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Pat McGrath Is Launching Her First Skincare Product–And Naomi Campbell Is Already a Fan

Vogue Arabia, November 2018. Photo: Chris Colls

For all the follows and likes Pat McGrath generates around her makeup artistry every season (Julia Fox’s internet-breaking black eyeliner didn’t just happen), it’s the skin quality she has pioneered over the course of her storied career that is perhaps her biggest calling card. Hydrated, but not oily; smooth, but realistic, with a makeup-priming moisture quality that is “lightweight yet nourishing,” McGrath explains. Much like she developed a seven-step lipstick technique to achieve the ultimate in petal-soft pigment, McGrath has been cocktailing her own skin-care formula for her entire career, layering simple creams spiked with rose water to create a quick-penetrating emulsion. And just as that signature makeup technique became Pat McGrath Labs’ best-selling MatteTrance Lipstick, her patented skin prep has finally been bottled.

Called Divine Skin Rose 001 and formulated by a Korean lab, the milky liquid that will launch on Patmcgrath.com closely resembles a blendable essence, formulated with 97% naturally derived ingredients; shake it up, and a ceramide-boosted oil phase combines with an antioxidant-spiked rose water phase to create McGrath’s replenished, rebalanced glow. “The truth is I’ve been working on skin care as long as I have been working in makeup,” admits McGrath, who has tweaked her formula not in focus groups but on supermodels, including Naomi Campbell, who stars in the campaign for the rose-tinted glass bottle that will arrive at select Sephoras later this year. “I wouldn’t use anything else,” says Campbell—which is high praise considering Campbell is serious about her skin care, specifically her hydration. “You never want your skin to look dried out. It’s not attractive. It’s unbecoming,” she says. Here, Campbell reveals how she’s been using the uniquely textured Essence, and why after all these years in the business, good sleep might be the real secret to good skin.

Photo: Siena Saba

As someone who has been on countless sets with Pat and at countless shows with Pat, what is her point of difference when it comes to skin finish?

When you work with Pat, before you she puts makeup on you, she really massages your skin—she loves glowy, dewy skin. So your makeup goes on smoother, everything just rolls. That’s her secret: that the skin still looks like skin and you see you and that’s important, I feel. That’s what I love about her; she never makes me matte. When you’re too matte you lose the whole person. Your makeup becomes like a mask. Pat’s makeup never looks like that.

As a #McGrathMuse and, perhaps even more importantly, a Pat McGrath confidant, were you at all a part of tweaking early incarnations of her first skin-care product?

She’s been trying this out on me for a while now so I’ve had a bit of a head start in using it in my skin regime. We were actually using it last year when we were doing the Divine Rose makeup launch, but I couldn’t talk about it then, so I’m so excited that I can say all of this now. The cat’s outta the bag! In the beginning, she would ask me things like, “How does it feel? How long did it stay on?” It goes on the skin, but it also goes in the skin. It just makes everything glowy and plump, which is important for me because I’m on set all the time, and I’m in front of lights, and I’m on planes, and my skin dries out and it gets really dehydrated no matter how much water I drink. Drink water, drink water. I never drink enough. My test is really traveling, though—how often do I need to reapply something on the plane so my skin feels hydrated. I usually sleep straight through flights and with this, I’d wake up and still have the shine.

It is not an exaggeration to say that your skin is, in fact, divine. Drop the routine!

It’s about clean for me. I cleanse in the morning and I cleanse at night. You’ve got to get the makeup off! And I need products that help make my skin look good without makeup, because I don’t wear makeup when I’m not working. I just put little bits where I want to cover blemishes so my skin can breathe. My next step is usually a serum, and sometimes I use the Essence first, before my serum, and sometimes I mix it with my serum and put it on together. You can top it off with a cream if you’d like, but in the summertime, you don’t need to. The Essence is enough.

I watched an amazing clip on your YouTube channel about some of your pre-runway body prep including an incredible lymphatic drainage massage. Are there any treatments that you regularly engage in for your face in tandem with good skin care?

I try to do my facials—you need to if you’re traveling, or you’re in the sun a lot. I don’t wear a lot of sunblock on my skin because I break out from sunblock. So I like people to extract because you have to clean out your pores sometimes! And I do microneedling every once in a while, too.

These days, so much of good skin care comes down to good self-care. How do you prioritize yourself with such a busy work schedule—and a newborn at home!—not just physically but mentally, spiritually, etc.?

The water thing is huge for me, and I’m always, like, how can I make water fun? Growing up I wasn’t really raised on soda so we always had cordials that we mixed with water, and that’s what I still drink. And I try to eat the right food and take the right vitamins—vitamin D, vitamin C, B, zinc, fish oils. Good skin is so much about what you eat, too. And sleep! I try to get as much sleep as possible even though I have a young one now. When I was younger I really didn’t need that much sleep, but now I like my sleep. It kickstarts things and helps me be enthusiastic about the day ahead.

Originally published in Vogue.com

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