Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Self-Love, Fighting the Power, and Her Signature Red Lip

[soft music]

Hello, Vogue, [in foreign language],

this is Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,

and I am here to walk you through my skincare

and red lip routine.

So I'm really excited to spend my morning with you.

Let's do it.

I have not gotten much sleep last night at all,

welcome to life in politics.

We are trying to get people healthcare,

making sure that they are taken care of in a pandemic,

people are fighting too much

and so I have bags under my eyes.

And so I always start with a toner.

This is just one that I happen to be using right now.

So I just apply some toner and

just wet my face.

I am following up with some vitamin C.

I just add a little bit of moisturizer.

So I get questions all the time on my Instagram stories

about skincare routines and makeup and what I do,

and the reason why I think it's so important

to share these things is that first of all,

femininity has power.

And in politics,

there is so much criticism and nitpicking

about how women and fem people present ourselves.

Just being a woman [giggles] is quite politicized

here in Washington.

There's this really false idea that if you care about makeup

or if you care, if your interests are in beauty and fashion,

that that's somehow for the least.

But I actually think these are some of the most substantive

decisions that we make and we make them every morning.

And so moving on,

I've got SPF.

If you are at all a melanated woman,

it's really hard to find sunscreen

because a lot of sunscreens have a white cast.

And I think that a lot of women know this,

to look at how, you have to be really generous

with sunscreen.

Don't play games, don't play games with sunscreen.

You'd always rather put too much than too little.

So don't forget your ears, don't forget your eyelids.

I travel between DC and New York

pretty much every single week.

This is kind of one of the most taxing sides

of being a member of Congress is that

Congress when it's in session,

we're in DC about four days a week,

and then we have to fly back home to work in our communities

three days a week.

That's seven days a week.

That's a lot of traveling.

It is also a huge toll on skin and so, you know,

I oftentimes will put on like kind of

a clear moisturizing mask when I'm in the train,

but the other aspect of it is carrying your products.

I still have my makeup routine

and I often have to carry it once a week.

And so it's not worth packing and unpacking,

I just keep it here and unzip it

and I will start with a tinted moisturizer.

So I get photographed just everyday to work.

It can be kind of exhausting.

I love beauty,

but also I try not to have a full beat every day[laughs]

and so some days I choose to go in with a bare face

and other days, you know, when I wanna feel glam to glam.

So these are the two foundations that I use.

I use a double wear,

when I know I'm going to be taking a lot of photos

and when it's going to be a long day

because it never goes anywhere,

but I love, love, love, tinted moisturizers.

They aren't as taxing on your skin.

It's a lot lighter and it's great for your day.

So one of the reasons why I even started wearing a red lip

was when I was running in my primary election the first time

and outside of our community,

no one knew who I was and we were out,

we were knocking doors,

we were making sure that people were being heard.

And one of the things that I had realized is that, you know,

when you're always kind of running around,

sometimes the best way to really look put together

is a bold lip.

And of course, being Latina,

this is like very much our culture where we come from,

I will wear a red lip when I want confidence,

when I need a boost of confidence.

So after this, after I painted on,

I just blend it in.

Our culture is so predicated on diminishing women, right?

And kind of preying on our self esteem.

And so it's quite a radical, my opinion,

it's quite a radical act

and it's almost like a mini protest to love yourself

in a society that's always trying to tell you,

you're not the right way,

you're not the right color,

you're not the right, you know, whatever it is.

And when you stand up and you say, you know what,

you don't make that decision, I make that decision.

It's very powerful,

but that doesn't mean we can't have fun.

As I said, I didn't get much sleep

so I am applying a color corrector.

And sometimes I just add it around the nose,

then I will put on some concealer.

You know, I kind of learned this on my own,

and as a millennial, through YouTube as well.

I really like starting to blend with my fingers

and then I'll go in afterwards and polish it off.

I find that the warmth from my fingers

really just helps bring product to life.

I went from working in a restaurant

to being on cable news all the time,

and I was really not used to that kind of a shift.

And,

you know, I think

I initially really struggled with that.

I really did.

And at a certain point,

I just learned that

you cannot get your

feelings of beauty and confidence from anyone but yourself.

You, that is one of the most ultimate gifts

that you have to give to yourself.

And so, you know what?

I just decided I'm not going to waste my time

and if I'm going to spend an hour

in the morning doing my glam,

it's not going to be because I'm afraid of what

some Republican photo is going to look like.

If I'm gonna do an hour doing my glam,

it's because I feel like it.

And that's really the difference,

my body, my choice[laughs]

And I do a light little contour

and so I will use, of course the classic Fenty beauty.

I use, I believe this is a contour stick.

For me, I'm an Accentuater.

I'm not trying to change my features or shape shift,

I'm just trying to accentuate my existing features.

Because then again,

you start getting into that self confidence game of like,

when you try to totally like, I'll do a very, for example,

I'll do a very light contour of my nose

where those kinds of lines already are.

I'm not trying to make it look bigger,

I'm not trying to make it look smaller.

I'm not trying to get low taller or longer

or anything like that.

I'm just trying to show people what I got[giggles]

Of course, they're still going to be like some fits,

some just general tips that you might go for.

Like, one thing that I learned was that

you might wanna set your contour a little bit higher

because when you blend it,

it kind of falls a little bit.

So instead of doing it like down here,

if you do it up here and you blend it, it ends up down here.

I'll go in with a little bit of cloud paint.

So that's pretty much my base.

I'm gonna go in with the brow.

You know, I'm very lucky now, at least in 2020,

'cause it's in Vogue[laughs]

I'm very lucky because brows are in,

you know my family has brows.

Like many people in my family are born with one brow

and we have to turn it into two brows

and I am been naturally blessed in this department,

and so I'll just go in very lightly

just to fill in the outer parts just a little bit,

I'll do a little highlighter as well.

The more time I have the more steps I add[laughs]

So this is...

Today is a little more involved than usual,

but I'm having fun.

I've been lately be playing with a lot of eyeshadows,

I go in with a little kind of a lighter color

and I just wash it all over my lid.

One of the things that's pretty wild to me is that

first of all, if you are a person that needs a tampon,

or if you are a person that needs a pad

or menstruation product of any kind,

you are often subject to what's known as the pink tax.

And it's not just menstruation products,

it's almost any product or service

that differentiates by gender.

And so dry cleaning is a perfect example.

Let's take a look at this.

If you're dry cleaning a men's shirt,

a lot of times it will be less expensive.

And in many States less expensive

than dry cleaning a woman's shirt.

In my opinion a pink tax is not just about money,

it's also about time.

And I think right here,

what we're talking about is a perfect example.

If waking up in the morning

and doing your makeup gives you life,

then that is amazing and you should do it.

But what we are also seeing all too often

is that women who wear makeup,

if there are studies that show that women who wear makeup

or regularly wear like a decent amount of makeup,

kind of show up to the office in glam also make more money.

And so at that point,

it stops being these calculations and decisions,

stop being about choice.

And they start being about patriarchy [giggles]

where if we look attractive to men,

then we will be compensated more.

And that's, to me is the complete antithesis

of what beauty should be about.

I think beauty should be about the person

who is applying it.

And so these things add up over time

and of all of that

we're not even paid at the same level as men.

And so our expenses are higher, our time is less

and we're not even getting paid at an equal rate.

Can't catch a break.

We live in systems that were largely built

for the convenience of men.

And oftentimes were designed with the subjugation of women

and queer people in mind.

And so every time we make a decision,

when you make a decision for you,

when you're like, you know what,

I'm going to do this,

I'm not going to do this thing that's expected of me because

if it's expected of me just because it's been the norm

who has the norm been serving?

I think that the queer community

has really paved the way on this, you know.

The way that they use beauty as a form of self expression

from drag Queens, to just

to, you know, non-binary people

and how they choose to use beauty

to express themselves is a lesson to everybody.

And I think it's really amazing.

I'm really incredible.

Okay, so I'm gonna go in, chrome my lashes,

when it comes to an everyday look,

I do remain pretty consistent,

but I also love to experiment.

And so one area where I recently

that actually recently went very well was

glitter in eyeshadow.

You know, I used to think that I wouldn't be,

I would be taken less seriously

and as you know, as the youngest woman in Congress

and as a woman of color, it's so hard to be taken seriously.

It's just, you know,

it's like any workplace where sometimes it feels like

you have to jump up and down for anyone to listen.

It's just really difficult

because some people are just born in bodies

that are naturally taken more seriously, you know.

I used to think that glitter or shimmery eyeshadow,

here I'm just using this ballet right now.

But there's others that I use

that are like even louder sometimes.

And I would think, Oh man, like this isn't going to,

this isn't gonna help me out, right?

Like people already try to diminish me

diminish my voice as young and frivolous and unintelligent.

And so first of all, I tried the shimmer

and it looks fire, it looks good.

It helps me feel better.

And I feel like it helps like make my eye pop a little bit.

So, you know what?

I was totally wrong.

I'm adding a little bit of bronzer

just to kind of warm up everything brings it all together.

Whenever you see me wearing a red lip, most of the time,

it's this one Stila liquid lipstick in basel.

And for me, the key for a lipstick

as much as I love experimenting

with a lot of different formulas,

whether it's a liquid lipstick

or a different kind of lipstick.

One of the things that I love is

about a liquid lipstick like this is

formulas that stay all day

because I really don't have time to be running in

and out of the bathroom to be doing touch-ups

and all this other stuff.

And so I really prefer liquid lipsticks

that just are indestructible.

I just go right in.

I start in the low risks zone actually.

And again, I start small and I start working my way out.

Voilà!

And it just,

boom!

It's like a nice little shock

and even I feel a little more oomph with the red on,

you'll deal with the hair later.

If I had to give one piece of advice,

it is that the key to beauty is the inside job.

The key to beauty is feeling beautiful

and no amount of money or makeup

can really compensate for loving yourself.

And so make sure that you do that.

That is the one foundation of everything.

And if you need a little boost

or if you're feeling particularly challenged that day,

look in the mirror and say, I'm the bomb

and I will make the world a better place

in my own little pocket, because that's what I'm here to do.

You are a blessing to the world.

Your talents are a blessing to the world.

No matter who you are,

there is something that you bring and you need to know that.

And that is the best beauty secret of them all.

Alright, I got my blazer on and I'm ready to seize the day,

make sure that you,

make sure that you kiss someone that you love.

That they give you a little love

and that you're ready to go.

So this is Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,

I hope you feel beautiful, however you are,

and let's go seize the day and find the power.

[soft piano music]