age, I have come to understand myself much better — my desires, my boundaries and what I really want to spend my life on. I think the turning point for me happened around the age of 32 or 33. At some point, my perception of myself and my life completely changed. Before that, I could tolerate disrespect, close my eyes to many things and quite often take the position of a victim, suffering but not always trying to understand why exactly these things were happening to me.
Now I understand that so much of the way we perceive the world is formed in childhood. We leave our parents’ family with certain ideas about ourselves, other people, what is normal and what is not, and then we gradually learn how to live independently. And I think our failures and painful moments in life can also be part of this learning process. Of course, not everyone sees them as lessons, but at some point I started asking myself questions: Why did I end up in this situation? Why did I behave this way? Why did I allow someone to treat me this way? I started having a very deep internal dialogue with myself, and gradually, the answers came. I began to understand my own patterns, see certain cycles of events and, most importantly, understand that I could change them myself.
So now I see my life completely differently. I have changed so much since I was 20, and even since I was 30, and I like observing this process. I think I am becoming a better version of myself. At the same time, I will not pretend that I am completely unafraid of aging. If we are talking specifically about losing youth and changes in appearance, it still scares me a little, and I honestly admit that. That is probably why I am positive about cosmetic procedures and plastic surgery, but I believe they should be approached reasonably, with moderation and respect for yourself. For me, accepting age does not necessarily mean giving up the desire to look good. It is more about becoming more yourself with every passing year.
Namita Nayyar:
You reject the idea that getting older makes a woman less interesting. What is the most empowering lesson you have learned in your thirties and forties that you wish you had known in your twenties?
Lily Ermak:
Probably the main lesson I have learned over the last few years, and one I wish I had known at 20, is that you should not wait for life to change on its own. You need to learn to understand yourself and take responsibility for your own happiness. At 20, I thought that many things simply needed to be waited out, endured, and eventually everything would somehow change. And sometimes I would see even a small failure or difficult situation as something enormous, almost impossible to overcome, as if I had encountered some force that I simply would not be able to handle.
Now I understand that there are practically no unsolvable situations. There may not be an easy solution, it may take time, it may be painful, it may turn out that you need to completely change direction, but there is always a way out. There can always be other paths that you simply cannot see yet. And I realized that life itself does not become different — we change when we begin to honestly look at ourselves, admit our mistakes and make decisions.
That is probably why I am much calmer about difficulties now. I already know from my own experience that if today something seems enormous and impossible to overcome, that does not mean that it really is. Sometimes you simply need to stop, look at the situation from another perspective and find another path. If I could say something to myself at 20, I would say: do not be afraid of difficulties. You are stronger than you think, and there is a way out even when you cannot see it yet.
Namita Nayyar:
As someone who uses beauty products professionally, what is your “non-negotiable” step in your skincare routine? What is the most recent skincare discovery (ingredient or product) that has genuinely excited you?
Lily Ermak:
For me, the most important thing in skincare now is hydration. Interestingly, ten years ago I practically did not take care of my skin at all. I started actively taking care of my skin at home about five years ago, after I turned 30. Now I have a much more systematic approach: cleansing, regular hydration, at-home and professional peels. I try to do a home peel about once a week. Among ingredients, I especially like vitamin C and peptides. I like adding peptides to my regular skincare routine — for example, adding a drop of a peptide product to my cream and using them regularly. One of my recent discoveries is retinol. I started using it relatively recently, and I really like how my skin looks after it. It becomes smoother, more cared for and fresher. But if I had to choose one absolutely essential step in my skincare routine, it would still be hydration.
Disclaimer
The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
