“I wanted to be an Olympic gymnast. But after eight years doing the sport, I broke my arm in a really bad way. They call it getting spooked, where you lose where you are in the air. I went up, I put my arm behind me and fell on it, and it turned into the letter ‘Z.’
After that, the fear took over and I couldn’t help but do all of the moves in a dangerous way. I did rehab, went back to the gym, got the Most Dedicated award, and then quit a week later. [Laughs] I was like, ‘Great. Now that I’ve been validated, I’m done.’
I eventually realized that music was the only thing tethering me to the earth in the midst of a lot of trauma. I grew up in a strict, conservative Christian household, but my grandpa had also exposed me to really great music: Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Jefferson Airplane. I ended up going to Berklee College of Music, and when we graduated, all of my friends either went to LA or New York. I knew I would get eaten alive in either city, so I moved to Nashville instead. I did two writing sessions a day with anyone who would let me in the room—whether they were published, unpublished, big writer, small writer, I didn’t care. I was just trying to cut my teeth.
A publishing company that was trying to sign me set up a writing camp to write songs for Demi Lovato and, I think, Nick Jonas. The one song that came out of it was ‘You Don’t Do It for Me Anymore,’ which I co-wrote with Chloe Angelides and went to Demi. It was my first-ever cut on someone else’s record.
The whole time, I didn’t think I was good enough to be my own artist. After going through so much in my personal life, I was so insecure. I was a shell of myself. I didn’t even know my favorite color. It wasn’t until I started writing in Nashville that I started to get some of the confidence back that I had as a little girl. I needed validation and to heal, which meant I had to discover myself again and figure out what I liked. My favorite color is buttery baby yellow—not highlighter yellow. Figured that out. [Laughs]
My ‘big break’ came when my song ‘Moral of the Story’ got a placement in To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You. By that point, Finneas—who I started our band The Favors with—and I were dear friends, and he called me after he watched the movie and said, ‘This is going to change your life.’
My fourth album, The Girl Of Your Dreams, is very romantic and dramatic and whimsical and not angry at all, but the whole album is really a bird’s-eye view of a complicated life. We’re really put through the wringer as women, and we can be tricked into believing that we don’t have choice or autonomy over our lives, but we absolutely do. I think that’s why my song ‘Stop The Wedding!’ has taken on a life of its own.
I was 21 when I got engaged to the wrong guy. He proposed after six months at a waterfall in Hawaii. He was a big love bomber, and I was so young and still very insecure. I thought, ‘Wow, here’s this beautiful man showering me in love, and it’s never going to get better than this.’ So I married him, and it became a really scary situation within a cycle of abuse. I divorced him, and the second time around, marrying my now-husband, it was the most calming, chill day. I thought, ‘I have so much ownership in my life right now. If I didn’t want to go through with this, I would get up and leave.’ I genuinely felt strong enough and secure enough to do that. But I’m in love with him, and it’s everything I wanted and more, so I didn’t stop that wedding. [Laughs] I did think it was a really good song title though, so I took a note of it and circled back. Now here we are.
By the way, ‘Stop The Wedding!’ is about a literal wedding, but I hope the message of taking agency over your life carries through. I was just asked what my hot take was in an interview, and I said I think I look better without mascara. You should be able to leave the house without mascara if you’re not a mascara girl, but we’re in this world where there are all these expectations put on us, and if we don’t rise to someone else’s standard—or we don’t put the mascara on—we’re not beautiful enough or smart enough or whatever-enough. It’s a bunch of bullshit.
I generally don’t enjoy putting a ton of time into beauty. I watched my mom do her hair with rollers every morning growing up, but I had no interest in that; it seemed like a lot of work. Now I have about a 30-minute max. Like when I do my hair myself, I flip the ends, put a couple of curlers in the front, and I’m done. If I’m getting a pin set, that’s the longest I’ll let anyone do my hair for—about an hour.
My best friend, Paula Peralta, is a hairstylist in LA, and she’s unbelievable. She’s the only person who does my hair. I have such a loyalty to her as a human, not just because she’s my stylist. If you met her, you’d want her to be your best friend, too.
I wash and condition with John Paul Mitchell’s Tea Tree Lavender Mint line. I’ve been using them forever, but I want to try Rōz’s Foundation shampoo and conditioner next. I have no loyalty to John Paul Mitchell. Sorry, John. [Laughs] I love Rōz’s Santa Lucia oil. I add a few drops when I’m done styling my hair, and it gives me some shine but also really helps keep my hair healthy. And it smells unreal. I recently started using the Milk hair serum, too. I throw it in when my hair is still wet after I shower.
I also really like Nécessaire’s rosemary serum. I don’t know if it’s actually making my hair grow, but I think it keeps my hair strong. I’m naturally a dirty blonde and I get my roots and highlights done, so I’m constantly putting a lot of chemicals on it. Shout out to Philip Foresto in Nashville. He’s wonderful and has nailed the golden, buttery, honey, warm blonde I like. It feels really natural to me, but I remember the first time I worked with him, he was like, ‘Are you sure that’s what you want?’ In Nashville, you don’t see a lot of blondes asking for this kind of color. They want more of a platinum, girl-who-wants-to-put-on-her-cowboy-boots-and-go-on-Broadway blonde.
For skincare, I love Rhode’s pimple patches. They were so helpful when I had a big, fat pimple the other day, especially since I don’t use concealer, just foundation. A bit of Chantecaille’s Future Skin in Vanilla does the trick. Then I do a contouring—if you want to call it that—situation with Drunk Elephant’s D-Bronzi drops. I put them on my fingers, tap them onto my eyelids, jaw, and cheekbones, and buff everything out with a brush. I use the same brush for blush. I like Chantecaille’s Philanthropy Cheek in Smitten With Elephant, but lately, it’s Rhode’s Toasted Teddy. My bottle is freaking used. Same with my tube of Glossier Boy Brow. But that’s good because I’ve been using Brown, and I probably need a lighter shade now that I’ve started bleaching my eyebrows.
Once that’s done, I set my T-zone with Glossier’s Wowder in G8 [Editor’s note: discontinued]. I put it on my eyelids, too, and then I go over them with NARS’ Laguna 02 bronzer because I don’t like anything shiny on my eyes.
On very rare occasions, I’ll use Ilia’s Limitless Lash mascara in Before Dawn, their version of brown, so it’s not as intense. I have it in black, too, but I use it if and only if I’m wearing black eyeliner on my waterline. My biggest beef with mascara is that it’s so hard to take off, but this one comes off pretty easily. I will say, even tubing mascaras are annoying because then you have all of the little tubes all over your sink.
For my lips, I love dabbing on Westman Atelier’s Lip Suede so it looks more like a stain, and then I add Counter’s Beyond Gloss. It smells like vanilla, and the packaging is pretty. But I really love a red lip. My favorite is L’Oréal’s Colour Riche in Ruby Flame. It’s more in the dark, blue-red family, and I wear it with their Infallible liquid lipstick in Red Bisou.
That all happens on top of Ilia’s Base Face Milk. Well, sort of. That’s rare because my whole goal is to minimize the number of products I use—and my routine is already a lot. [Laughs] When I was 13, my gyno diagnosed me with PCOS, which is now called PMOS. It’s been a crazy journey of trying natural, herbal stuff to regulate my cycle, but still, at certain points in my cycle, my skin—especially around my chin—can be pretty unruly. I try to stick to what I know works.
I’ve been using Indie Lee’s Brightening cleanser for years. I use it morning and night, and I love that it foams up without being harsh. I follow it with Mario Badescu’s rosewater spray, and I swear by Eminence Organics’ Eight Greens serum. I love their Clear Skin Willow Bark serum, too, but it doesn’t smell very good. [Laughs] Medicube’s TXA niacinamide serum is another go-to, but I use that more for brightening. Then I add Cosrx’s Snail 96 mucin essence, Image’s Vital C serum, and Naturopathica’s Calendula cream. I only use the Calendula cream during the day; at night, I swap it for Skinbetter’s AlphaRet cream. And during the day, I finish with Skin Pharm’s Sheer Defense SPF 46. It’s from a skincare clinic in Nashville.
When it comes to perfume, I always want to smell really warm and kind of sweet, but not in a sugary, gummy bear way. But Stéphane Humbert Lucas’ Sand Dance, my signature scent, is a little earthy. It has sandalwood, vanilla, and patchouli, but to me, it actually smells like vacation—like I’m in Hawaii and the sun is setting on the beach. I started wearing it when I was working with Finneas on ‘The Dream’ for The Favors. I’ve always liked having a scent when I’m working on a record so that when I spray it later, it takes me back to that time. But I fell in love with Sand Dance so much that I wear it all the time now, so I kind of screwed myself because every era smells the same. [Laughs] I even wore it when I got married. We burned Voluspa Baltic Amber candles at the wedding though, so whenever I burn one now, it smells like my wedding day.
I have Cyklar’s Cedar Supreme roll-on hanging on my purse. I can’t get enough of it. I got the Sex Musk perfume oil, too, and that one’s my favorite thing in the world. I’m so proud of Claudia [Sulewski]. I feel so lucky to know and love her, but even if I didn’t know her, I would still use Cyklar stuff. It’s funny: I have the roll-on on my bag next to a keychain that a fan made of Finneas and me. So even in my bag, Finneas and Claudia are together. [Laughs]”
—as told to Daise Bedolla
Photographed by Julia Kokernak in New York on October 14, 2026