Influencer Gabby Morrison Shares Her Top Selfcare, Wellness, and Beauty Tips
An Interview With Ming Zhao
Lighting makes me feel so beautiful. When the sun is hitting my skin just right at golden hour or anytime. I feel like the most gorgeous person on the planet. Not to mention a little Vitamin D physically feels great as well.
At times it feels like wellness or elevating one’s well being, is diametrically opposed to high achievement and high performance in one’s career. The stress, mental energy, long hours, lack of restful sleep and preoccupation that result from a high-achievement life seem to directly inhibit wellness. And yet, in order to sustain the creativity, flexibility, mental acuity and resilience that are necessary for high performance, wellness and wellbeing of the mind, body and soul are also mandatory. So how do we achieve both? This is the question I’m hoping to answer through conversations with high-achieving leaders and influencers who are practicing their own philosophies about how to maintain their wellbeing.
As a part of our series about “Social Media Influencers Share Their Top Self Care, Wellness, and Beauty Tips, I had the pleasure of interviewing Gabby Morrison.
Born and raised in Florida, Gabby is of Jamaican and Trinidadian descent and is a trained dancer, actress and TikTok creator with over 3.5 million followers. Formerly known for her roles in Girls’ Night with Madi Monroe (2021), playing a lead role in Brat’s popular series Attaway General as “Kit” (alongside Dixie DAmelio, 2020) and Rooney’s Last Roll (2020), Gabby is no stranger to the being in the spotlight.
Gabby’s social media skyrocketed in the last year and she doesn’t plan on slowing down anytime soon. She shares her daily adventures with her loyal social media followers, including popular dances, songs, travel vlogs, room makeovers, beauty routines & more. Gabby’s first ever YouTube video titled My First Video- Q&A w/ Gabby Morrison garnered 65.3K+ views.
Since starting her career, Gabby has incorporated the hottest TikTok trends into top brand campaigns, partnering with Levi’s, Amazon, H&M, Spotify, Dior, Macy’s, Princess Polly, Calvin Klein, Adidas, Pacsun, Aussie Hair USA, Ulta, Boohoo, Brandy Melville, American Eagle and more. She is currently the face of hair care company’s GHD’s global launch. Now, Gabby is working on a personal passion project: her new body-care line called Lagoon with Beaubble, promoting body confidence by helping enrich and improve skin for those battling with highly sensitive skincare issues.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory of how you came upon this career path and to where you are today?
I started creating content while I was in college as a way to connect with others. With my background in dance, it was fun for me to quickly learn choreography and hop on trends. From there my following grew. I shared a lot about a relationship I was in, and shared a lot about my hair and skin, and because I was so consistent my following continued to grow. I started creating content the summer before my senior year! With my background in dance, it was fun for me to hop on this newly rebranded app and quickly pick up these short dances and to hop on the trends. As I was consistently posting, my following rapidly grew, and I found love for sharing my life and communicating with my new supporters. I wanted to share everything, so I posted a lot about my past relationships with the people I met through social media as well as my journey through my final year in high school and the beginning of my college journey.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My dad is a big inspiration to me. I’m so lucky to have such a large support group. Throughout all my videos you’ll get to know my closest friends and of course my family. What’s crazy to me is how much the people I met through social media helped me navigate my social media journey. Most would say yea… that’s collabing but it’s so different going through something as new and scary as social media while it was still developing and not being able to research “experts” or watch a “how to”. So, when I met my social media friends, who are now like my family, in the beginning of my journey we would all help each other out with rates, how to use the app, or how to start a YouTube channel. We were all confused but something about being confused together really helped me feel safe instead of lost.
As an influencer, you have been blessed with great success in a career path that many have attempted, but eventually gave up on. In fact, perhaps most people who tried to follow a career path like yours did not succeed. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path but know that their dreams might be dashed?
Continue to create content and share it! Don’t let follower count deter you from doing things that make you happy. Don’t let being an untrained dancer keep you from dancing, everyone needs to do more of what makes them happy. Never stop making content. I truly believe that everyone’s life is sharable, and people will end up being interested in something in your life whether they relate to the content and feel safe or they have never seen anything like it and want to see what that is like. Social media as a career is a little more difficult because I think the mindset of “I want to be an influencer” is what deters people from following and caring about your page. Authenticity is what people are interested in. So, when your goal is the following, the likes, or the money, the authenticity of wanting to post just to post whatever you are doing fades. Post to share and don’t even think about the outcome, it’ll come but enjoy making every video and not worrying about how many people see it. That’s when you will produce the best content anyways.
Can you share with our readers some of the strategies you’ve used to build an engaged, loyal, and large online community?
Share a lot, but not enough to burn out. While I enjoy creating content outside of my day-to-day, I also recognize what my audience is interested in and I’m happy to cater to them. My audience loves my skin, hair, and beauty transition videos. That’s why creating a body care brand makes sense for me. I’ve shared my natural hair journey and now I’m on a journey to create the best body care for sensitive skin. I have always posted what makes me excited in my life. If I’ve been so hyped about a vacation or a haircut, I’ll post it because it excited me and after doing that for a while the people that also enjoy the things I do have been attracted to my account and overtime will ask to see more of that content. So, posting what you enjoy doing, or what you are good at is a great strategy to lead your socials in an authentic way to you.
Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of our interview. In my work, I focus on how one can thrive and care for oneself in three areas: body, mind, and heart. You are a busy person with a demanding schedule, can you share with our readers two self-care routines, practices or treatments that help your body thrive? (Kindly share a story or an example for each.)
Since I grew up in dance, I was always very active, but it wasn’t until after I graduated and was not in dance as much that I realized how much being active affected my mental health. Now exercise is a core part of my day to day. I switch between pilates, dance, lifting weights, spin, just about any exercise class I can get in. I love that concept, this year I have really dived into more self-care than I ever have before. My routines have become so important to me because since my life can be very go-go-go with short notice, the stability of my morning and nighttime routines really help me. My new favorite part to my nighttime routine I added is what I call “investment.” I have added multiple body, skin, and hair routines that make you will wait longer to see results. I started with eyelash serum and within 4 months out of nowhere I had super long natural lashes. So now I apply hair oils, eyelash serums, and gua sha every night. My home and my space are a big part of my practice. The background of my videos can make or break the quality and lighting of the video. I love interior design and updating my space to make me happy to spend time within it and film in every corner.
Can you share with us two routines that you use to help your mind or heart to thrive? (Kindly share a story or example for each.)
Scheduling has been helping my mind tremendously. I have a planner as well as a white board that I schedule everything on. Waking up to a white board with everything I need to do in a day not only keeps me on track but leaves me feeling way more accomplished at night instead of feeling like I have not accomplished anything in a day. After a long day I also journal every night to reminisce, to be able to track my mental and emotional progress in my goals and to track my low moments to remember how I felt. These two routines are a chef’s kiss together for my mind and heart.
Can you share five ideas that anyone can use “to feel beautiful”? (Please share a story or example for each.)
I’m gonna expose myself a little haha, growing up in dance I feel like a mirror has always been my best friend. Every room I’ve ever been in needs to have a mirror on or inside of a closet door. Something about turning on music and feeling myself in a mirror really helps with my confidence. This helped so much with filming myself as well because in a way your front camera on your phone is a mirror. I just love to dance but this could also work with posing or singing or honestly anything as long as you are watching yourself. Invest in yourself. I love using products that you have to wait a longer time to see results because when they do come, and your hair has grown, or your eyelashes are longer IT HITS DIFFERENT! I felt so proud of myself and had results that made me feel more beautiful. Also, inner beauty. Being kind and hardworking makes me feel beautiful. No one can tell me I’m ugly because I know I am not ugly especially on the inside. Getting your hair done. I know that I can do my hair pretty well but when I get my hair done, I feel so spoiled. Getting my scalp scratched while they wash my hair is everything. It feels amazing and you leave feeling so beautiful. This one is geared towards content a little more. Lighting makes me feel so beautiful. When the sun is hitting my skin just right at golden hour or anytime. I feel like the most gorgeous person on the planet. Not to mention a little Vitamin D physically feels great as well.
Can you share a story about that with us? Do you have a story about the strangest, most bizarre or funniest wellness treatment that you’ve ever experienced?
It was in an “Ice Room” in a spa and when the ice came into the room it was really jarring and I screamed. It was hilarious because it was supposed to be a very tranquil setting. Other than that, I haven’t tried too many wellness treatments.
As an influencer, you are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
I feel like TikTok especially needs a new “love your body and every body” movement. As more people flood to TikTok, I’ve been seeing way more body idolizing on the “for you” page. People with millions of likes for simply their body and nothing is wrong with that but the comments and the reason it blows up makes me so upset. There will be thousands of comments saying, “this is my sign not to eat today” or “you have my dream body.” It hurts me as someone who once fell down that hole of feeling like my body isn’t the dream body or people were noticing I had gained weight. I was starting to feel like I need to get in the gym not for my health or fitness but to give myself a BBL or compare myself to others. I’ve been seeing so many people feel and express openly in the comments that they aren’t happy with their bodies and are developing unhealthy habits to fix issues that are beautiful. I’m still struggling, especially while watching my “for you” page. I would love to see and spread more love to all bodies and overall body positivity trending on the app.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world with whom you’d like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this. :-)
Oh, my goodness there’s too many people I would love to meet but I really want to meet with Gabrielle Union and speak about her career with her and ask her for advice!
What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?
Follow me on TikTok at GabbyMorr!
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
