Mallory Jansen, Actress

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'I'm not really low-maintenance. If I'm going to the gym or the shops to get food, then I don't need to do anything—I’ll just put on a pair of sunnies and that's enough. But if I'm going out, I mean, it's mostly about makeup. I've been on a press tour for Galavant, and had my makeup done today by a makeup artist here for Good Morning America. That's always nice. Most days, I still feel like I need to be wearing mascara, eyeliner, have my eyebrows done, have on bronzer—the whole thing! I may as well do it all. But I enjoy doing it, too—actually, when I finished high school I took a makeup course that taught me how to be creative with my own face. You learn about enhancing certain things and using colors. Stuff like a deep lip, a really rich plum color—that's what I like to do. I think MAC does really good lipsticks, and they're affordable. I go there a lot. Tom Ford does really good ones, as well. When I’m doing my own makeup, usually I use foundation—just a light one from Nars. I have this great one called Sheer Glow—it's a liquid. I put that on and then apply a bit of bronzer on my cheeks from MAC or Sephora Collection.

I love doing eyes—my signature look is a cat eye. I think it's so feminine, and it reminds me of old Hollywood. For eyeliner, I just use a Stila Eye Shadow in Ebony that I wet down with a thin, narrow brush. I use all their eye shadows—they're brilliant. Brows and lashes are really important to me, too. I've got a few of the MAC individual lashes in right now to fill them out. I love the individual ones because they look natural. I’ve heard horror stories about lash extensions—like that they pull out your own lashes…so I'm happy to glue mine on for now. I really like Dior’s Diorshow Mascara. It has such a big brush, and really fills it all out. For my brows, I just use a MAC brow pencil. Sometimes I blend it in with a Q-tip or something. I have always done my eyebrows myself because I'm so funny about them—it's the one thing that I have to do every day and can't let someone else do. When I was a kid my mom always said to me, 'Don't you lose your thick eyebrows!'—but she also cried when I had short hair at 13...

Long hair, for me, is actually less maintenance. I went through a phase when I was kid where I wanted a pixie cut. At the time I thought it looked awesome, but I look back and I looked like such a dork! When I have short hair I feel like I have to blow dry it or it doesn't sit properly. Long hair weighs itself down, and I don't have to think about it. My natural texture is wavy, and it's pretty well-behaved except for when it's really humid and gets a little frizzy. I use my GHD for curls like this—it's a straightener, but you can curl with it. That's my best friend. I use Kevyn Murphy shampoo, conditioner, and Anti.Gravity Oil Free Volumizer. After I wash my hair, I put Anti.Gravity in and it gives it a little lift. I also use their Fresh.Air Dry Cleaning Spray. He makes the most amazing products.

I only wash my hair like twice a week because it takes forever to do it. The whole rigmarole of washing and drying takes a full hour. I'm used to waking up early and go through the whole beauty process for Galavant because we have early starts, and I have the longest hair and makeup calls. I used to have to get up at 4:30am to be there by 5am, and then we'd have to be ready by 7:30 to film. It was just over two hours, yeah. If I've had enough sleep then I'm okay, but if I haven't then I'm no one's business. [Laughs] We were filming in Bristol, in the UK. It was beautiful, but it rained about four times a day...in summer! What I love about the UK is that we shot a lot of the indoor scenes in a studio in Bristol, but all the location stuff was in Wales and all around the UK, so it was so green and fresh, and the people were so friendly. It's really cool to be filming a TV show over there because it doesn't happen that often. It's so intriguing—so new and different. They really took a risk on this one, and good for them! I think people are interested in seeing something new. People need more comedies. The world needs to laugh.”

—as told to ITG

Mallory Jansen photographed by Tom Newton.