Earlier this year, To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before star Lana Condor got engaged to long-time beau Anthony De La Torre. A self-proclaimed skin-care super fan (her porcelain complexion speaks for itself) we were excited to sit down with the Neutrogena global brand ambassador to pick her brain about her morning routine, mental health and how she’s prepping her skin for her big day.
First Thing’s First
After her alarm clock “abruptly and rudely” wakes her up from her sleep—she’s forthcoming about not being a morning person—Condor begins two morning wellness moves. “Recently, I’ve been listening to this 10-minute meditation about fear and how we move past fear and how we don’t have to be afraid. So I do that for 10 minutes. Then I do my gratitude journal. It’s a five-minute gratitude journal to kind of set me in the right headspace for the rest of the day.”
Wash Up
“I never skip washing my face in the morning. I think it’s so important,” says Condor, noting her go-to for years has been the Neutrogena Pink Grapefruit Cleanser ($8). “I gravitate towards that cleanser because of the smell—the freshness of the grapefruit kind of helps me wake up because I’m not a morning person.”
Post-cleanse, Condor reaches for cryotherapy globes to take down some morning swelling. “I’ve been using these ice balls that you keep in the freezer and then I rub them on my face because I wake up very puffy.”
Moisture Must
“I’ve been using the Neutrogena Hydro Boost Moisturizer ($18) for years and years and years,” Condor says of the influencer-fueled purchase she first made some time ago. “I found it through an influencer on YouTube. She said she had very dry skin and when she used it, it felt like her skin had a glass of water. I have very dry skin, so I went to CVS and I grabbed it and I’ve been using it ever since.”
Condor’s love letter to the moisturizer doesn’t end there. “It’s my go-to moisturizer for so many reasons,” she says. “One, it is like a glass of water for your skin. It doesn’t stay on my skin, it absorbs into it well which I love. It performs well under makeup and I wear makeup every day for my job, so that’s great. And since I travel so much, it’s a very convenient moisturizer because sometimes if I forgot it at home, or I lost it at a different Airbnb, I can just run to CVS and grab it. It’s very convenient and affordable. It’s a holy grail for me in terms of a beauty product.”
Tricks of the Trade
The actress says her time on set has afforded her a behind-the-scenes look at some genius beauty tricks. Her favorite: “For your eyebrows, instead of using an eyebrow gel or eyebrow glue, something that’s definitely effective—arguably more effective—and wildly less expensive, is that you can just go to Whole Foods and get a clear bar of glycerin soap. Then take a spoolie and run it across the soap. You can push up your eyebrows that way and they will stay all day long in front of the camera and they will move or droop.”
Wedding-Day Prep
While some final details of her big day are still under wraps, Condor knows it’s not too early for skin prep and day-of details. “I know I’m going to be drinking lots of water. Water is key because I want to look radiant. And then I’m just going to focus on prepping my skin with moisture—definitely using Hydro Boost—and pampering it with as much moisture as I can get in there.”
Another detail that’s set in stone: “I’m not going to try anything new, that’s for sure,” she says. “Sometimes when I try something new it makes my skin blow up. So on my wedding day, it’s only going to be products I know for sure are not going to do that.”
Tool Shop
“I love all the tools,” says Condor. “I do gua sha quite a lot. It helps my skin health and puffiness and it also really helps speed up my circulation and it’s very calming to me. So I’ll probably gua sha the crap out of my face on my wedding day [laughs].”
Tried-and-true staples that pass the wedding-day safety test: gua sha, her NuFace— “I know I’ll use that,” she says of the firming microcurrent tool—and “really fresh, beautiful, simple makeup.” What she’s still on the hunt for, however, is a waterproof mascara. “I have yet to meet one that has worked for me and I know I’m going to need that on my wedding day!”
Wellness Focus
While gushing about makeup and beautiful dresses is fun, Condor’s main priority is elsewhere. “Honestly, wellness is the most important thing to me. For many of us, the past two years have been very eye opening in terms of what we value and where we want to put our time. It made me really double down on who I want to be and [the need to] protect my loved ones in my community, and also protect myself and have boundaries for myself. So in that, my mental health and wellness is number-one priority for me.
I learned very quickly that we cannot help others the way we want to unless we have filled our own tanks so that we have something to give to others. So that has been a top priority.”
