The Real Housewives of Atlanta star Phaedra Parks considers herself an amateur makeup artist and “hack girl.”
She’s a bit of a skincare ingredient expert and likes to know everything about everything that goes on her face – and she had to learn the hard way, she says.
“I’ve always had very sensitive skin,” she tells PEOPLE exclusively. “As a child, I was allergic to everything—everything gave me hives. As a child, I was like the face of Benadryl; I seemed to be allergic to everything that touched me. It made me aware of harsh chemicals and made me really start doing research. best things for sensitive skin.”
Through all that skin-loving research, she eventually found IT Cosmetics and teamed up with the brand for its latest social campaign, Keep It Real.
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Parks, 50, is quick to admit that she takes great care of her skin, and one of her favorite things about IT Cosmetics is that it has skincare right in the makeup formula. As a glamor girl who spends a lot of time on TV — and a lot of time in makeup — she loves a product that does double duty.
“I have beautiful skin under my makeup,” she says of the skin she takes intensive care of every day. “But makeup is there to enhance that. I’m a product girl and I love fair skin. I don’t think makeup should be used to cover you up, just make you look more perfect.”
In the new campaign, which hilariously pits Parks against her “impostor” self in the form of “Maedra Marks” to show that the original is always the best, Parks uses the brand’s CC+ Cream Foundation.
“When I think about basic products, I want my skin to look like skin, and the CC+ cream definitely makes my skin look like that,” she says. “Some are too thick, but this is very workable. You can blend it, you can mix it with your cream blushes. I feel like I’m a makeup artist because I’m wearing makeup and I need products to make my face look flawless.”
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Phaedra Parks.
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Parks also approves of IT Cosmetics’ “brown girl” shade palette — it comes in more than 20 shades — because she says it is not play around with makeup growing up due to the lack of shades. When she was a teenager, Traitors star says she just couldn’t get her hands on many brands that offer products that match her skin tone.
“It’s only recently that people have started exploring more skin tones,” she says of her makeup shopping experiences. “As a young girl, makeup really wasn’t meant for people with rich, warm skin tones. It was more my mom’s very fair skin. I looked like I was getting embalmed on mine because it was just too cool, too blue, and me to look like I’m on White chickens.”
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Now that she has more options, Parks is committed to glam every day, which includes wearing a full face of makeup and removing it all, and doing a full skincare routine with cleanser and serums every day.
But she stays away from any scams and uses all the real stuff, including very real, all-natural products from her kitchen as her favorite “hack” in her routine.
“I love coconut oil. You can cook with it, but you can also put it on your face and use it to remove all your makeup and moisturize it,” she says of her little tip. “That’s what I always tell people there are nonsense, but there are things that are in your kitchen cupboard that you can use for a little bit of everything.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education