You've been there before: You're scrolling through your Instagram feed when you see your favorite celeb post about their favorite new product — a face serum, vitamins that will make your skin brighter, or a specialty food service. You can't help but want to be like the stars, but are the products worth it? In Elite Daily's new series, I Tried, we put it all to the test. We're trying those products as well as celebrities' health and wellness tips, recipes, and life hacks. We'll do the leg work and tell you what living like your fave star is really like.
David Dobrik has been the definition of content-creating goals since the days of Vine. The 23-year-old vlogger keeps his 16.6 million YouTube subscribers and 13.5 million TikTok followers entertained with all kinds of ridiculous hijinks, but even if his entire life seems video-worthy, he's got to act like a "normal" person every once in a while, right? Wrong. When I tried David Dobrik's morning routine, I realized he does everything, even the most mundane tasks, with his signature eccentric energy.
The idea came from a video in which Dobrik told Vanity Fair everything he does in a day. His first few hours were so much to unpack, I was completely spent by the time he reached 11 a.m. As someone whose morning routine consists of waking up and drinking coffee, the idea of spending about four hours starting my day like the YouTuber was mind-blowing.
The idea of waking up at 6 a.m. for no reason other than to follow Dobrik's routine was daunting. The night before, I set my alarm for well before the sun came up and laid in bed, checking my phone multiple times before eventually dozing off close to 1 a.m.
When my cricket alarm started chirping dark and early, I muttered "sorry" to my husband, who groaned and put a pillow over his head. This woke up our two dogs, who then came into the room and started whining until he got up and started his day an hour and a half earlier than usual. I, on the other hand, got to stay in bed.
The reason I was OK with "waking up" so early was because Dobrik doesn't actually get up at 6 a.m. Instead, he hits snooze every 20 minutes until about 9 a.m., something that caused my husband to hate me for most of the morning.
I am a huge fan of the "snooze and sleep" method, and I enjoyed my three hours of interrupted sleep.
As much as I'm on my phone, it's not too often I'm on my phone in bed. In fact, half the time, I keep my phone in the other room to charge overnight. For the sake of the experiment, though, I committed to lying in bed while looking through my socials, checking for important emails, and lazily watching Snapchats.
However, I'm hunched over my phone, laptop, and iPad all day (with the TV blasting in the background the entire time), so I prefer having a few screen-free moments when I wake up.
I usually shower in the afternoon or evening, but standing under the warm water in the morning was a nice, cleansing way to start the day. I let the steaming water lull me into an almost trance-like state and my mind wandered to what I had to do the rest of the day. It was a nice way to calmly get my mind working, but while the start of Dobrik's routine had been the definition of zen so far, I wasn't remotely prepared for what was to come.
Before trying to emulate Dobrik, I had never brushed my teeth in the shower. To be honest, I was always sort of grossed out at the thought of my toothbrush touching the tub, so I never wanted to do it. Howevere, as I sleepily brushed my teeth (before my coffee, another strange occurrence for me), I had to admit: Standing under the warm water, eyes half closed with toothpaste running down my chin and no regard for where I was spitting was kinda nice.
I was almost scared for this portion of my morning, because I felt like it had been around 84 years since I last shaved. My legs were visibly hairy, and as a blonde, that's saying something. Still, Dobrik said to shave in the shower, so I was going to shave in the shower. Two razors, 20 minutes, and three rounds of unclogging my drain later, I was hairless and exhausted.
Unfortunately, due to delayed shipping by Amazon, getting the exact Suave Kids shampoo Dobrik uses proved tricky — so tricky, in fact, I couldn't get it. Luckily, I did have a different Suave brand shampoo. While it's not tear-free, it does have a delightful spa-like scent that filled me with childlike joy.
OK. Remember when I thought brushing my teeth in the shower was strange? I was so innocent back then. So naive. This is when things really got weird. As Dobrik mentioned in the Vanity Fair video, before exiting the shower, he fills his mouth up with water, turns off the faucet, spits the water into his hands, and then drops the water, hoping the splash is louder than the last drop the faucet made. I know, it's a lot.
Feeling completely ridiculous, I filled my mouth with warm water and held it in my cheeks like a chipmunk as I turned off the faucet. I spit it into my hands, and then let it drop. Now, I'm no stranger to doing weird stuff in the shower (if I don't sing "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid while washing my hair, my day is ruined), but I just didn't understand the point of this ritual. Plus, when I got out of the shower, I had spit water splashes all over my legs, which kinda made me want to rinse off all over again.
As for the splash, it was easily louder than the last drop from the faucet, which leads me to believe I either did something wrong or Dobrik needs to get his hearing checked. Either way, I'll happily keep this step off of my morning routine moving forward.
One of the parts of Dobrik's morning routine I was most excited to take part in was his traditional "toss your toothbrush in a cup" step. Granted, I was a little wary; not only is my toothbrush battery-powered and heavy, but I don't normally keep it in a cup.
According to Dobrik, if he tosses his toothbrush into the cup post-shower and it makes it in, he's going to have a good day. As a former middle school basketball star (yes, my talents are vast and impressive), I was thrilled to use my hand-eye coordination to predetermine the success of my day.
Despite my confidence, to say it went badly would be an understatement. While it looks like I might have pulled it off had my toothbrush been lighter, due to its weight, it toppled over, fell behind my towel organizer, and landed in a pile of dog hair. It wasn't the best start to my day, but it did at least prompt me to immediately replace my toothbrush.
"I like to put my clothes on in the bathroom, because I'm scared that I'm gonna come out naked and my friends are gonna be there with, like, a flamethrower or something to scare me," Dobrik explains in the Vanity Fair video. Because I do not share this very specific fear, I typically spend close to an hour in my towel after my shower. I make breakfast, check emails, and scroll through my phone all before actually putting clothes on, so this was a huge change from my usual post-shower procedures.
After I spent nearly 40 minutes in the shower, my small bathroom was exceedingly humid when I got out. I did my best to get all the water off of me, but with long hair and no way to escape the moisture, I was in agony. It was a lot of hunching over, grunting as I attempted to pull clothes over my still-damp skin, and frustratingly trying to keep my hair wrapped in a towel while contorting my body to get a dress on. To sum it up — never again.
As someone who works from home and hasn't left her couch in what feels like a lifetime, the idea of being camera-ready is a joke. I'm not sure I remember how to contour, let alone pose for an Insta. Still, I decided to actually put on a dress instead of a giant t-shirt like I normally do, and I completed all the steps of my 5-part skincare routine while still in the bathroom.
Spending even more time in the moisture-heavy bathroom caused me to sweat, which in turn made me feel gross, even though I had just taken one of the longest showers of my life. As soon as I was ready, I burst out of the steamy room and stood under a ceiling fan on "high" for a few minutes in an attempt to cool down and dry off.
Just like Dobrik, I'm not the biggest fan of tea. Sure, I religiously drink Sleepytime Tea before bed, but that's because I accidentally ordered 200 boxes of it, not because I particularly like the drink. Still, I put my kettle on the stove and waited for the water to heat up. Did I gaze longly at the coffee pot as I prepped my cup with milk and honey? Yup.
After my kettle started whistling, I poured the water into my cup and let the tea seep for a few moments. Once it was ready, I paced around, sipping tea and chatting with my husband about the day we had ahead.
In place of my normal jolt of caffeine, the tea made me want to curl up back in bed, but taking a few moments to drink a hot beverage and talk to someone instead of staring at a screen was a nice way to ease into the workday. But yes, I did make myself a giant cup of coffee immediately after.
As someone who's been working from home for over three years, I've never thought much about how I start my day. Considering Dobrik is also a "make your own schedule" creative-type, it was interesting to see how he gave himself some structure, and it made me consider really setting a plan for myself.
While I'll carry some of Dobrik's rituals over into my life (like sipping a warm drink and chatting about my day), others (like the water-spitting thing) I'll happily avoid. Though I may not be pulling pranks or befriending celebrities in my day-to-day, I'd still be happy to give some toothbrush-tossing tips for anyone interested in adding a little excitement to their lives.
