Ella Rubin’s beauty routine begins with a longheld recommendation from her grandma. The Sterling Point star massages Vanicream’s Gentle Facial Cleanser over her face and neck: “The holy grail for me.” It’s the first of several beauty habits that Rubin has inherited from the women in her family, but over time, her relationship with her skin has very much been forged on her own.
“A few-ish years ago, I got really bad acne for the first time in my life,” she says. Deep, painful cystic breakouts arrived during the actors strike, and while microneedling and red light—she uses CurrentBody’s LED Multi Light Therapy Mask—have since helped with the scarring, the experience changed her approach to beauty. “I just tried to use it as a time to detach from the way I look,” she explains. “Maybe it’s a good practice in just accepting where your face is at.”
These days, Rubin keeps her regimen soothing and stripped back. Epicutis’s Lipid Serum became a favorite while she was dealing with perioral dermatitis (“one of the only serums that wasn’t kind of enraging it more”), followed by Siv’s Biome-Balancing Serum, CytoLine Eyecare Cream 100, and Corthe’s lightweight Moisture Rx Recharging Gel. Then comes a quick face massage and SKIN1004’s Hyalu-Cica Water-Fit Sun Serum SPF 50. She finishes with Aquaphor Lip Repair.
There is another committed skin-care obsessive in Rubin’s life: Annie, the tightly wound New York teenager she plays in Sterling Point. In the show’s opening episode, Annie launches into an elaborate routine—but, Rubin points out, “she’s not really doing the steps correctly,” attacking each one with what we come to know as characteristic intensity. “When you’re kind of white-knuckle gripping life like that…it just made sense that she would do that to her face as well.”
Creator Megan Park was keen for the teenagers in Sterling Point to look like actual teenagers, too. Makeup artist Skye Tostowaryk kept Rubin’s complexion minimal and even let the occasional spot make it on camera. “Every time I had a pimple, I was like, ‘Annie’s struggling with her skin today, I guess,’” Rubin laughs—they’d even leave some of the Mario Badescu Drying Lotion on her face. The approach rubbed off: “I really had never had less makeup on my face on a job, and it was really freeing. It honestly made me wear less makeup in my real life.”
Her “everyday plus” look begins accordingly: a light layer of IT Cosmetics CC Cream, followed by two shades of Tower 28’s Hydrating Concealer. A well-loved Fenty Beauty Match Stix—“Rihanna, I’m so sorry. I’ve owned this product for years,” she says when it hits the bathroom tiles—creates a shadow-like contour around her nose and eyes, while Benetint, another Sterling Point set staple, goes across her lips, cheeks, and over the bridge of her nose.
Chanel’s Baume Essentiel is tapped on as both highlighter and eyeshadow before Rubin turns to the lips, sketching in some shadow with Rhode’s Peptide Lip Shape and defining them further with Charlotte Tilbury’s Lip Cheat. It’s a lip routine that comes courtesy of her mother, who has worn the latter for as long as Rubin can remember. “I look just like my mom,” she says.
Her grandmother is another enduring reference: a former beauty-pageant competitor whom Rubin describes as “always kind of done in some way, but really still pared back” and “the most stunning, luminous woman.” Her golden rule? “Be moisturized every day. Non-negotiable.” She slicks on the body oil.
