“‘Somebody Like You’ by Keith Urban was the first country song that I can remember hearing and thinking, ‘This is such a special sound. I really love this.’ I was young, maybe seven or eight—old enough to look him up on YouTube and see how hot he was. [Laughs] But I had no idea that I was listening to country music. I mean, at that point, I had been listening to Shania Twain, but I thought Shania Twain was Janet Jackson. It was just music that I loved.
This summer, I’ll have been in Nashville for three years, and I feel like I’m watching the fruits of my labor roll in because I’ve been working really hard out here. Honestly, to this day, I don’t know how Beyoncé found me, let alone decided to have me on Cowboy Carter. All I can say is I’ve been putting the work in. She’s sprinkling a little bit of her light on me, and it’s definitely helped open me up to a bigger audience.
BEAUTY
I always describe my mom as Ralph Lauren Polo. She’s more of a tomboy and played basketball growing up, so she is not a big makeup or hair girl. My grandma though? She’s always been the person who I’ve looked to as far as fashion and beauty goes. She loves getting her hair done. She has all of the makeup. She bought me my first pair of little plastic Cinderella heels from Claire’s. She was like, ‘These are heels. This is what you’ll wear to church.’ She took me to get my ears pierced when I was 16, too. But before that, my first memory of being like, ‘Wait, makeup is dope’ was when I snuck into her closet to play with her makeup—and got caught. I’m adopted and my grandma is white, so let’s just say her shades were not it for me. [Laughs]
SKINCARE
I only like face cleansers that lather, and Youth to the People’s Kale + Green Tea Spinach cleanser lathers perfectly. After that, I use Dr. Ceuracle’s Kombucha Tea Essence. It makes my skin really glowy and plump. I pat it into my skin before my Tatcha Dewy Skin cream, which I cannot say enough about. I’m a frugal girl, but I feel like you can’t cut corners when it comes to your skin. So while Tatcha is definitely on the higher end of products that I have, I always go back to it. Especially in the wintertime, it really keeps my skin from deflating.
I discovered La Roche-Posay’s spot treatment when it went viral on TikTok. It’s just the best pimple cream I’ve tried so far. If I put it on at night, the pimple is pretty flattened by the next morning. I travel a lot, and I always have it with me so I can put it on if something starts to pop up. Meanwhile, sunscreen is not my cup of tea. I just haven’t found anything that doesn’t make my makeup weird or patchy. But if I’m going bare-faced, the Starface sunscreen [ed. note: discontinued] is really, really great because it goes on clear.
As far as bodycare goes, I remember when Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint soap went viral on TikTok a while ago. I didn’t really subscribe to it at the time because I felt good with my Sol de Janeiro body oil—it smells amazing—but recently, I’ve felt like I need to wash away the whole world and all of the energy that sticks to me at the end of the day. I don’t even know a good enough analogy for the Dr. Bronner’s, but your holes will whistle, I will put it that way. You can mix it with water, so it’s not as intense, but it’s got this amazing cooling effect. I also go through little phases with bacne, and I haven’t had a single blemish on my back since I started using it.
Putting on lotion after I shower is so difficult for me. I don’t want my clothes to stick to me, but at the same time, I have extremely dry skin. So I just use Vaseline’s cocoa oil in the shower to lock in the moisture. And then I glow all day. I swear by it.
MAKEUP
OK—makeup. I watched a tutorial on how to do red carpet makeup earlier this year because I had to do my own for CMT’s Next Women of Country. I used a Beautyblender to apply Milk’s Hydro Grip primer, which is so sticky and amazing. I use it on my eyes, too, instead of a dedicated shadow primer.
I bounce back and forth between a couple of foundations. If it’s more of a natural day, I’m going to use the Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk foundation. Depending on the season, I’ll use either shade 8.5 or 9, or I might mix them. For glam days, NARS longwear foundation is my go-to. I mix Tahoe and Syracuse. That’s what I used for the CMT’s. Then I go in with concealer. If I’m doing a full beat, I love Too Faced’s Born This Way concealer. I also just started using the e.l.f. Camo concealer in Light Ivory and Medium Sand and I swear by it now. I could probably use it in a full beat, but it’s more of an everyday product for me right now.
For bronzer, I like Benefit’s Hoola and Rare Beauty’s Warm Wishes bronzer stick in Always Sunny, but the Fenty Sun Stalk’r bronzer is also amazing. Depending on the time of the year, I’ll either use I$land Ting or Caramel Cutie. And then I apply my blush last, which I guess is kind of weird because they’re cream-based and I’m applying them over my Fenty Pro Filt’r setting powder in Banana or Lavender, which I mostly use if I need a little more brightness for a red carpet situation. But I really love blush. I wear it even on no makeup days. I mean, who doesn’t love Glossier Cloud Paint? That’s the leading cream blush on the market, I think. I love the shades Soar, Dawn, and Puff. I love to mix Dawn and Puff. The Rare Beauty Soft Pinch blush in Happy and Joy and Fenty Beauty Cheeks blush in Strawberry Drop is also amazing. At this point, if I haven’t covered up the freckles that I do have, I love to add fake freckles by spraying Urban Decay All Nighter setting spray on a little brush and dipping it into the Fenty bronzer. And then on top, I love the Rare Beauty Positive Light highlighter in Exhilarate, the champagne gold shade.
I’ve been using the Morphe Ultralavender artistry palette for my signature lavender sparkly eyes. Pink and purple are my two favorite colors, but I never really thought about why lavender is my go-to signature eye color until recently. Mary Poppins was my comfort movie as a child, and maybe a month ago I realized the accent colors in the sets and clothes are shades of lavender. There’s also probably a subconscious connection from Julie Andrews being a boss bitch. [Laughs]
When I did my own makeup for the CMT’s, I realized that lips really elevate your entire look. That’s the same time I found out about Maybelline’s Super Stay lipsticks. They stay on all night. I love the shades Trust Your Gut and Lead The Way. Otherwise, I really like the original Laneige lip mask or just Chapstick because I do love my natural lip color. Oh, wait, I also love Gisou’s Honey lip oil. I had the absolute worst chapped lips last winter and nothing helped. I had seen the hype about the Gisou Honey lip oil but I was like, ‘You want me to spend how much?!’ But it’s incredible. It really hydrates my lips. I also got Watermelon Sugar, their pink, sparkly shade. When I’m out and about and I don’t want to do a three-step lip routine, I’ll pull that out. It’s cute.
HAIR
My hair is everything. I’m half Black and half white, so I have a real mix of hair. I’ve got some 4C, almost Afro-textured strands at the top of my crown. It’s also straight-ish underneath and then I have some 3B ringlets all over my head. That said, being a blonde comes with great responsibility. If you’re not ready to commit to it, don’t do it. It’s a full time job. I switch between a wig from Noah Scott and my own blonde hair. Noah is the leading wig maker in the industry and has a line called WhatWigs, and he’s also so sweet and talented. I like to wear a wig for a little bit with oiled cornrows underneath—Gisou hair oil is that girl. I have never tried another oil that takes your hair from, ‘Oh, this looks good’ to like, ‘Oh, my God. How did you do that?’ It’s not the cheapest product, but it’s life-changing.
I wash my hair maybe twice a month—it doesn’t get super oily—but it’s been hard to find a shampoo that I really like. I love ones that give me a lot of slip so I can detangle my hair really easily in the shower. Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint soap is sort of neutral for me. It doesn’t change how my hair acts. It doesn’t make it any more or less tangled. It’s great when I need a clarifying cleanse. I’ll either use that or a mix of apple cider vinegar and water. I try to stick to natural solutions for my hair as much as possible. I also love Briogeo’s Curl Charisma. The brand is not just woman-owned, but Nancy Twine, the founder, is also a woman of color. It’s on the higher-end of prices, but having really good products is important for protecting both curly and blonde hair. I really trust them with my conditioner and leave-in, too.
At my roots, my hair is a sort of chocolate brown, but as soon as I’m out in the sun, my hair gets blonde very fast. Actually, when I was a kid, people would stop my parents to ask if they were highlighting my hair. My parents were like, ‘No… She’s three.’ When I moved to Nashville and started living in the studio practically 24/7, my roots really grew out, but I really wanted to keep my blonde hair because it’s so special to me. It’s not only aesthetic for me. I never got to meet my birth mother, but she was a natural blonde and having the same shade of hair keeps her close to me. It feels like protection.
Malia Grace in Nashville both dyes and cuts it. She’s amazing. How we met is actually a funny story. We lived in the same apartment complex. She sideswiped my car when she was pulling into the parking spot next to me. We had assigned parking, so I knew she had done it. I called her out by her car one day and said, ‘I don’t know if you realized, but you scratched my car. Can we exchange insurance information?’ She said yes, of course, and then she also said, ‘I’m a hair colorist and stylist. If you ever need to get your hair done, call me.’ I had just moved to Nashville and needed a hair person, and she ended up being the person that I called.
NAILS
Right now, my nails are almond-shaped acrylics, but how I do my nails depends on the time of year and whether I’m choosing to play guitar or not. OPI’s Funny Bunny gel is my favorite shade. It’s great when my nails are short. That said, if I have a photo shoot or I’m shooting a video, I love press-ons. I don’t discriminate. Whatever brands are on Amazon are the shit, but I do love French tips. I’m a French tip whore.”
—As told to Daise Bedolla
Photographed by Brittany Bravo in Los Angeles on May 1, 2024
