Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Congresswoman By Day, Lifestyle Blogger By Night

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s personable social media presence has given her followers a new little nugget to obsess over: Her skincare routine. Ocasio-Cortez is a skincare goon, just like you.

“Skincare is a straight up hobby of mine,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a series of Instagram stories. “I’m a science nerd and I truly enjoy the science of it, reading about compounds and studies, etc.”

An Instagram follower asked Ocasio-Cortez how she stays stress-free and keeps her skin so clear. Ocasio-Cortez said that while she is far from stress-free, she credits her clear skin to avoiding full-coverage foundation (tinted moisturizer and BB cream only) and her multi-step skincare routine.

“People want me to post my skincare routine—I don’t want it to seem too product-placementy so I’m not gonna go crazy w/ brands but here’s the gist.”

She starts off with double cleansing.

“Look it up,” wrote Ocasio-Cortez. “If you wear makeup—esp foundation—you should double cleanse.”

Double cleansing was mainstreamed in the last few years due to the popularity of (laborious) Korean beauty routines. Essentially, it’s cleansing your skin with an oil or oil-based balm to remove makeup and other grime that has collected on your face throughout the day, and then following up with an ordinary cleanser to get rid of residual oils.

“I also use a face brush or makeup towel when I’m being good,” she wrote. “But also sometimes I just use a nice facewipe [sic] before bed. NO ALCOHOL in your wipes (or any skincare product).”

The next step for Ocasio-Cortez: Toners and actives.

“Toner should not have alcohol in it,” wrote Ocasio-Cortez, continuing the alcohol skepticism that everyone who has ever lurked the Skincare Addiction Reddit or preachy Paula’s Choice articles knows about. “It should feel like water but more nourishing.”

Ocasio-Cortez didn’t specify which actives she uses, but I’d bet money she uses a good vitamin C serum.

The last step for Ocasio-Cortez is moisturizer and sunscreen.

“I find moisturizer to be one of the most personal steps bc everyone’s skin is different and it’s like finding jeans that fit,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote which, wow, true.

Ocasio-Cortez called sunscreen the most important element of her skincare routine.

“I’ve been using daily sunscreen since I was 19,” she wrote, which likely wasn’t meant to make me feel like shit for only starting to wear sunscreen at age 25, but still left me longing for the SPF-free years that I’ve lost. “I’ve been bad about it lately and can tell the difference.”

Well, we can’t!

As far as make-up goes, Ocasio-Cortez called her routine “pretty simple”: Tinted moisturizer or BB cream, concealer, mascara, blush, stick highlighter, brow gel and lip color, with powder, contour, eyeliner, and eyeshadow on “fancier days.”

She uses high-end and drugstore makeup. “I have tried the eyelash thing and IDK man I’m gonna poke my eye out one of these days,” Ocasio-Cortez added, noting that attempts to use false lashes result in them falling off. “Bless y’all that can do that. I will keep trying.”

Ocasio-Cortez even pivoted to lifestyle blogger and wrote about her complicated relationship with dairy: She loves it, but has begun to regard it as more of a treat. “I’m very into oat milk right now which IMO is the best of all the milks after cashew milk (I know I should v bougie right now but almost any non-dairy milk sounds bougie so here we are),” she wrote.

Ocasio-Cortez may be complicit in New York City’s oat milk scarcity crisis, but at least her skincare advice is pretty sound.