With its pink marble case and rose gold accents, [Chrissy Teigen’s new palette with Becca is an Instagrammer’s dream. (Just think of the flat-lay ‘grams you’re bound to see on your feed now that it’s available on the Sephora app.) But at the launch of the Becca X Chrissy Glow Face Palette at a stunning house in the Hollywood Hills, the model and social media icon has a surprising confession: she’s over the Instagram highlight.
“I didn't want it to look like those girls that just look silver,” she says of the collection of two highlighters, a blush, and a bronzer, which all come together to give you a “beautiful, natural, and glow-y” look. Though she says that she’s “all for a slay queen,” she adds that she’s “over strobing” for herself right now.
That isn’t to say that you won’t get major glow from the colors, which are superbuildable in a non-intimidating way. “Look at the pearl in that, that's incredible. You wanna keep that the way it is,” Teigen says of the two highlighters called Beach Nectar, a warm golden peach, and Rose Gold, which looks nearly identical to Instagram’s favorite metal of the moment. To avoid delving too far into Instagram territory, however, she decided to turn the pearlescence down a bit on the bronzer and the blush. “We're gonna have two really shiny beautiful things and then another shiny thing? I didn't trust that everyone could handle it, just because I couldn't handle it,” she explains.
The result was Malibu Soleil, which Teigen’s longtime makeup artist, Mary Phillips, says can be used everywhere from the cheekbones to the jawline to your eyelids; and Hibiscus Bloom, a bright blush that seems more intense than it is. “This is all Mary because I didn't even realize how important such a bright shade was,” says Teigen. “I had no idea that [she’d] ever use something like this on me, and it was scary to me. I said, ‘Whoa, that doesn't seem like it fits,’ but now, I can't imagine using anything else.”
Phillips also noted that the colors can be blended together — she’s a fan of combining Rose Gold and Beach Nectar before application to give a warm glow to the tops of Teigen’s cheeks — and that the two powders can be used wet or dry. Because of that, the palette works for a range of skin tones, and both Phillips and Teigen have found what works best for them.
For Teigen, that involves applying her blush starting at the apples of her cheeks; Phillips suggests “brush[ing] it back into the hairline” for a natural-looking flush.
“Everything else is fake, but my cheeks are real,” Teigen adds with a laugh, pointing at her face (she was joking obviously). “Women are like, ‘those fake-ass cheeks,’ and I'm like, No! This is my real face. I'm very open with all that other shit, but I think Mary's always been so wonderful with making everything look so, so natural.”
“I went to the dentist yesterday, to shave down my teeth,” and adds that about “maybe nine years ago,” she had “my armpit sucked out which was one of the best things I've done. It's a big secret, but I don't care. And it added two inches to my arms. It made me feel better in strapless dresses, and I felt more confident.”
If it surprises you that the model would cop to plastic surgery, remember: this is Chrissy Teigen, she of the iconic Twitter account, talking. And just as social media trolls haven’t managed to scare her off from talking honestly about everything from food to politics, she won’t back down from getting real about her beauty routine.
“I got no regrets, honestly,” she adds. “Not in this entire lifetime.”
Watch model Natasha Poly apply her own makeup for this year's Met Gala:
