As Betty Cooper in Riverdale, Lili Reinhart survived multiple serial killers, a cult, a time jump, and time travel, but one thing she never faced onscreen? A breakout. Offscreen though, the actor dealt with cystic acne in the public eye, her relationship becoming tabloid fodder, and her appearance being scrutinized. Now, after years of connecting with fans about her acne journey, Lili is jumping into the skincare game with her new brand, Personal Day.
Made specifically for acne-prone skin, Personal Day launches today with five products. But the brand is about more than skin—it also pledges to promote mental health, another topic Lili has been candid about throughout her career. “It just makes a lot of sense that I would launch an acne-focused skincare line that also has compassion for mental health,” she tells Cosmopolitan. “It’s like if you were to create a brand that is me, this is it.”
When Lili says she “is” the brand, she means it. The actor has been developing Personal Day for three years, working alongside CEO and co-founder Shelagh Wong while testing products on herself, on employees, on her friends, and even on her boyfriend. These days, she has a simple, three step everyday skin care routine: “My powder cleanser, the acne treatment tonic, and the moisturizer.” (She uses the peel and recovery mask a few times a week as well as her fave splurge product, the Osmosis +Beauty StemFactor Growth Factor Serum.)
Acne may have caused her a lot of anxiety and pain—especially under the spotlight—but now that she’s launching her own brand, Lili is looking on the bright side. “I never have to pay for skincare ever again because I just use Personal Day,” she says, smiling. “I’m like, Hey, I won.”
There are so many celebrity beauty and skincare brands out there. What sets yours apart?
Our point of differentiation is that we have made sure every single product in our lineup is made without the most common acne-triggering ingredients.* Once I realized I couldn’t just trust skincare and I needed to start looking at the ingredients in it, I had to throw away and give away 90 percent of what was on my bathroom counter because I realized what I was putting on my face every day was actually harming it instead of helping it. That’s when my skin changed.
This was two or three years ago, and I had been thinking about an acne-focused brand before, but that’s when it really clicked in my head. There needs to be a line that is trustworthy for people with acne-prone skin. And it has to be under a $40 price point. My fans are young, and I also don’t want to spend $70 on skincare. So keeping all of our products under $40 was incredibly important.
*A word from Cosmo beauty editor Beth Gillette: We have not looked at every products’ full ingredient list, BUT the most commonly known pore cloggers and acne triggers (esters, butters, essential oils, soybean oil, silicones, etc.) are not in these formulas, which definitely set them apart.
How did you land on Personal Day as the name of your brand?
Let me tell you, naming a brand is so hard because everything is taken. I had a name in my head for a really long time and then I found out it wasn’t available. I had another name I really liked, also not available. Personal Day was not even in the top 30 choices that we had. It was buried on a long list of other names that I was scrolling through and I saw it and immediately stopped. I texted the group chat I had at the time and said, “Personal Day is kind of nice and it makes a lot of sense.” We sat with it for a while, looked it up and it wasn’t taken, so we decided to go with it.
I wasn’t sure about it for a while, but in retrospect, it’s always made perfect sense. Personal Day is the vibe and essence of what we want the brand to be. A personal day is a self-care day. It’s a day to yourself, a day of you. It brings together taking care of your skin and taking care of yourself.
Personal Day products contain azelaic acid, zinc hyaluronate, and salicylic acid—ingredients that skincare junkies will likely recognize—but the brand also promotes the use of mevalonic acid, a new ingredient that is exclusive to Personal Day for the treatment of acne. What can you tell me about it?
It’s a new active we’re using in our moisturizer and recovery mask. Shelagh would be able to give you a better explanation.* But it’s really exciting because it helps your skin long term. A lot of people think you only use acne skincare when you’re breaking out, but this is helping prevent and treat and nourish and repair your skin for the long term so you can keep using it without overdoing it.
*Shelagh tells Cosmo that while it’s a relatively new ingredient, mevalonic acid is thought to help repair your skin barrier, which not only helps prevent breakouts but also boosts your overall skin health.
You’ve been in the public eye for about eight years now. Is there one time in particular that you remember how cystic acne affected your mental health and your work?
I remember a shoot I did in New York. I had the largest cystic pimple in the middle of my forehead. It was literally all I could think about all day, and it was such a fucking bummer. I’ve had cystic acne since I was 12 or 13, and it’s always been this recurring pimple in the middle of my forehead that loves me and loves to show up unannounced. And when I have something like that on my face, I feel the need to acknowledge it because it’s an insecurity of mine. I’m like, Let me acknowledge this so I can get it out of the way because I know you’re sitting there thinking about it. Even though I know that the makeup artist or photographer isn’t sitting there thinking about my pimple all day. I’m the one who’s thinking about it the most.
Anyway, I felt horrible all day long. I did not feel confident. I wanted to hide, but I had to be in front of a camera. And ultimately, that would happen many more times in my future, working on film sets and other photo shoots and walking red carpets, having pimples that I felt ashamed of and having to still go out there. That’s why a large pillar of Personal Day is mental-health-focused. I know from personal experience what acne does to my confidence and my mental health. I have OCD, so if I have a huge breakout, I’m looking at every single person’s skin, comparing myself to them. I become hyper-fixated on pimples and get into squeezing mode and damage my skin. And I know a lot of people can relate.
I saw on TikTok that you recalled times you would request to do your makeup alone in your trailer on the Riverdale set so others wouldn’t see your bare face. How do you work through those feelings when they come up today?
It’s really hard. It’s gotten easier over time. I remind myself that no one is thinking about your skin more than you. Other people are not thinking about your acne all day long. I can be very OCD about my acne, and when I get hyper-fixated on it I remind myself that life exists outside of my acne. I let that soothe me in the moment, if I can. And it usually does. But sometimes when I’m having a bad skin day, I don’t want to leave my house. I don’t want to go out. I don’t want to be seen. I want to stay inside so I can just keep a spot treatment on my pimple all day long. I’ve canceled plans because I have a huge pimple and I don’t want to feel self-conscious about it.
Shame plays such a big role in people who have acne because you just don’t see it normalized. You don’t see it put out there. I wish more people talked about it. I almost wish more celebrities had acne. A lot of them have beautiful, perfect skin somehow. I don’t know where they’re getting it from, but I certainly didn’t when I was starting Riverdale and still dealing with acne and having to show up to work and texting my makeup artist ahead of time saying, “Hey, can I do my makeup in the trailer today? I feel too vulnerable out in the open.” I was going into my trailer to do my makeup to protect myself.
It’s impressive that you were able to communicate that vulnerability to someone and take care of yourself in that way.
It felt embarrassing at the time, for sure. I wondered, Is this so crazy to be doing this? But it’s not. I was just literally protecting my peace.
It’s reflective of the sort of contrast at the heart of Personal Day, this kind of battle between—
Shame and positivity.
Exactly. How do you prioritize destigmatizing acne while also promoting acne-fighting ingredients?
There’s a spectrum of shame with acne. Some days, I feel like shit and some days, I don’t care. It depends on my mood on a day-to-day basis. Personal Day understands that spectrum. We’re not promising to cure acne. We’re promising that we’re here for you on your skin journey, whatever that looks like.
Ultimately, we want people to have healthy, beautiful skin, but having acne doesn’t mean your skin is not healthy and beautiful. We want to help you treat your breakouts and prevent your breakouts, but we also want you to know that sometimes acne is inevitable. If you’re traveling, if you’re stressed, if your gut is off, it can happen and it’s going to happen. Again, we’re not promising the cure. We’re just promising that we get it and we’re here to help as much as we can.
How has living in front of the cameras changed your relationship with your skin?
Over the years, I’ve realized that skincare is an investment in myself. I’m very cheap, I do not like to spend my money. So if I’m going to spend my money on skincare, I’m going to make sure it’s something that works in the short term and the long term. That’s something I’ve learned: It’s okay to spend money on this stuff, whether it be a massage to relax or a doctor that might be a little more expensive or doesn’t take my insurance. It’s an investment in yourself and in your health and in your mental wellbeing. Ultimately, I think it’s the most important thing to spend your money on.
You’ve been open about your mental health and OCD and anxiety for years. How has your mental health journey moved with your acne journey? How do they bleed into one another?
It’s hard because I’ve been struggling, and this last year has been really bad for my mental health, actually.
Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.
Thank you, but there are waves. I was anxious at 4 years old and diagnosed with depression when I was 12, so I’ve been dealing with depression in my life more than I have not. It’s something that moves in waves, and I know that when I’m down and in a dip in my mental health that I will be more sensitive to my acne.
Surrounding myself with people who understand me and those dips has been so crucial to my life. My best friends, my boyfriend, my family, they know me and understand that when I’m in a dip, I’m more likely to not leave the house if I don’t feel confident, and if I’m feeling better, I’ll throw a pimple patch on and walk out the door. When it comes to how my mental health connects to my acne, it’s more about my environment. Having people around me who just fucking get it has been a game changer in my life.
I also have depression and it’s hard for me to really let myself lean on those around me. Just like I might conceal a pimple, I want to conceal when I’m feeling down.
This is actually why I love TikTok. I don’t love other social media, but I find that TikTok has a very compassionate community. There’s also a lot of negativity on there, like everywhere else. But I find that there’s so much compassion for people with acne and mental health problems on TikTok. I see people posting vlogs or intimate videos of themselves sitting in their car crying and they don’t know who else to talk to. So they turn to people online—to strangers—and you look at the comments and people are rallying around them. That makes me feel better.
Social media can make you feel really alone, but it can also make you feel really supported.
Fans can also be very vocal about their support on social media. Has that ever helped you through a tough time?
Sometimes. It can be hard for a lot of that to land because social media is still kind of a persona. It means a lot to have so much support, but if I need a confidence boost, I don’t look at my social media comments. I turn to the people who are in my environment around me or look inward and meditate on it.
I so appreciate these people who have been following me for almost 10 years and supporting me and looking up to me. They’re the first people to comment on my stuff, and I see them. I see the positivity and I appreciate it. I have so much gratitude for those people. So sometimes it does land, but it’s hard to land. I don’t know if it will ever be fully absorbed within myself.
That’s the nature of compliments in general, isn’t it? Someone can tell me that I look great, but that doesn’t mean I’ll receive it or believe it.
You have to be in a specific space to really internalize compliments. And it’s so crazy because you don’t have to be in any space at all to internalize an insult. With a compliment, most of the time you feel like, Okay, whatever. But an insult ruins your day.
Is there a beauty myth that you wish would just disappear forever?
That celebrities have to have perfect skin. That expectation made me feel very alone and ashamed when I started out in this industry and had “bad” skin. There are celebrities who do struggle with their acne for sure, but I wasn’t seeing those people unless they were being shamed in magazines. I was a teenager watching America’s Next Top Model and they’d tell contestants that they needed to fix their skin, and I’m like, Oh, shit. I better fix my skin.
It’s this myth that celebrities or people in the public eye are expected to look a certain way at all times, and when they’re not, they’re shamed. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: You’re not going to catch me looking cute at the airport. Sorry, I’m not going to look cute getting off a plane if I just got off a 12-hour flight. I don’t get off a private jet, by the way. I’m not getting glam in the airplane. I’m not going to look my best, and that’s okay.
I like to say that if I ever meet a man at the airport, I’ll know he’s The One because I will not be looking cute.
No, I’m not trying for anybody. Except maybe Nathan Fielder. I sat next to him on an airplane once and I love him. We had a little divide between us, and it was on a longer flight. We didn’t say anything to each other, but I was like, Oh, I love you.
Aw, maybe you should have! Though I guess that would be weird to say at the beginning of a long flight.
I’ve had people at the beginning of a flight or something say, like, “I’m such a big fan,” and then we have to sit near each other for an hour and it’s like, What do we do now?
Well, now that we’re at the end of the interview, I guess I can tell you that I’m a really big fan.
Thanks, I appreciate it!
Parts of this interview have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Personal Day Full Clarity Cleansing Powder
Personal Day Everybody Stay Calm Recovery Mask
Hair: DJ Quintero. Makeup: Cedric Jolivet.
