by Avani Gregg
Free your mind. It’s hard to find joy when there’s so much noise and clutter between your ears. Zone out to some music, meditate, or take a power nap—whatever you need to get rid of all the brain drain and find clarity. I’ve learned to make this part of my daily schedule, no matter how busy I am or how much I’ve got on my plate. For a few minutes, it can wait. Joy is calling.
On Avani
My aunt Hemali Patel says:
Avani is so special because she is strong-minded and does what she wants, no matter what. She doesn’t let others deter her from her goals and dreams. My funniest memory of Avani is when she won the first place overall title at her very first gymnastics meet. She was so tiny, but already such a force! To see this itty-bitty girl standing up there with all those medals around her neck—I was afraid she would topple over.
When Avani was here in Indy, some of her favorite things I made were my homemade chili, pineapple upside-down cake, pastas, and desserts. She isn’t afraid of spicy food, which is a good thing because Indian food has tons of spice. Avani loves it, even when everyone else’s mouth is on fire.
I have learned many things from Avani about social media. I have learned what makes some videos better than others, how to get better angles, how to not let anyone bring you down with their negativity, and how to have fun while creating content. She also shows our whole family how to be considerate of everyone when posting. I’m really proud to be her aunt.
chapter thirteen Face Time
By now, I hope you’ve come to realize that everything I do has some underlying meaning. I never just randomly throw something out there; it always has a backstory. Same goes for my makeup line. When Morphe approached me about a collab, I shrieked in excitement. Literally, top of my bucket list: my own makeup collection. I think they were expecting me to just show up at a meeting and listen to their ideas or brainstorm, but I had the whole thing already plotted and planned out. I had sketches, Pantone chips, and a full-on mood board. I laid out the colors, the box design, the vibe (playful and edgy), the shade names, and even asked if they could imprint my drawings onto each of the pan colors and feature them on the packaging as well. “That’s incredible!” They praised me: “We don’t usually get people who are so organized and creative. You did all the work for us!”
Did I ever. I threw myself into it, creating something very personal. If this was going to be my collection, it was never going to be in name only. It had to be me down to every detail, and I got a little obsessed over it. I named the big main palette “For the Bebs” because I wanted my followers to know they were top of mind while I was thinking through all this. The collection has thirty bright colors because, as you know, I don’t do dull or small. I literally sat there with the colors in front of me, racking my brain to figure out what I would call them.
A Who’s Who of Makeup
The shades are named after friends and family.
Madi: “Madi don’t like”
Charli: “Chunkin’s coffee”
Lydia: “Lydster”
Anthony: “Anfony” (his fave color is blue, so I gave it to him)
Dad: “L-dawg” (what I call my dad when he’s trying to be cool)
Shanti: “ShantiG”
Priya: “Pri-pri”
My dogs: “Jack&Benny”
My fam: “Gretals” (how we jokingly refer to ourselves, a combo of Gregg plus Patel, my mom’s maiden name)
My cuz: “Sonia” (named for my cousin, who was the first person who taught me how to do my makeup)
Mom: “Mama’s fav” (an evergreen shade that’s my mom’s favorite color)
Me: “my fav” (of course, a power purple)
“gymnast mems” (a shout-out to my former career, coaches, and teammates)
Avani-speak:
“LMAO,” “bruh,” and “*star emoji*” are things I put in my comments and texts way too often. “Lilpapivoni” is my Twitter name.
“inaudible noise” is this funny sound my dad makes. We constantly call him out for it, so it had to be in there.
“diet” is for my fav drink, Diet Coke.
“u mad?” is what people used to comment when I started putting up evil clown faces on my feed. I was like, “No, I’m not,” but I found it funny.
“beep boop” is the name of this little troll that my friend gave me. It used to be in all my TikTok comedy videos.
“clown” and “2016” are my greatest hit and my best year ever.
“seaweed” is named for my fav snack.
“fishy” is a word that Seb started up on our trip to the Bahamas. We all have sweatshirts that say “Bahamas Squad” on them, and on the hood it says “fishy.” I’ll give Sebastian creds for it.
Run It Back: Coming Clean
Taking off my makeup is kind of a complicated process. I have sensitive skin, so I need to be gentle but not leave any product behind to clog my pores. Basically, here’s how it goes, should you decide to do your own fierce face (and remember that you should always make sure you don’t use any makeup or remover with ingredients you are allergic to or have sensitivities to):
Latex and face putty usually peel right off, so that’s where I start. You may have to wipe gently with an oil-based remover if adhesive, fake blood, or waterproof makeup is involved. Apply with a cotton pad and make sure not to leave any of the glue or goo behind. Hopefully, you’ve avoided your eyebrows because… ouch.
I use cleansing balm to take off the face paint. It has oils and emollients to break down makeup, and it’s usually a solid that melts into an oil once it warms up on your skin. Add water and it turns milky, but really breaks everything down. Vaseline also works wonders—it’s light and lubricating, so makeup slides right off without too much irritation.
If you applied glitter, it gets everywhere, and I usually find it stuck to my skin for days. Try using a cotton pad to apply baby oil or coconut oil in a sweeping motion. Don’t rub hard—that stuff is rough!
When you’re done taking it all off, don’t forget to moisturize. After all the application and removal, your skin needs to rehydrate.
Give your skin a break. Doing too many looks in one day—even though you want to create content—can cause too much damage. I try and space mine out and go a day or two without makeup so my face has time to recover.
On Avani
My cousin Sonia Patel says:
I was the very first person to teach Avani how to do makeup! We were around thirteen and fourteen at the time. She would come over to my house and I remember she loved looking at all my makeup and swatching stuff. She started being more curious about it once she saw all the different products I had. She would try out all the different palettes, blushers, and lipsticks; we would do makeup looks on each other; and then we would wipe them off. We would keep working on each other’s faces until it was time for her to go home. Neither of us knew anything about makeup. I think she thought I knew what I was doing but, looking back, I didn’t have a clue. We have both improved a whole lot since then, but she has blown past me.
Avani is such a down-to-earth person. She’s honest, funny, and one of the realest people I know. I have a million favorite memories of growing up together, but my favorite thing we used to do was thrifting. We would spend the entire day hitting all the thrift stores around our town. Anytime I would go thrifting with her, our car would be completely filled with bags of all the stuff we bought!
Avani has definitely grown a lot in the past few years, but I don’t think she has changed. She is still the same nice and funny girl I grew up with and whenever I visit her it feels exactly the same between us. The secret to her success is simple: she works hard for what she wants, she’s persistent, and she doesn’t give up.
On Avani
My friend Sebastian Topete says:
I met Avani when she first came to LA—it was either her first night or her second night here, and she was staying at Madi’s house. I knew of her, I guess, and we had talked a little online before she was local. M
y first impression? She was kinda shy. But I think you can say that of most people who are new to LA. It can be very overwhelming. She warmed up pretty quick, and I real-ized how genuinely funny she is. Like, the best sense of humor! We went to the Bahamas on spring break with a bunch of friends and it was literally the best vacation of my life. I do remember one really weird thing that happened. We were just there to have fun and relax, and this mob of fans was waiting for us in the lobby of the hotel. We didn’t post anything on social media about where we were, so we had no idea how they figured it out and found us. We had to make a run for it like rock stars with security and we were cracking up. I also remember fans trying to sneak into our private villas, and us laughing in disbelief. I mean, none of us think of ourselves as famous, especially not Avani. She’s just the most normal person, caring and friendly to anyone she meets. Before Corona hit, we went to Disneyland and acted like little kids there. It’s been hard not seeing each other so often, not being able to travel, but we’re hangin’ in, waiting for stuff to open up again. The thing is, we can Snap each other and stay close till that time comes around. I just know there will be a lot more great memories made.
chapter fourteen Action!
In the fall of 2019, Brat TV reached out to me about an acting role they thought I would be perfect for: a new character named Gemma on the sixth season of Chicken Girls. Okay, I had never acted before, but I figured they knew what they were doing. Brat is a digital media network that makes original series on YouTube, and they have almost 5 million subscribers. They’d seen my content and thought the character was right up my alley. I was in LA at the time, staying with my manager, Erika, and it was smack in the middle of my prime Hype days. I didn’t really have a lot of time to spare, but acting was always something that had interested me. I act in my videos, but that’s just a few seconds. This would be ten episodes and I’d be appearing in most of them. It sounded like a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. Who wouldn’t want to see themselves on-screen? Maybe I would love it, be good at it, and decide it was a career I wanted to pursue besides social media. Only one way to find out, right? I said yes.
I didn’t actually have to audition. Casting just had me read some lines to get a feel for my acting abilities. When I didn’t totally suck, they confirmed that I had the part. That’s when reality set in. All of this sounded great, but I had no clue what I was doing. I didn’t know anyone on the show, and TBH, I was so crazy busy I didn’t have time to study up on seasons one through five. I relied on the director and the rest of the cast to get me up to speed. Everyone was welcoming and eager to answer any questions I had: “What exactly is a green room and why isn’t it green?” “What’s crafty?” FYI, it’s short for craft services, which caters our meals on set. Most important, “What’s the Wi-Fi password?” There was also a ton of technical lingo to learn. When the hair and makeup team double-checked us before the cameras started rolling, they would shout, “Last looks!” When it was time for me to transfer from school to set, the production assistant would say into her headset, “Avani walking!” and usher me over to the assistant director. Sometimes, I would scratch my head because filming was like a foreign-language immersion and I struggled to understand it at first. But it was also so exciting to see magic being made. I’d never seen a real clapboard before, and now my episode name and scene were written on it. The other thing that was completely surprising was how long it could take to wrap a two- to three-minute scene. Four pages in the script could take as long as four hours to shoot, depending on how complicated they were. How many angles? How many extra actors? Did it require intricate lighting, fog, or other effects? Sometimes we would shoot the same dialogue over and over because the director had to get me from the front, back, and in profile. When you’re watching it on YouTube, it all goes by so quickly, but that little eleven-minute episode probably took us a week or more to nail. So much goes into making it all look so effortless.
Season six was a big one for Chicken Girls—lots of makeups, breakups, departures, and drama. Gemma contributes to that—she’s pretty problematic. Besides causing bad feelings between Rhyme (Jules LeBlanc), who she picks to be on the cheer squad, and Quinn (Riley Lewis), who she doesn’t, Miss Cheer Captain likes to stir up trouble. She starts off looking the part of a preppy cheerleader, but by episode two we start to see her true colors: she dresses in a tank top, flannel shirt, ripped jeans, and combat boots. “Let me guess,” I ask Rhyme, “you’re wondering why I’m a cheerleader when I’m dressed like I could be in an indie band?” We learn that my character’s mom encouraged her to “try anything at least once.” So Gemma tried cheer and the next thing she knew, she was captain (what, like it’s hard?) and (another plot twist!) don’t write her off as dumb because she’s been accepted to Yale. So, let’s just recap: she’s smart, she’s edgy, and oh yeah, she could care less what people think: “People who judge me in this outfit are on the sidelines.” I loved that scripting because it sounded like something I might say to a hater. As the season progresses, Gemma takes Rhyme, an inexperienced sophomore, under her wing, inviting her to play Spin the Bottle at a party, sneak into an 18+ club with a fake ID, and ditch her Chicken Girls for a new, older, cooler crowd. When Rhyme spots her making out with someone who is definitely not her BF, Benji, Gemma threatens, “If you want to stay on this team, you’re gonna learn to mind your own business.” So, let’s rewind. Here’s the scoop on that kissing scene at The Spot. It was very weird, because I didn’t know Jake Ambrose, the actor playing Anthony. He seemed like a perfectly nice guy, but he was older, and this wasn’t his first rodeo. I, on the other hand, was about to shoot my very first make-out scene ever. My grandparents would be watching this when it aired. Awkward! Thankfully, my Anthony and I weren’t dating just yet. We were friends and getting to know each other, so he didn’t really care or hold it against me. Honestly, he probably doesn’t even remember me mentioning it, but now that I brought it up, I’m sure he’ll go back and watch season six just to check it out. The thing that they don’t tell you about on-camera romantic scenes is how unromantic they really are—it’s all so technical. Did we get it from all angles? Was the lighting good? Can we try it again with more of her face showing? Also, it’s over before you know it. I remember planting one on the dude and the director yelling “Cut!” before I could even process what had just happened. Really? That’s it?
Filming was very new and unfamiliar to me. There were parts of Gemma’s personality that I couldn’t relate to, like when she threatens Rhyme or cheats on Benji. That is stuff I would never do, but I had to make it seem real, because acting is being someone who isn’t you. I would constantly ask myself, “What is Gemma thinking here? Why would she feel that way?” I would literally close my eyes and try to step into her shoes and react as if I were her in that moment. It can be really challenging, but also exciting. How often do you get to switch places with someone? When do you ever get to make believe when you’re no longer a little kid anymore?
I also talked with the director about my character’s motivation—where she was coming from and how she would say the line. We did a practice run before each scene and he often gave me feedback like, “Try it this way, maybe a little tougher.” They gave me the entire season’s scripts ahead of filming, so I had a clear picture of Gemma’s endgame. She’s definitely a manipulator and mean girl, but as Rhyme points out, she’s just trying to make herself feel better. Gemma may talk and act like nothing and no one gets to her, but there’s a lot of insecurity there. My theory is that she saw a little of herself in Rhyme and that might have felt threatening. Rhyme had the skills and the heart and could take Gemma’s place one day. Still, I love that Gemma found herself at the end of the season, offered to help Rhyme get into a gymnastics camp, and learned from her mistakes. But I have to say, even when she acted like a baddie, Gemma’s confidence made me happy. She was fierce and I would have hated to play someone who didn’t have a backbone. Some of her costumes were kind of alien to me—you will rarely
see me in dresses or skirts—but, thankfully, I didn’t have a lot of costume changes. Gemma’s cheer look got repeated often. The hair and makeup were very basic and didn’t take too long—wild curly hair, natural makeup, and a ponytail, of course. Most of our scenes were shot at Brat Studios, but we did get to go on location at a school for a day, which was fun. I was shocked by how much of Attaway High and the town is actually on a studio lot that’s built up to look like real classrooms, hallways, and even Rhyme’s bedroom.
Learning my lines was very hard because I have the worst memory ever. I would think I knew them, but then they would fly right out of my brain. The other actors were very helpful and the director would cut my scenes into shorter segments so I was able to study lines before shooting again. My very first scene was with Jules, who I didn’t know coming into the show, but we became good friends. She’s an amazing person, such a pro.
Beyond acting, I had to attend school on set every shoot day. I did not enjoy this part of the job. I would shoot for an hour and be done, but I couldn’t leave because I had to log three hours of school. Every moment I wasn’t filming, they were throwing me back into “class,” during which a tutor supervises and you can’t talk. The irony was that I hadn’t been in a real classroom in a long time since all of my assignments were through online school and could be done at my leisure. It didn’t matter, though, because at sixteen I was expected to be studying three hours a day, regardless of what else I had going on. I found the whole thing ridiculous, but I guess when you’re a teen actor you have to play by the rules. What kept me going was the knowledge that in just a few hours, I was going to see Anthony. I could sit through endless math equations if I knew he was waiting at the other end of the tunnel!