“This is the longest my hair has been in a while, but I'm undecided about whether to grow it out or to keep it short. If I let it keep going for three months, it will be shoulder length, and I’m kind of leaning toward that. For maintenance, I love dry shampoo. I think it’s one of the most under-appreciated hair products that everyone could be using more of. I buy multiple small bottles of Klorane Dry Shampoo so I can throw them in my suitcase.
My hair is also lighter than usual right now from the sun. It always happens to me—I had white-blonde hair as a child, and it always turned green in the summer from chlorine. It started to get darker when I was a teenager, and I actually had it dyed black for a while. Dark hair can look severe, but I kind of like that. Rather than trying to lighten my hair again, I just let it grow out, because it is so hard to lift that color. So now it’s completely natural, and more of a gentle look.
Having lighter hair has influenced the makeup that I’ve been wearing. When my hair was black, I wore more black eyeliner, but now it seems kind of harsh. Instead I wear a dark brown— Estée Lauder Pure Color Intense Kajal Eyeliner in Blackened Cocoa—on the top and bottom inner rims of my eyes. It’s definitely still there, but I don’t notice it as much as the black eyeliner. And I really love the eyeliner-and-no-mascara look. Mascara is the most easily spotted makeup. It’s very natural, obviously, but you can always see it on someone’s face. When you don’t wear it, it looks like you really have no makeup on, but somehow your eyes are just popping.
To clean my skin, I use a combination of two Estée Lauder cleansers, one after the other. The first— Perfectly Clean—is foaming and exfoliating, and the second— Re-Nutriv—is a really moisturizing cream cleanser. Once a week, I do a Neal's Yard Remedies Green Clay mask. I can feel it tingling and cleaning everything out. It really pulls impurities and oils out of my skin and evens out the tone, taking away redness around my nose and brightening under my eyes. I found it in England, but Neal's Yard is in New York, too. It’s a great apothecary that uses well-grown, natural ingredients for skincare and teas.
What I eat has a big impact on my skin, too. For example, when I don’t eat dairy, my skin is so much better. Then I’ll have ice cream and see it on my face immediately—I’ll start to get pimples, or get more oily, or the color will change. And when I was in Hong Kong, a makeup artist gave me these shots of bilberry because it’s very high in antioxidants, so it’s great for around your eyes. I saw a big difference within 10 minutes—my eyes were whiter, brighter, and it took away the dark circles. So now I take bilberry supplements. They instantly brighten, clear, and de-puff.
Style-wise, I’ve been wearing colorful, patterned dresses like this flowy one from Haute Hippie; they have such pretty things. I used to wear black all the time, but I don’t feel like it anymore. I go through style phases that reflect how I’m feeling. I love designer stuff, but as long as something is good quality, it doesn’t have to have a Saint Laurent tag. I really don’t care so much about labels.
I do splurge sometimes, though, on anything that I really like and can see a future with. I just bought a black Valentino bag that I will be able to use for a long time. It’s not something that I will wear once and stop liking. And I really treated myself with these earrings—they’re Cartier diamonds—but they’re my only earrings. Thank god I got that right because I still really like them and don’t need to buy anything else. It’s actually a funny story. I was flying back from Geneva where I had been working in the mountains, and I was wearing so many layers, snow boots and a beanie, and I was carrying all of these plastic bags because I couldn’t fit everything into my luggage. It was a pretty bedraggled look. I was being treated so badly by everyone at the airport, as if I were an awful, dirty kid. So to make myself feel better, I decided to buy myself diamonds at the airport! I just wanted to have something that would stop making me feel like a sloppy kid. [Laughs] But now they’re my uniform—I never take them off.”
—as told to ITG
Arizona Muse photographed by Emily Weiss in New York on July 26th, 2013.
