"I just wrapped this movie I’m really excited about–it's with Emma Stone and Steve Carell called Battle of the Sexes. It’s set in the '70s and real '70s style is super fun—I had feathered bangs and everything. Then two weeks ago I changed my hair from brunette to white-blond. My agents were worried it might affect casting and whatever, but I figure people can just Google me. They’ll find the Natalie Morales from the Today Show though, so they're going to have to Google a little further, and then they’ll find me. [Laughs]

Since I completely changed my hair color, my beauty routine has sort of changed, too. I want to get my hair to be really white–it was dyed dark brown before this for the movie so it was hard to pull the color up. My regular hair is like honey, it's a lighter brown. But after the first round, my colorist, Jenelle Oldham, was like, 'I don’t want your hair to fall off so just come back in a few weeks.' This is only the fourth time I’ve washed my hair and I’m not sure what works yet, but I did have to change all my hair products. I have a pretty good purple conditioner I’ve been using called Evo’s Fabuloso Platinum Blonde Conditioner that seems to keep my hair from getting yellow. It’s funny because that’s the name of like, that purple floor cleaner.

While I was working on the movie, Emma Stone recommended the Salux towel to me, and I really like it. I wouldn't use it to wash my dishes even though you can, but I do use it to wash my body. Then I've also been using this charcoal konjac sponge lately and my skin seems to love it. Way fewer breakouts. I use it with Cosmedix Purity Clean Exfoliating Cleanser. My incredible friend and make-up artist Myriam Arougheti turned me on to that brand and my skin does really well with it. I also use their moisturizer, Phytoclear. It's light yet balmy enough that it really absorbs into my skin and leaves it dewy.

I’ve tried to analyze this recently, because I feel like every person I know has routines in life, and I almost never do the same thing twice. The closest thing to a routine I ever had was this lipstick by Ilia called Arabian Nights. I was using that every single day, but I don’t know if it looks quite right with this hair color. So now I’m usually just doing a little bit of a thin, winged liner and a little bit of highlighter from the Hourglass Ambient Lighting palette, specifically the Ambient Iridescent Strobe Light, which is this perfect powder I just brush lightly under my eyes. I also love their Arch Brow Sculpting Pencil in Dark Brunette. It's an angled pencil and the color is very realistic.

For foundation I use a couple of things. If it's a red carpet I like Kevyn Aucoin Sensual Skin Enhancer and for something a little lighter I use Giorgio Armani Maestro Fusion Makeup. For eyes, I've been trying a bunch of different eyeliners and I like the Sephora brand one best because it’s the thinnest felt tip, it has the most control, and it doesn’t smear. And when you need to remove it, it’s not hard to get off. That’s my number one rule with any eye makeup. And it’s very important to me that I only use stuff that’s cruelty-free. I don’t use anything, makeup brands or otherwise, that is tested on animals. It’s easy to think, ‘Oh that Dior mascara is just so great,’ but there are plenty of other, great companies that are focused on being cruelty-free right now and are doing a really good job using natural ingredients. I want to support that as much as possible. There’s this one mascara I love by Urban Decay and it’s called Perversion. It’s the dumbest name for a mascara, because what’s perverted about an eyelash? So dumb. But it is a great mascara."

—as told to ITG

Natalie Morales photographed by Tom Newton.