Brie Larson has an interview in W Magazine which is just flat-out spon-con for her new beauty contract with Decorte, a Japanese beauty brand. I don’t really find the spon-con of it all that interesting, but I realize that it’s a multi-billion-dollar global industry, so if you care about which Decorte beauty products she uses, you can read all about it here. I found the other stuff more interesting, where she talks about this strange pandemic year and whether or not there are beauty standards. Some highlights:

Pandemic life: “In the beginning of the pandemic, it was very easy for me to just work and work through the weekends. Now, I’ve started winding down once the sun starts to set. The sunset has become a cue to myself to say, ‘Hey it’s time to wrap things up. I’m not going to keep looking at the news, or keep responding to e-mails—I am going to use this time to wind down.”

Nighttime routines, self-care: “It is nerve-wracking. I’ve had to learn how to place more boundaries with work and my self-care. It just feels like everything can be so out of whack. As I mentioned, I have started winding down once the sun starts to set. It’s also my cue to start cooking dinner, go into the garden—that’s how it starts. I’ve been burning frankincense in the house too, because it not only smells great, but it’s great for cleansing the air in the house; it’s anti-microbial. I’ve also been trying to watch a movie every night.

She meditates too: “Sometimes I’ll do some breathing exercises, or I’ll meditate if I’ve had a particularly stressful day. For me, it’s about what can I do that is transitional out of work into decompressing time, because when you’re at home all day I feel it’s very easy to let everything stick and hang on to you. It’s about knowing what’s the routine and what’s the ritual to get out of that.

Even 10 minutes of self-care helps: “Or even a couple of minutes can help! The thing that I’m learning is that even just washing my face, putting on moisturizer, and doing five minutes of breathing exercises can help. I mean, we’re talking about 10 minutes. Before I used to be like, “I don’t have time for self-care.” It doesn’t take as long as we think it does. You can do longer forms—of course, I am a big fan of that—but even for people who feel they are too busy, you can take 10 minutes to do great things for the mind and body.

What she would say to young women having a hard time trying to keep up with standards of beauty: “I don’t believe that there is a beauty standard. I struggled with feeling ugly and like an outcast for so much of my life. And so I really, really feel for that. It took me a long time to be able to be totally comfortable with myself. The thing that has brought me solace is knowing that I can be whoever I want to be with myself. What breaks my heart is to think of people in the world who don’t feel that they have safety within their own bodies. That, to me, is my ultimate goal in life: to do whatever it is that I can so people have the freedom to express themselves and be exactly who it is that they want to be—whatever that is—knowing that that can also change.

[From W Magazine]

Before this interview, I would have said that Brie is probably one of the wokest white celebrities out there, and that she often raises good points in interviews and she uses her privilege for good. But that answer about beauty standards was as tone-deaf as they come! You have brown and black women across the board saying that they feel marginalized by Western beauty standards and Brie saunters along and shrugs, “That problem doesn’t exist, because even I, an attractive white woman, felt ugly once!” Yikes.

As for what she says about self-care… I mean, she’s right, but I also think “self care” as a thing/brand/idea is getting a bit too… general or something? At this point, we’re just saying that taking a shower or watching TV is “self-care.”

Photos courtesy of WENN.