Routine rebel — Beauty tips

Sasha, who is almost 32, is one of YouTube’s most-known success stories and arguably one of the most popular and recognizable beauty gurus on the platform, with almost 10 million subscribers and well over a billion views of her videos.

“I was waking up feeling so lost. I didn’t know why.”

Blanco, who is successful in her field, if not at the very top of it. At the beginning of 2016, she landed on the covers of Vogue and Nylon, lauded for her success both online and off. She should have been damn pleased with herself at that point. But that’s not how she felt.

“I peaced out because I think I was going through depression. I don’t know because I didn’t go to a hospital or anything or get diagnosed, but I was taking a few quizzes online and I felt really sad every day,” Banco says. Of her dual covers, she muses: “You would think, You should be happy. But I wasn’t. I was waking up feeling so broken. I didn’t know why.”

After speaking to Bianco for an hour, I noticed her palpable sense of relief about the decision to move behind the scenes and away from being in front of the camera. She won’t miss the commenter trolls either, one of whom wrote terrible things on her videos, then showed up at an event bearing a teddy bear for her. Even her mom and extended family get recognized now.

Read more the full interview here.