Dove Cameron on Bridal Beauty, '90s Lips, and Going Brunette

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 actress and singer Dove Cameron, who is partnering with Urban Decay for its Lip Toy pH Staining Lip Oil. Below, she’s answering all of our rapid-fire questions, including her nostalgic makeup staples, her commitment to radical vulnerability, and her bridal beauty aesthetic. Enjoy!

Mirror selfie of Dove Cameron with Who What Wear's Unfiltered text beside it.

(Image credit: Courtesy of Dove Cameron)

What is your overall makeup aesthetic? What types of looks do you tend to gravitate toward?

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I was going to say, “Text me!”

Selfies of Dove Cameron side by side.

(Image credit: Courtesy of Dove Cameron)

You were blonde for most of your life, and you’ve previously said that you’re done with bleach now. I have to say you look amazing as a brunette. I’m curious—has your new hair identity impacted other areas of your beauty routine?

I definitely feel like my face can take a lot more makeup now than when I was blonde just because of the higher contrast [I have]. I’m a super fair-skinned girl, and when my hair was also the same color as my face, the makeup could look a lot heavier. I definitely can get away with a lot more makeup now. I have to do a stronger brow now. Otherwise, my features get totally drowned out. I definitely fill in my brows a lot more because my eyebrows are a lighter color than my hair. I’m a cool-toned Amanda Seyfried blonde naturally, so I can’t get away with not filling in my brows. I look crazy.

I’m sure someone out there who knows more about color theory than me can synthesize this better, but I couldn’t get away with wearing anything berry. It looked like I was completely overwhelmed by the color. I looked like a clown, honestly. Now, I can get away with a lot more intense lip colors, which is great for me. I can play with a lot more makeup now that I have darker hair.

Also, just an addendum to what I have previously said: I may go blonde in the future. It’s not something that I am counting down the days for. Again, back to the eyebrows thing, I spent my whole life thinking I had super-fine, unhealthy, weak hair, but I didn’t stop bleaching my hair long enough to realize that I was just chronically bleaching it, so it wouldn’t grow. Now, I enjoy having healthier hair minus the bleaching, but I get bored. I’ll probably end up being Targaryen blonde again at some point. I don’t want to ever box myself out of being able to fuck around.

Normalize changing your mind!

Normalize waking up and changing your entire life! Normalize it.

I do think it’s helpful to see people with platforms and in the public eye or have seemingly perfect lives talking about things that are completely human, understandable, and relatable.

Dove Cameron

Okay, you’re obviously the face of Urban Decay’s Not Your Toy campaign for its pH staining lip oils. Were you always a fan of color-changing lip oils?

I’m a child at heart, so I grew up in the era of mood rings, mood-changing nail polish, pH-changing blushes and lip colors. They’re super fun. Something that I really love about Urban Decay is that they have this nostalgia [element]. I really sound like a spokesperson right now, and I don’t even mean to be. This is completely in earnest. Even though they have a truly never-ending collection (you can be any girl that you want to be when you’re wearing Urban Decay), they have a Y2K sense of fun when makeup was way more about self-expression. They did this exercise with me a couple months ago where they showed me a bunch of their early products, and they were so camp and so fun. To me, lip oil is giving early 2000s and 2010s when we were having fun with makeup.

I totally agree with you. When Urban Decay brought back the Naked Palette, I got a little emotional! More on the lips—what’s your lip combo? I feel like everyone has their own passionate little trio.

My lip combo these days… It’s always been really boring, actually. I don’t change it up very much. There are three different versions. One, I’m wearing those brown, cool-tone lip liners like 1993 or Hidden Truth—something in that color palette that seems like it’s really dark. But if you blur it out, I think it’s really nice. Then either I just do a sheer lip balm, or I’ll do a barely-there gloss in the center. Often, I just do the lip liner and lip balm and call it a day. If I’m doing a red carpet, I usually do a lip liner in that same color palette and then a cool-toned, nude-y brown in the center just to give it dimension because those cameras are fucking bright. If you don’t do that, something looks off, so you need to have some sort of pigment in the center. I know that’s really boring! I know some people are really particular about it. For a red carpet, if I’m going to do anything else, it’s a blue-toned blood-red lip.

Selfie of Dove Cameron close up with a pull quote on top.

(Image credit: Courtesy of Dove Cameron)

Okay, this isn’t beauty related. It’s kind of a pivot. This series is called Unfiltered, and I have to tell you I’m always really impressed by how you express yourself so openly in interviews and, of course, through your art. Is that vulnerability something that comes naturally to you, or did you have to work to get there?

Good question. I think it honestly has always come really easily to me. What is more confusing to me is the culture around pretending that we’re all okay all the time. That is something that has always been a puzzle in my brain that I can’t figure out. There’s this general consensus that everyone has it more figured out than you. “Everyone’s really happy, but I’m the only one who feels this way. I am the only one who feels like they don’t belong or something’s wrong with them.” Really, I think everybody feels that way. I have never met anyone that—if you talk to them for longer than 30 minutes and start to bring up your own insecurities, traumas, or pains—doesn’t echo your sentiments, even the person that you think is the happiest person you’ve ever met. This idea that we are individual in our struggles and that they’re something that we shouldn’t talk about, that big emotions don’t belong in a functioning society has been around for hundreds of years. There was a level of performance that we adopted to be in the world, and we just never really shook it. Then came social media and starting to share these things, but there’s still this level of shame around expressing emotion or pain.

I’m not recommending that everybody goes balls to the wall like I do in terms of spilling their guts for everyone to see, but I do think it’s helpful to see people with platforms and in the public eye or have seemingly perfect lives talking about things that are completely human, understandable, and relatable. It’s not for everyone, but I really want to encourage other people to do it because I think that’s one of the things that bonds us the most as human beings. It’s my dream that humans on a mass scale develop this level of emotional understanding and intimacy with each other. … It seems to me like an obvious path to pursue, which is not to say that it’s an easy thing to solve. If I can contribute anything, the most radical and obvious step would be to share my mental health and emotional struggles. Sorry, that was very long-winded.

No! This was such a personal question, so thank you for sharing that.

Of course.

Okay, back to beauty. Congrats on your engagement! Do you have any ideas or inspiration for your bridal beauty look?

That’s a really tough one. I’ve been thinking about it. People keep asking me about the dress, the beauty, the hair, and truly, I don’t know. Obviously, there’s a widely recognized bridal look that I don’t think I would feel like myself in, but at the same time, I don’t think I would want to look back on my wedding day and have, like, rhinestones all over my eyebrows. [Laughs] I’ve said some things in other interviews about how I want to find a dress that represents this and that, but now that I’ve gotten into planning, I feel more open and experimental than ever. It’s something I’ve never done before, and it’s something that has been done millions of times before I’ve ventured into planning what I’m going to look like, so I don’t know! I’m probably going to fall on some scale of somewhat traditional and a little something extra, and I don’t know if that’s nails… The thing is part of the wedding look is kind of practical because if I wanted to do a bold lip, do I really want to kiss my husband and fuck up the lip?

I might end up being more experimental with the hair and nails and keep the makeup simpler. I want something that looks good all day and isn’t going to get messed up. We’ll get there when we get there. How’s that?

Sounds amazing. You’re going to look beautiful, and I’m sure you’ve been inundated with all the inspiration and info. Are there any products that you love right now for touch-ups? They don’t have to be wedding related, but are there items that you know you’re going to want on the day?

I’m probably going to use the Urban Decay All Nighter Setting Spray. I really was sleeping on setting sprays my whole life, and then I started traveling a ton. I spent quite a lot of time in Italy during the summer, where it’s hot as hell, and you want your makeup to stay all day. I’ve gone through so many of those All Nighter Setting Sprays so definitely that. Probably a sunscreen spray. I’ve been really into that. I’ve spent a lot of time in Japan the last couple years, and they have amazing sunscreen sprays that go over your makeup and don’t fuck it up. Definitely a lip liner and probably a small, pocket-sized perfume. Actually, I wonder if I need to build pockets into my different dresses that I wear.

I’m really lucky because my makeup artist, Kale Teter, is one of my absolute best friends, so he’s going to be at the wedding, and he’ll definitely be there to touch me up. Even if we’re just hanging out, he’s always grooming me, being like, “Wait, come here.” So I’m lucky because I have a really close friend who will be looking after me.

Totally. He’ll have a whole kit. I was actually about to ask if you’re a fragrance person. Which perfume do you like?

I am a fragrance person. I’ve had the same perfume combo now for like six years, but I’ve been experimenting lately with different ones. I can’t say too much about that right now, but I always keep small amounts of perfume oils in my pocket. I really love patchouli. I love vanilla. I love jasmine. I always have different roll-on guys in my purse. I think that’s all I can say for now.

Editor’s note: Soon after our interview, Cameron was appointed global ambassador for Diesel’s Only Desire Eau de Parfum, a sultry blend of bergamot, vanilla, jasmine, and amber.

Now that I’ve gotten into [wedding] planning, I feel more open and experimental than ever.

Dove Cameron

What’s the best makeup tip you’ve ever learned?

That’s a good question. I realized I have pretty hooded eyes, and I don’t know if anyone notices that. I’ve always worn a cat eye, but I saw something on TikTok a year ago where a girl started with her eyes open, and then she was like, “Look at my tiny, little, baby cat eye,” angles her eyes down, and you can see that it’s a whole wing, because her eyes are so hooded. I was like, “Oh my god, it’s not just me!” I do my eyeliner while my eye is open now, which is something that my makeup artist and I realized because we could never get them even. I also have different amounts of hoodedness. My left eye is way more hooded than my right eye, so I have to do my eyeliner while it’s open.

If I ever do a false lash, only [applying] it from the pupil out, that’s a big one for me. I usually do concealer first and then a little bit of a compact foundation, then powder in select areas where I tend to get oily. I feel like that allows people to see my skin rather than the product. Other than that, I can’t really think of anything. There are no real rules when it comes to makeup, right? Whatever works for your face. It’s all about experimentation.

I love all of those tips. I feel like a lot of people think more is more to make your eyes look open, but really, just a few little tweaks can do the job.

Oh my god, it’s transformative. I look like a completely different person depending on how you do my makeup.

You’re not alone, for sure. Okay, I have one more question that we ask at the end of all of our Unfiltered interviews: What’s your Unfiltered beauty philosophy in seven words or less?

Do whatever the fuck you want. I love the fact that all of these beauty tips and trends are so available to us at our fingertips, and I have honestly learned so much. I am fascinated by skincare culture. There’s so much more available to us. I love this “girls’ club” vibe of being like, “Oh my god, guys, I just learned this new thing. Look how much of a difference this makes for my skin.” I think it’s so cute, like sleepover vibes, but there’s almost this belief that there’s one right way to do your makeup.

I just think that you should always do whatever the fuck you want when it comes to fashion, when it comes to hair, when it comes to nails. Right now, I have the craziest nails, and sometimes, I like to have nothing on my nails. But the idea that trends are supposed to be something that we all quickly adapt to—otherwise, we fall behind—I just don’t subscribe to that. We should do whatever the fuck we want. I think we would all feel a lot more joyful and expressive like we did when we were 13 experimenting with makeup. Let’s always be her.

Shop Dove Cameron’s Unfiltered Beauty Edit