Lili Reinhart on how the ‘stress and anxiety’ of her acne struggles led her to launch a skincare line
Lili Reinhart has made a career of being fiercely honest and unapologetically herself — zits and all.
Her role as badass reporter Betty Cooper in “Riverdale” may have catapulted her to stardom, but Reinhart’s found ways to make an impact offscreen, too. Case in point: her new skincare brand Personal Day, a love letter to those who battle breakouts and are still searching for solutions.
Reinhart, 28, has been outspoken about her own skin struggles, which began when she was 12 years old. Every time she developed a pimple, it felt “so magnified” that she piled on harsh products in an effort to calm her complexion, leaving her skin even more angry and irritated.
Personal Day’s star ingredient is mevalonic acid, a compound exclusive to the brand in the acne category that promises to repair skin at the molecular level, boost cell turnover, strengthen the skin’s barrier and more. Products also include salicylic acid to target active breakouts, azelaic acid to calm inflammation and zinc hyaluronate to combat bacteria overgrowth.
Personal Day Clear Skin Support System Starter Kit
As as Reinhart has firsthand knowledge of how acne can take a toll on one’s mental health, she extensively researched and tested the products alongside dermatologists, estheticians and even psychologists.
Ahead of the holidays, the “Hustlers” star chatted with Page Six Style about her new brand, her past skincare mistakes and how she spends a personal day during the busiest of seasons. (Hint: a horror movie or two is always involved).
Hi, Lili! Tell us a bit about your skincare journey, and what inspired you to launch Personal Day in the first place.
I had acne when I was 12, which is pretty young. I had normal teenage acne, and then it kind of just got worse as I got older due to working and putting a lot of makeup on for work and not really being able to give my skin a rest. As you do when you’re struggling to find a solution, you try a bunch of things. I think I was just really damaging my skin with all the different products I was layering on, and obviously not layering in the correct way and using things that were full of harmful ingredients that I didn’t think to check or look into. I was like, “This has good reviews online. I’ll try it,” and not taking into account that those reviews are from people who [might not] have skin like mine, which is very, very reactive, very acne-prone, very sensitive.
I’ve been open and honest [about my skin issues]. I remember posting an Instagram Story here and there about when I had a huge pimple on my face and I was in the process of shooting something, how it felt so magnified and how I felt so consumed by that. I also have OCD, so the thought spiral happens when you have a breakout, for me at least.
I think [Personal Day] is the perfect marriage of my acne struggles and helping people who struggle with the same thing, and then also encouraging the mental health aspect of it all to be kind to yourself and have compassion for your skin. Those two things go hand in hand, because no one’s happy when they wake up with a pimple on their face. I just know the stress and anxiety that breakouts cause, and that was really a huge pillar and component of the brand that I wanted to lean into.
Would you say that using products with the wrong ingredients is the biggest mistake you’ve made when it comes to taking care of your skin?
Totally. I think it was also just an overload of products. I was using too much. For me, it was a sense of desperation. And when there’s that, I’m kind of grasping at straws and want to try multiple things. I was not really giving the good products time to work. I was also just putting a bunch of bad-quality products on my skin. I don’t touch things with fragrance anymore, [or] things that are full of butters and oils. I always look at the ingredients now, even with makeup. My biggest mistake was just not looking into what was actually going on my skin and educating myself. Obviously, I’ve been properly educated on this while developing the line, discovering what is in each product. That’s why I had us put an ingredient checker on the Personal Day website, so that people could copy and paste the ingredients of their makeup primer, for example, into our ingredient checker and see if there’s anything in there that could be causing a breakout.
It seems like you really put so much research and care into creating Personal Day. What did your team of experts teach you during the process?
Learning from them about the ingredients and making sure that we have the best ingredients on the market at a certain price point. Dr. Mamina, our dermatologist, helped us develop cutting-edge formulas and adjust the strength of each ingredient so it’s medically the best for skin. That has been a learning process for me as well. Sometimes, our Zooms feel like a science class. Shelagh, our CEO, is so knowledgeable about everything and I’m like, “I need to get on her level.” But I’m learning. Skincare has been such a passion of mine for so long that it is actually really exciting to me. I just saw Sarah Ford yesterday, who’s my esthetician and who I met a few years ago, and we asked her to join our board. Every time I see her, she’s like, “I just got this new product in. It does this, this, this, this and this.” And I’m like, “How can I implement those into my line to help more people?“ I always test everything out on myself because obviously, I would never make a product that I don’t use myself. I use my cleanser and my acne treatment and my moisturizer every single day. So just making sure that every product we have works for my skin as well. I’m one of the test dummies here!
Personal Day Everybody Stay Calm Recovery Mask
Do you have a favorite product in the collection?
It changes every time someone asks me. Right now, it’s Doing the Work, the salicylic acid acne treatment. I use it twice a day because my skin’s fully accustomed to the actives. If you’re just starting out, we say to use once every other day and then increase frequency to help prevent breakouts and get rid of the current ones. I’m not currently breaking out, and I’m knocking on wood right now because I’m about to travel for the holidays. Traveling always disrupts my skin. But it’s fine. I have an exciting lab sample I’ve been carrying around with me. That will help when traveling. So I’m very excited for 2025.
Personal Day Doing the Work Salicylic Acid Acne Treatment
What inspired the name, Personal Day? I can imagine coming up with the name for a brand you’re the face of is pretty difficult.
It’s hard. I never wanted my name to be anywhere [in] the actual name of the brand. I just wanted separation there, because I think having a celebrity skincare line makes people suspicious enough. I wanted the products to be trusted fully separate from me so that people could, even if they have no idea who I am, use the products and be like, “Damn, this works.” And then later maybe find out that I’m associated with it and founded it — or not at all!
Personal Day just makes a lot of sense, and it kind of fits the vibe — just kind of a relaxed, accepting, chill vibe. We’ve incorporated the name into the brand a lot in the sense of, “Take a personal day and take care of yourself.” Usually you’re like, “I need to prioritize my needs.” And we’re kind of saying that our products do the work for you. We are helping you take your personal day by giving you a really nice, high-quality skincare line.
Personal Day Even Keel Resurfacing Peel
What does your personal day look like?
Right in this current moment, I kind of just want to be in my house without any obligations. I had a personal day last Saturday, and I watched five movies. I ordered dinner for myself. I snuggled with my dog all day. I was in pajamas all day. I’m a homebody, and I like my couch. So I kind of just sunk into that couch-rotting mode.
What were some of the movies you watched?
I watched “Maria,” the new Angelina Jolie film. I watched “It Ends With Us.” I think I watched a horror movie. I love horror, and I’ve been really in the zone on horror, so I probably threw on a horror movie.
Aside from Personal Day, what else is keeping you busy right now?
I’m so focused on Personal Day right now. I also have a production company that I’ve had for three years, and we’ve been trying so hard to develop really impactful projects. Unfortunately, making stories and telling stories about women that aren’t super broad and commercial and maybe a bit more indie-feeling is incredibly difficult in the industry right now. I want to tell these complicated women stories, and it’s just not what people are in the market to make. So I’m really, boots on the ground, trying to work on my production company and making quality content come out of that. Between that and Personal Day and my acting career in general, I feel like I’m pretty busy!
And you’re just squeezing in the horror movies when you can.
Yes, I am. It’s my little release, my catharsis.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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