“I don’t claim to be a beauty guru,” says Ming Lee Simmons, though you wouldn’t know it once her beauty routine gets underway. “I actually don’t do makeup everyday—I can’t lay around in makeup, and I like to be cozy at all times.” She credits her mother, model, fashion designer, and entrepreneur Kimora Lee Simmons, with helping her cultivate an appreciation for going makeup-free. “My mother used to get her makeup done a lot professionally when I was a kid, but I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup or straighten my hair,” she says. “[She] wanted us to love our natural selves.”
While Simmons may not always do a full beat, she certainly knows a thing or two about how to wield a makeup brush and make sure that her skin remains healthy and hydrated. Simmons begins her routine with a generous helping of sunscreen. “I pigment really bad with my acne, and I’m really scared of it scarring forever,” she explains before following up on her SPF with a moisturizer. “If you have acne, you just want to keep it hydrated so it can heal.”
Having acne-prone skin also means that she has to be selective about what products make their way onto her face, like the Milk Makeup Hydro Grip Primer she uses as the base. “It helps my makeup stay on all day, and I don’t break out from this,” she says.
“I learned how to do my own makeup on YouTube,” Simmons says, as she applies concealer to any pimples or discoloration that she doesn’t want interfering with her foundation. “Also, me and my best friends like to sit around and do makeup when we’re going nowhere.” Next, she pats a skin tint and a brighter under-eye concealer onto her face with a makeup sponge to create a smoother finish.
“I struggle with PCOS and I have endometriosis,” she explains. At one point, Simmons’s cystic acne breakouts made her feel so self-conscious that she didn’t want to leave the house. Learning how to do her own makeup became a way to manage those insecurities. “I also had to learn to not do makeup and just be okay with it because nobody has perfect skin,” she says. “Everybody struggles with acne.” As Simmons goes in with Milk Makeup’s Sculpt Stick to contour her forehead, cheeks, and chin, she also clears up a pernicious online rumor. Despite what people say, she actually doesn’t have any chin filler. “This is my chin! Please don’t bully people on the Internet, it’s mean,” she says.
Simmons’s preferred beauty look involves a soft, rosy wash of color across her cheekbones and eyes. She begins bringing that color into focus by mixing two pink shades of Milk Makeup’s Lip + Cheek Stick onto those areas—and keeping them on hand for touch-ups. “The best part about these is I can just throw [them] in my bag. They’re just really cute and tiny,” she says. A dash of Pore Eclipse Matte Translucent Setting Powder ensures that all of her handiwork so far stays in place. “I like this powder because it has [beneficial] skincare ingredients in it,” Simmons explains. “It does not irritate [my skin], so you can be all nice, powdered, and bright, and not have to worry about breakouts.”
“You can never have too much blush,” Simmons insists, layering on another lighter shade of pink at the apples of her cheeks before adding a bit more bronzer to contour her nose. A couple more dabs of the Pore Eclipse Powder across the area serves as a canvas for the lightest pink blush of all, which she sweeps outward from the inner corners of her eyes, creating a pink-to-red gradient effect. Even her highlighter of choice is “a little blush-y.”
When it comes to eyeliner, Simmons goes for a smudged effect rather than aiming for precision. “I don’t like harsh lines because I’m always gonna mess it up. And if I have a black line on my eye, where do I go from there?” She then applies a longtime favorite lip liner (“I have, like, 18”) before reaching for her Milk Makeup contour stick again as an unexpected lip color. “You can use it for everything,” she says.
A final misting of setting spray and Milk Makeup mattifying powder under the eyes seals the deal. Despite the heat, every element of her look is locked in place, which she attributes to her Hydro Grip Primer. “It’s so good,” she says. “And it will continue to be good all day.”