Misty Copeland, who recently partnered with LeapFrog to launch LeapMove, shared her favorite things, including the dental floss, setting spray, instant noodles, and sunflower seeds she can’t live without.
I’ve been using this for over 20 years. Once I became a professional, I learned all the little hacks from the older ballerinas. These ballet companies charge so much for the special thread specifically used for sewing your pointe shoes and your ballet slippers, and these older ballerinas were like, “No, you need to spend less money.
” The floss is so strong; it’s not going to break. That’s a ballerina’s worst nightmare, the ribbon falling off in the middle of a performance or something, because we sew the ribbons and elastics on ourselves. The floss just so easily goes through the material because it’s waxed.One of my go-to things for relieving puffiness is dipping my whole face in a bowl of ice water. My husband bought this steel compress that’s literally for boxers maybe a year ago and said it was super easy to use. Instead of doing the whole setup with the ice and water, this is really quick if you just want to get the under-eyes. It was really my husband who introduced me to it. He bought it and put it in our freezer and I was like, “This is crazy.” He said that boxers use it in the ring for swelling, and I was like,YesI can’t believe I don’t have an endorsement deal yet because I’ve been eating David sunflower seeds since I was about 7. Me and my dad would eat them, and it became this ritual for me as a young girl, something I would do with my dad. I am so quick with peeling them, too. I’m literally like a baseball player. I love the taste and it has to be David. I can’t do any other brand because they taste different. David has this buttery kind of fullness to it that other seed brands don’t. When I met my husband — we’ve been together for over 20 years — he was like, “This is deeper than just you snacking on some foods.” And I was like, “What do you mean?” He’s like, “I notice that whenever you’re stressed out or you need comfort or something like that, it’s a go-to for you.” And I was like, “Oh, I guess you’re right. It’s like a therapy session.” I always have a big bag of David sunflower seeds in my nightstand and I pull open the drawer and just snack in bed. My poor husband, he’s finding shells everywhere.Now you can find Jet Glue that says it is specifically for pointe shoes, but back in the day when I started buying it, it was literally for putting together model airplanes. It’s superstrong and a little bit different from a superglue. I don’t think it’s as gooey. It’s more thin and watery in texture. A lot of dancers will literally use shellac and paint it on the bottom of the shoe, because when you’re standing on pointe, the shoe bends. I have very flexible feet so I get the strongest insoles that are specifically made for me, but I don’t use padding in my shoes. It’s very thin between your foot and the floor and the shoes wear out very quickly, and so I literally pour the Jet Glue inside and it sits in the toe and dries very quickly. I mean, I can literally run off stage, take my shoe off, put it in, it’ll dry in 10 seconds, put my shoe back, then go back on stage. It makes the shoes stronger and last a little bit longer. Who knows who figured that out, but it’s something that all dancers know about.As a young performer, you don’t step into this field to make lots of money, so as a starving artist, you’re constantly living on a budget. I have a lot of different hair products now that are higher-end, but I swear by this. I’ve been using it literally my whole career, and you can get it anywhere on tour — middle of nowhere, you can get it. This isn’t something that I would use on a daily basis, but for getting my hair to be in a performance bun, it keeps my hair tight. There’s not a hair out of place, not even a flyaway. It also smells delicious.I’m from San Pedro in Los Angeles and there’s a lot of Mexican culture there, and so I grew up eating a lot of spicy, spicy food. I’m always looking for the spiciest thing. When we go to different countries that happen to have spicy food in their culture and their recipes, I’m always like, “No, no, no. Don’t treat me like a tourist. Give me the real stuff. I can handle it.” I don’t know how I stumbled on the Trader Joe’s habaneros sauce, but we shop there and I think I was just like, I’m going to try this. It’s good. It’s spicy. My husband cannot handle it, like, it’s kind of pathetic. So I’m like, “Well, this is your lesson in not coming and stealing my food,” because he’ll try some and be like, “Oh, why would you do this to your food?” And I’m like, “Because I love it.”They’re just so easy and I literally wear them so much. They actually need to be washed because they’re so stretched out right now. They’re cute, they’re effortlessly chic, but they’re so comfortable. They’re a step up from wearing a legging or a sweatpant. I can even go from the airport into a meeting with these on. They’ve become my go-to in the last year or so. I have them in different fabrics and different colors. They’re just so good.My son Jackson’s caregiver is from the Philippines and my stepfather is Filipino, Hawaiian, and Japanese, and so we always had home-cooked rice with every meal and it was made with the finger test where you measure the water based on how high it goes up your finger. I never learned how to make it. I cook almost every meal. I mean, my schedule’s insane, but I’m doing meal prep and I make food that Jackson can have for dinner and lunch throughout the week, but rice is not my strength at all. And so when Jackson’s caregiver started working with us, she was like, “Oh yeah, I can do rice for you guys,” but she left us recently and we were like, “What are we going to do?” So my husband was on a mission to find a good rice cooker. He doesn’t cook at all, and this is something that’s really simple and easy that he can do. It’s just so wonderful. Our son, Jackson, even knows the cute little ring that happens when the rice is done. I hadn’t heard it before and I freaked out, like, What is that sound in our house? And little Jackson was like, “Oh Mom, that’s the rice cooker. The rice is done.” It’s really cute, too.I’m just not a girly girl and I just don’t love putting makeup on my face, which is such a part of what I do in my career and in my life and in my world, but I feel like my face just doesn’t handle makeup well, especially around my eyes. You put anything on my eyes and in ten minutes I’m like a raccoon. I don’t understand how people’s faces can hold makeup so well. I’ve tried different things, and I’m like, How is this helping at all? Then one of my makeup artists pulled this out and sprayed it on me and it just felt different because it’s an aerosol. The coverage felt very different from the pump where it feels like someone splashing water on your face. My makeup looked amazing, and two hours later it was still holding. I go a little crazy. Even after my makeup artist sprays it on, I come back to my dressing room and spray it on. It’s so easy and it gives me confidence so I’m not constantly having to pull out a compact and make sure my face isn’t running. I swear by it.I grew up on instant noodles because my family was very poor and they were always a go-to comfort thing. As a ballerina I traveled a lot through Asia, and I always felt like,, and, again I love spice. And so going to Korea and Japan and having these instant noodles, I was like,. I would add hot sauce to my food, but I don’t need to with these. I found it on Amazon and it’s such an easy buy, but there’s so much sodium and stuff in it that it’s not something that I have often. I keep it in a special place in a closet, kind of hidden away, and when I need that comfort, I pull it out.I actually learned this from a girlfriend of mine who was at American Ballet Theatre with me. When I trained, we weren’t allowed to wear padding in our pointe shoes. I literally thought my teacher was a witch because I would sneak a paper towel in my shoes, because I started out with pads and then I switched schools, and she just wanted me to stop wearing them, but you have to build up calluses and it’s a gradual thing. I was putting some light paper towels in my shoes and she would know. I would stand on pointe and she would go, “There’s something in your shoe.” And I’m like, “How does she know?” She was like, “I can tell by the way you’re articulating your toes that there’s something between your foot and the shoe that you’re not using your feet in the way that you can.” Anyway, throughout my career, I’ve never worn anything because I’ve built up the calluses and the strength and all that. But then I took almost six years off from dancing and I recently came back for my farewell performance with American Ballet Theatre a couple weeks ago. I needed to build up the strength and it all went away in that time. I was starting out with the paper towels and they fall apart so quickly, and so I thought back, “Oh, Renata, she used to use random reusable wipes.” And so I went on Amazon and found them and I was like,. You can cut them to the size you want. I used them over and over again in my shoes and they don’t fall apart like a flimsy paper towel would. They were a lifesaver getting me back to the stage for my farewell performance with ABT.LeapFrog is a legendary educational company for children. When they reached out, I was super interested and excited to partner with them — and not just because of my son, but because of the work that I do with my foundation and the importance to me of education through the arts and through movement and through dance. It made perfect sense. And then actually getting to play the LeapMove game and getting to explore that with the young kids in myprogram through the Misty Copeland Foundation, I was like, “Wow, this is really incredible.” The kids weren’t at all thinking about the fact that they were doing math problems and spelling and all of this stuff because we were moving and we were engaged. It felt like community as well, with everyone cheering each other on, and the fact that I actually needed help from the kids because I didn’t know some of these answers. It’s such an important way to highlight and express the importance of movement in the way that we learn. That’s been removed from our education system, and it’s important to me because not every child learns in the same way. When I started dancing, something was sparked in me, and that helped me in school because I’m a visual learner and I need to be moving my body, which is connected to my brain.is designed to surface useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. Every product is independently selected by our team of editors, whom you can read aboutYou'll receive the next newsletter in your inbox.New YorkNew York*Sorry, there was a problem signing you up.
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