You wouldn’t know it by looking at her—or by the super close-up scenes in The Handmaid’s Tale—but Yvonne Strahovski battled with acne up until a few years ago. For her, the formula for blemish-free skin was a simplified one: eat clean and use only two natural products. We sat down to talk to the actress about the first time she started wearing makeup, why the sun and ocean are her secret weapons for glowing skin and good hair, and how she can’t name a single beauty tool.
The embarrassing moment that introduced her to makeup:
“My first beauty memory—because I was such tomboy—was in high school, in my senior year right at the end, where I had terrible acne. My friend at school came up to me with a concealer stick and said, ‘Do you know what this is? You might benefit from using one of these things.’ That’s when I first started using it. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. Wow, I actually have something to cover these big giant red planets on my face with.’”
Her super pared-down skin routine:
“My beauty routine is very simple. This is also embarrassing [laughs]; I wash my face with a bar of soap. I buy a nice, natural, organic soap. Then, I use either rose hip seed oil or whatever oil is around. That’s it in terms of skincare.”
And for makeup:
“I use Koh Gen Do. I use a bunch of different [products]—I have an organic bronzer, a blush, mascara, and an eyeliner.”
It’s about what she eats, too:
“I’ve given my skin a total break [from complicated beauty products] for a long time, and it has improved so much. I grew up with really bad acne. Changing my diet and eliminating certain foods that don’t do well for skin, like sugar and dairy, is a big part of my skincare regime. I’ve lived through completely abusing sugars, and I’m so much better off. I can see it in my skin and my energy.”
Her formula for great skin:
“I’m a believer of fresh air, the ocean, and salt water. I really believe in that for the skin. Less is more.”
She keeps her hair simple during summer too:
“I don’t color my hair. I haven’t for a year. I’m out in the sun and in the ocean a lot, so it seems to highlight it naturally. [Laughs] I shampoo and condition it, like, once a week.”
Never a hot tool:
“I never blow-dry. I don’t know how to blow-dry my hair. If you handed me a…what do you call it? Round brush, I wouldn’t know how to do it. I’m really bad.”