The $8 Mascara Lili Reinhart Uses for Her Betty Makeup on Riverdale

As Betty Cooper in CW's Riverdale, Lili Reinhart's character could go from saving her family from the Farm's cult leader Edgar Evernever one week, to joining a Junior FBI Training Program taught by her half-brother Charles another, and uncovering serial killer genes the next.

Yet somehow, throughout all of the weekly turmoil, Betty's signature girl-next-door hair and makeup remain consistent. Her trademark high ponytail never has a hair out of place, and her soft, subtle makeup, created by the actress herself, never looks smudged or cakey.

Seeing as Reinhart does her own makeup for the show, it was only a matter of time until she landed a beauty contract with a major makeup brand — and that time has come.

This fall Reinhart was named CoverGirl's new celebrity amabassador, and the star's first campaign for the brand is here. Reinhart fronts CoverGirl's Clean Fresh Collection, a range of vegan makeup products with sheer, natural finishes including a foundation, highlighter, cream blush, and lip oil.

While celebrating the collection at a launch event in Los Angeles, Reinhart jumped on the phone with InStyle to fill us in on her essential makeup products and how she does her makeup on set.

Here, Reinhart talks early 2000s makeup trends, embracing her natural curls, her upcoming poetry book, and more.

You recently tweeted about a dream you had where the world was ending and you didn't have your beauty products with you. What products are essential in your routine?

I have a prescription-strength foam I use when I get cystic breakouts. I dreamed that I had forgotten that and I was like, oh my God what am I going to do? For makeup, I definitely need a brow pencil because that's a product I constantly use. My favorite is CoverGirl Easy Breezy Brow in the Soft Blonde shade. Grab my brow pencil and my skincare for my acne along with some moisturizer, and I'm ready for the end of the world.

You do your own makeup on Riverdale and you also did your own for Hustlers. How did you first learn how to do makeup?

I learned how to do makeup when I was about 15. Well, that's when I started to do it well. I began watching makeup tutorials when I was 14 to learn how to cover up my acne, and I also used to try to do experimental eyeshadow looks. But, I really became a better makeup artist after I started doing my own makeup on set. For Hustlers it was fun because it was supposed to look kind of bad, and I did things I normally wouldn't do. I used a really bright cobalt blue eyeliner pencil all over my eyelids and played around with over-the-top bronzer.

For Betty, I use a makeup sponge to apply my foundation all over and do a Juliet pink blush. I use my CoverGirl Exhibitionist Mascara for the show; I like a volumizing mascara and that one is really good. Sometimes I'll add a couple of individual lashes, but I try to keep it really simple. It used to take me a lot longer to do my makeup because I was a little more particular about it, but now I'm kind of just slapping it on and doing it really quickly.

The Hustlers looks are all very early 2000s. What beauty trends from this decade would you want to revisit and what would you never wear again?

Back then I hadn't yet discovered that tightlining my waterline with black eyeliner doesn't look good on me. I used to use navy blue eyeliner on my waterline too and it just would make my eyes look so much smaller. It really was not doing anything good for me. If I could go back in time, I would definitely change that.

When I was in fifth grade I used glitter eyeshadow a lot and I loved sparkly bold colors. I think makeup is having such a moment right now where people are using such bold colors and experimenting with different textures on their eyes, like glitter, and even gluing sparkles to their face. I think it's so fun and I would have been all over that when I was 13 and just experimenting with makeup. That's a trend I really appreciate and I think people are so talented with it these days.

You showed fans your natural curls on Instagram this summer and have started wearing your hair curly on the red carpet. What made you feel like this is the right time to start embracing your curls?

I wasn't intentionally trying to hide it, but I think it was something that I thought didn't necessarily look good on me, or would take a lot of work to look good. I started taking haircare really seriously in the past few years because my hair got to be so damaged from constantly highlighting it and heat styling it. I found the less heat styling I have to do, the better. So, I really appreciate my natural curls and doing as minimal heat styling with my hair. And that's where the curls came in.

Your first poetry book Swimming Lessons is coming out this spring. What role did your personal experiences play in shaping the writing of your book, and have you shared your poetry with anyone who's inspired it?

I've definitely shared my poetry with a couple people who've inspired it, but it's kind of just been private for the most part. I would write poems as a way of processing my emotions, but a lot of the times poetry came to me from a feeling. A feeling would lead me to create a story to help translate that feeling. I want to think of my book as a little bit of fiction. I have felt all of these feelings and emotions, but they're not all my own personal experiences. Sometimes emotions can be built up and exaggerated through storytelling, and that's what some of the poems do.

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How did you decide which poems to include in the book?

To be honest, when I realized I should maybe do a book I only had a collection of about 60 or 70 poems. They were just sitting around in my email or in my notes on my phone. Over the few months of editing them, finding an editor, and working on the book itself, I added 30 more. Even as my book is ready to be published now, I'm already working on another. It's not like I'm even working on it, I'm just constantly writing and they're stacking up. Hopefully if my first book does well, I can keep going.