Alix Earle on Accutane, Skincare, and the Self-Tanning Product She Loves Most

Say hello to Unfiltered, a fresh beauty series where you'll get an exclusive glimpse into the dressed-down beauty routines of our favorite celebrities and content creators. They'll reveal their guilty-pleasure beauty practices, the five-minute-routine product lineup they can't live without, the one good-skin tip they'll be forever thankful for, and so much more. To bring every conversation full circle, we ask each celebrity to send us a selection of self-shot, filter-free photos of their choosing to capture the essence of their Unfiltered beauty philosophy. 

Up next, we're getting to know TikTok's most talked-about It girl, Alix Earle. Below, she's answering all of our rapid-fire questions and sharing her favorite products, best-kept beauty secrets, and more. Enjoy! 

I’ll get right to it. I follow you on Instagram and TikTok, and you always look so bronzed. What’s your go-to product, and what’s your routine like? 

My favorite self-tanner is Bondi Sands Technocolor ($27) in the color Emerald. The way Technocolor works is you take this skin quiz, and it finds the color that best suits your skin. Honestly, it’s been great for me. It gives my skin a nice glow, and it’s a good color for me.

As far as my routine goes, I definitely exfoliate before. I try to do my due diligence when putting on the tanner, making sure I get in every crevice and everything is covered. Sometimes I’ll put lotion on the parts of my skin that are drier so the self-tanner doesn’t stick too much to those, which is how I try to make it look as flawless as possible. Then, obviously, with the upkeep, moisturizing and putting lotion over the self-tanner is super important to have it last as long as possible.

Do you have a favorite moisturizer and exfoliator for your body?

Bondi Sands has a Self-Tan Eraser ($24) and an Exfoliating Mitt ($9). As far as lotion goes, I’m not too picky. I try to do something fragrance-free because my skin is super sensitive. The self-tanner is also fragrance-free, which is why I like the Technocolor especially. 

This is kind of a fun question. Let’s play Fuck, Marry, Kill with self-tanner, hair extensions, and lashes.

I’m going to kill lashes because I don’t normally use those. We’ll fuck hair extensions, and we’re going to marry self-tanner.

Those would be my exact picks. Speaking of beauty products, in general, there are a few beauty products you’re definitely known for using: the Drunk Elephant D-Bronzi Drops, the Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Contour Wand, and the Nyx Jumbo Eye Pencil. If you had to only keep one, which one would it be and why?

I think that I would keep the Hollywood Contour Wand ($42) just because I’m obsessed with a bronzed look, and besides having bronzed skin already, I think it definitely does a good job of creating that nice contoured and sculpted look for your face.

Contour is my favorite part of my makeup routine.

It makes such a difference.

What is a beauty product that you’ve been loving lately? Is there one you’ve recently discovered that you’re excited about?

I have loved the Bondi Sands Technocolor Self-Tanner. I discovered it while I was still on Accutane, which made a big difference to me because it makes your skin so sensitive to the sun, and self-tanning helps a lot.

Definitely. Is there a product that we’d be surprised to know is in your makeup bag?

Surprisingly, recently, I’ve been using black or brown eyeliner to line my waterline. I’ve been using them from Ilia. I know I’ve been kind of known throughout the past year for this white-eyeliner look, but I have been experiencing and I’ve been liking the dark colors for my waterline. I think that would be shocking for some people to hear.

That is shocking actually. I feel like you’re so known for the white liner. You’re switching things up!

I know, I know. I’m trying different things out.

Let’s talk skincare. Can you walk me through your current routine, and would you consider yourself more of a skincare minimalist or maximalist? 

Having a curated skincare routine is something I’ve more recently been learning about and working on. Before I was just trying to keep it as gentle as possible with the Accutane. During my acne journey, I was really just using a cleanser and a lotion. Now, I have this SkinCeuticals Gentle Cleanser ($46) that I use. I like to use salicylic acid to maintain the state of my skin and unclog my pores. I’ve been using this under-eye brightening cream—the Bondi Sands Eye Spy Cream ($16)—which I think helps get rid of dark circles and helps after a late night out. I’ve been using the L’Oréal Bright Reveal Serum ($30). I think that helps with my overall complexion and glow of my skin and just a CeraVe Moisturizer ($18).

You’ve been really vocal about your skincare journey and using Accutane. What did your journey with skincare teach you? What would you say to someone who’s struggling with acne right now? 

I think it’s super important for people who are struggling with their skin at the moment to just know that it happens to everyone. It’s normal. A skincare journey is called that for a reason; it has its ups and downs. It’s sometimes getting better before it gets worse. Be patient with yourself. Try to figure it out but don’t go crazy thinking something is wrong with you. Honestly, it’s such a normal thing for people to deal with skin issues.

Definitely, and speaking of your journey in general, I can’t imagine what it was like to blow up on Instagram and TikTok as quickly as you did. What was that like? Were there any growing pains?

I blew up pretty quickly on TikTok. It was definitely great and exciting, but at the end of the day, I wasn’t used to people talking about me. That was a weird concept for me. Sometimes it still is. Seeing people talk about me like I wasn’t human was weird for me in the beginning—especially with any negativity, but you have to take the good with the bad. I’ve learned to not let those things get to me or at least be a little more used to it. It was hard for me to conceptualize that I was someone people wanted to talk about.

I feel like that would be so tough. People tend to view people on the internet as if they’re not there reading the comments. That would be the toughest part for me.

Yeah!

Do you ever have days when you’re just sick of being online or you don’t want to go near your phone? What do you do to get a little self-care and stay balanced?

I definitely have struggled with this over the past year. I love posting, and I love staying active. I try to post three to four times per day and stay up with engagement. I would set myself to that standard. There’s definitely been days when I wasn’t feeling as creative or motivated, and I’d still try to force out that content because I thought that was best. Recently, I’ve learned it’s better to just not force it and take my time. If I need a day off from posting or looking at things online, that’s okay, and it’s not the end of the world.

That’s why I’m so excited about the podcast I launched last week, Hot Mess. I get to take a step back; it’s like a therapy session for me. I have the microphone, and I’m able to sit back and let everything out at once instead of trying to constantly put out tidbits of content. As much as I want to do that and will do that, it’s a little bit different. It’s giving me something else to focus on. It’s a big project I’m excited for.

Content creation is a full-time job; it takes a lot of work. Speaking of your content, your followers love how genuine you are on TikTok and Instagram. Do you have any advice for someone who might be afraid to put themselves out there on social media or otherwise? I feel like it’s harder than it looks.

It is! My confidence was built up over time. I had been posting for years. It’s much easier for people to pick on you if your videos aren’t doing so well because you’re putting your life out there and you’re not really getting anything in return. That’s at least how it felt for me for a few years, but I knew that I liked posting, and I knew people would talk. I just kept going. I knew it was something I wanted to do, and I just hoped that one day it would pay off, and it did.

For anyone who’s struggling with that confidence or worried about what people will say, just keep going and believe in yourself. At the end of the day, you have to believe in yourself or no one else is going to.

As a public figure, what’s one thing you wish more people knew about you?

 A lot of what I post is me having fun, going out, and going to these crazy parties. I post that a lot of the time because I feel like it’s easy to be entertained by, but that’s not really how I am 24/7. I do like nights when I stay in with my friends and we’re sitting around cooking dinner. I’m trying to incorporate a little more of that into my content.

A lot of that side of my personality is going to come through in the podcast. It’s longer-form content where people will be able to hear more from me. But, yeah, I’m not always too crazy.

Speaking of your podcast, first of all, congratulations, but what inspired you to make that move? What can we look forward to?

I just graduated college in May. I spent the last semester of college thinking about what I wanted to do when I graduated. I knew I wanted to have a project or a business to work on. I thought about starting different brands, but nothing was feeling right for me. Although I’m very grateful to be in that place, I kind of wanted to take a step back, and I wanted people to get to know me better. As much as people may think they know me, there’s a lot that they don’t. I felt like a podcast was a really good place for me to entertain people, build a brand, and have people get to know me better.

A lot of people have podcasts now. A lot of it is interviews and guests. I just really want to focus on it being me and my life. My guests are going to be my close friends and family. It’s like a show of my life.

So, it'll be a look at who you are and your inner circle? 

Yeah, behind the scenes.

Finally, what’s your unfiltered beauty philosophy in seven words?

Textured skin is beautiful too.

Shop Alix's Unfiltered Beauty Edit