“In the tour we do seven different outfit changes, and they can be elaborate. The only thing I really have time for when I go backstage is lipstick, so I just grab it, put it on, and go,” says Charli XCX. “It always works out.”
“It always works out” might also be the theme of the singer’s career. More than 10 years since she first released music and lots of blood, sweat, and tears later, Charli XCX has hit her stride — to put it mildly — with her sixth studio album, brat, which recently surpassed one billion streams on Spotify alone. Now, she’s got another achievement to add to her resume: As of today, Charli XCX is the newest ambassador for Valentino Beauty.
“I'm kind of really only into working with brands that encourage and amplify individual expression, and that's obviously something that Valentino Beauty does,” she says. “I think you can see that from the history of the people that they work with and also their products.”
The aforementioned lipstick — the one she applies backstage between songs — is Spike Valentino Buttery Matte Lipstick in ‘It’s Valentino Baby’, a deep berry red. “I'm always saying ‘It’s Charli Baby,’ so that kind of feels like my signature shade almost,” says Charli, who has dialled into our call on the way to the Atlanta stop of the Sweat Tour, which she co-headlines with Australian singer and actor Troye Sivan.
She also credits the brand’s Colorgraph Eyeliner in Rockstud Noir for her undone cat eyeliner. “I love going in the waterline, kind of pulling it out [towards the temples],” she says. “If it gets a little smudgy, I'm never mad at that. I always kind of like to look like I've been out partying the night before, which in some cases, I have been… but other times, I can rely on my makeup to make it look like that.”
She’s not too precious about taking off her eye makeup at night: “I'm a little lazy with that,” says Charli. “Sometimes [the liner] is on my eye the next day, but I think that always looks good. I like it to have that kind of worn-in, party-girl look to it.”
But even 365 party girls eventually need to slow down and exhale. “I really love a good sheet mask. I just got into the brand Patchology. I really like 111Skin,” she says. “I put on a sheet mask and watch loads of movies and lie there, and that's kind of my beauty routine.” Does she have comfort movies? “We watched Rope the other day, the Hitchcock movie, which I love,” says Charli. “And I'm always obsessed with Charlie's Angels.” (That may be a message to her fans, who call themselves as much.)
Thanks to TikTok, Charli has also been dabbling in face massage: “My TikTok algorithm is absolutely flooded with gua sha routines and face exercises, so currently I'm trying to do my face exercises every day,” she says. “I don’t know if it’s doing anything, but my face definitely feels sore afterwards, so that’s something.”
I offer that my own feed has been overtaken with videos documenting the "morning shed,” which involves, well, shedding the layers of products and tools you used overnight — like heatless hair curlers, chin straps, and lip masks — to reveal a beautified version of yourself come morning. “I can't be doing that,” says Charli. “No way. I sleep naked. Nothing on. I can't be going to bed with a hat on.”
Aside from the visual, that might be because Charli is currently all about letting her natural curls do their thing uninhibited. “I’m in this zone [with my hair] where I'm trying to do as little as possible to it,” she says. “I think it took me a really long time to actually embrace my curls. Growing up I had such curly hair, my mum had really curly hair, and I think because of that all I really wanted was to have straight hair.”
“In the last few years, I've kind of just, I don't know, grown into it. I began to feel more confident wearing it in this natural way,” she says. “I honestly just get out of the shower and let it airdry. And sometimes I'll smooth the kind of top area, but generally I just let it do its thing.”
As a beauty editor, I feel it’s my duty to press further: What products does she use? (There must be something.) “Sometimes I'll just tie my hair up for a day in a deep conditioning mask, and that's kind of it,” says Charli. “I really like Kérastase overnight conditioner.”
Her hairstylist, Matt Benns, takes care of the rest. He is, coincidentally, also Lorde’s hairstylist — so when the singer showed up as a surprise guest at Charli’s recent New York show, Benns pulled double duty. “We both told him we really wanted to amplify how similar our hair can be,” says Charli. “We wanted it to be as similar as possible in texture and length… and then we also wore matching outfits. It was a twinning moment.”
Speaking of people she’s shared a stage with, Charli speaks highly of Sivan — he of the glowing complexion and cherub lips — but says that he hasn’t exactly given her any actionable beauty advice. “I think Troye just wakes up glowing,” she says. “He just kind of has this angel glow around him at all times. So maybe if I bask in his presence more, it will rub off on me.”
The singer, of course, has a glow all her own. During her brat era, she’s kept things “really kind of stripped back in terms of the skin being really fresh and dewy… almost like you just walked out of a party,” she says when I ask her how beauty interplays with her performance. “The eye makeup is either very minimal or very London rave, party-girl aesthetic.” That might be why there’s no one definition of brat — you just know it when you see it.
So, did Bowen Yang get it right on Saturday Night Live last week? “Perfectly,” replies Charli.
This feature originally appeared on Allure.
Plus all the ways to introduce brat to your beauty routine.
