Rebecca Willa Davis is a Webby Award-winning editor, writer, digital strategist, brand consultant, and zeitgeist wrangler and founder and editor-in-chief of the wellness travel site The Glassy. Check her out on Instagram!
Have you always been interested in clean beauty? When did this come about?
RD: I became interested in clean beauty after really immersing myself in the world of clean eating—I grew up eating a lot of the typical ‘90s junk food (from Dunkaroos to Hot Pockets), so rethinking food and nutrition in my early 20s and learning what made my body feel its best was super transformative. Once you realize the way that food impacts your well-being, it’s impossible to not start to look at personal care products and think: What the hell is in these, and do I really want to be putting them on my body? The short answer for me was, “No!”
Why is natural beauty important to you?
RD: I’ve only got one body to work with, so it’s really important to me that I take care of it. That includes the products I’m putting on my face, body, and hair—if I’d never eat a Twinkie, why would I put the beauty equivalent all over my skin?
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Where/from whom did you learn about skincare/makeup?
RD: When I was in high school my mom got me Bobbi Brown’s Teenage Beauty book, and that quickly became my bible. There were so many afternoons where I’d just be lying on my bed, poring over the pages. Of course, I wear a lot less makeup these days—bye, shimmery lilac eyeshadow!—but what I’ve kept from that book’s message is that makeup is meant to be fun.
What is the most important step in your skincare/makeup routine?
RD: Since “getting enough sleep” probably doesn’t count as an official step. I’d say that it’s moisturizing. I have really dry skin, so if I’m not constantly massaging in an oil like the Golden Elixir, I’ll start to notice the difference—especially in the winter.
What is your morning “getting ready” routine?
RD: Because my skin is already dry, I do the “splash some water on my face” thing rather than a full-fledged cleansing. After that, I always like to mist my face with the Rosewater Toner before applying a face oil. If it’s winter, I’ll dab a bit of balm (current fave: the MyMatcha stick) onto my driest areas to keep them extra moisturized. After that, it’s pretty simple: SPF (always!), a swipe of the MAI-LIGHT on my cheekbones, and I’ll apply just a little bit of the Golden Elixir to my hair ends before heading out the door.
What is your favorite self-care/beauty ritual?
RD: I absolutely live for baths. I’m a pisces rising, so I’m a total water baby and even just a few inches of water in my Brooklyn apartment-sized tube does the trick. Add candles, crystals., some epsom salt, a face mask, and a mug of tea and I’m in heaven.
What skincare woes have you faced - how have you overcome them (or learned to embrace them!)
RD: My whole life I’ve dealt with hormonal breakouts—even if I’m following the strictest diet, I’ll still have flare-ups. As a magazine editor, frankly speaking there’s an expectation that you’ll look a certain way, and so it would cause me major stress to think that I was a failure somehow for having breakouts here and there. It’s been groundbreaking to show myself some compassion and realize that my breakouts aren’t a reflection of me as a person...they’re just a reflection of my body doing its thing!
For someone who travels as much as I do, it’s really difficult to maintain any kind of consistency—consistent skin-care routine, consistent sleep cycles, consistent eating habits. (That’s why I launched The Glassy in the first place—to help people feel their best when they’re away from home.) Last year I was in New York, Miami, Joshua Tree, and Los Angeles in the span of two weeks—needless to say, my skin freaked out a bit, since each had super different climates and required very different skin-care products. Living out of a suitcase means I can’t always have *everything* on me at all times, so learning how to improvise—and finding products that are truly multi-use—has been crucial.
What is the most valuable piece of beauty advice you have been given?
RD: Don’t overwash! Between when you go to bed at night and when you wake up in the morning, you haven’t been exposed to so much dirt and grime that you need to use a cleanser. Just a splash of water is all you need, promise.
What is your favorite cocokind product and how do you use it?
RD: The Golden Elixir—it’s a travel godsend (and I do quite a bit of travel for The Glassy) because I’ve got all of my essentials in one bottle: face moisturizer, body moisturizer, hair moisturizer. If I was desert island-bound and could only bring one thing, it would probably be this TBH.
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