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The Best Beauty Tips Aja Naomi King Learned On-Set

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The Best Beauty Tips Aja Naomi King Learned On-Set featured image
Photo by AP/for L’Oréal Paris

Aja Naomi King has worked on some of the most zeitgeisty shows alongside celebrated co-stars (hello, Viola Davis and Coleman Domingo). While the relationships she’s forged on projects such as How to Get Away With Murder and The Birth of a Nation have been indelible (“he is such a presence, such a beautiful spirit,” she says of Domingo), she’s also gleaned a few on-set beauty and wellness hacks that have become part of her everyday routine.

Ahead, we caught up with the actress and L’Oréal Paris ambassador ahead of the brand’s annual Women of Worth celebration in Los Angeles to talk about BTS wellness and beauty practices from the set of Lessons in Chemistry and more.

How to Get Away With Murder (and The Perfect Cat Eye)

“I love to play in makeup. But makeup artists? They’re the real ones, the way they can look at a face and know how to use eyeliner to open up your eye in this magnificent way,” King says when talking about her on-set experience for How to Get Away With Murder. “Michaela had such a kind of drama and flair to her and makeup artists on set were so great at making me look really flawless, which I loved.”

To create the eye-opening effect for King’s character, makeup artists drew a tight, fine line along the top lid that gradually built as it neared the corner of the eyes. “It had this beautiful popping effect for me that opened it up in this huge way,” she says of the technique she adopted from the role.

Lessons in Chemistry (and Radiant Skin)

“When we were putting together how the character of Harriet should look and appear in the world, there was the sense that she was someone that didn’t use makeup as armor or a disguise. Instead, she was really allowing herself to shine through because she needed people to see her,” King says. “So it was really more about seeing her skin like she had nothing to hide.”

As King points out, as a community activist, Harriet’s purpose kept her focus on things outside of her appearance. “I really related to that as a mother, the idea of keeping things simple because there are other greater things at play that we sometimes need to focus on.”

King counted on L’Oreal Paris Revitalift Derm Intensives 1.5% Pure Hyaluronic Acid Serum ($23) to prep her skin for the role. “My skin just soaks it up and it gives my skin that nice, plump, hydrated look,” she says. “It’s really helped my skin to have that kind of bounce, and it was so nice to walk onto a set and have the [makeup department] appreciate what I had already done because there was nothing that they had to attempt to cover and we were able to keep it light.”

The Birth of a Nation (and Stress-Releasing Meditation)

“Meditation and deep breathing became really important for me during that time,” King says of her experience playing Cherry in The Birth of a Nation.We were like shooting in the woods of Savannah … just walking that soil, being, being on an actual plantation, walking the land that you know your ancestors walked and suffered innumerable traumas and just absorbing all of that, it’s in the ether. It’s really hard to let go of and you do have to, like, protect your well-being so that you can continue to honor them and not wallow in this very defeating feeling of sorrow because the other part of it is to remember that we persisted and weren’t destroyed. Even in these dark moments, we still held on to our joy and humanity.”

The actress says being able to return to her hotel from set, take a long shower and meditate as a way of shedding the remaining energy of the role was crucial because “when you’re acting, your body doesn’t know you’re pretending.” King says she would guide herself through meditation and breathing while in Savannah, though now she taps the Calm app to help usher her through a session.

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