La La Anthony’s life looks both enchanted and impossible from the outside. The mother, actress, host, and entrepreneur is a permanent fixture on the most glamorous red carpets. She’s also on one of the biggest shows on air right now, Power. She’s filming BH 90210, the reprise of the original Beverly Hills 90210, in Canada when she’s not doing that. And she’s doing all of that alongside other projects, and the biggest role in her life, mother to her 12-year old son Kiyan.
She recently sat down with ESSENCE Global Beauty Director on the Color Files podcast and revealed that balancing it all is a complicated dance. While she’s doing that two-step, she often forgets one simple beauty rule that any dermatologist, skincare expert, or good girlfriend will tell you: always remove your makeup before going to bed at night.
“I was so tired last night. I woke up and Ashley was in the room. She said ‘you didn’t take your makeup off from last night?’ But I was so tired, but I’m not advising that,” she said. “I got to get better at it.”
With a mom who believes that Vaseline is a cure for everything, the star admits to being more of a one-step beauty regimen kind of woman. It’s her close friends who push her to step out and try new things when it comes to skincare products.
“I have to do a better job at my skincare routine. My best friend, Kelly Rowland, is the master at all of that,” she said. “She’s constantly sending me products and every time we FaceTime, she has a mask on and then a whole beauty light or an LED light on her face. I haven’t gotten that far yet but I want to encourage all my people to make sure you do wash your face every night and take all the makeup off.”
While she does have go-to products like the Neutrogena wipes that she can’t live without, and a Chanel face cream that has her heart, in addition to Vaseline petroleum jelly for taking off eye makeup, Anthony’s beauty focus is in her hands. Literally.
“I’m always going crazy [with my nails]. I have orange ombre nails now but anyone who knows me knows nails is my thing. I go far when it comes to nails and I think that’s where I really express my creativity or what I’m feeling,” she said.
“I met with Kerby [Jean-Raymond], the designer of Pyer Moss and I was talking to him and he said ‘let me look at your nails. You got dollar bills on your nails? Let’s design a dress based on that concept.’ You never know where someone’s going to get inspiration from. So because of that, we designed an entire money dress for the Met Ball.”
But for Anthony, who admitted that she was and always will be a bit of a tomboy, beauty is an internal thing. So even when she’s keeping it simple with her skincare and personal makeup routines, she’s always working on her beauty by giving her mind and body some other necessary care.
“Once a year, I always go to an ashram. I’ve made it a yearly tradition to go to these spiritual retreats for at least a week and kind of recharge and reconnect with myself. And I found that to really help me because I just go, go, go,” she finished. “It’s a lot of therapy. It’s a lot of meditation. You’re not just laying with your feet getting rubbed but it’s internal work. To me, that’s necessary to set you on your path for the rest of the year.”