Scarlett Johansson Talks Skin Care, Lip Balm, and Filler

Scarlett Johansson is on a mission to “feed” your natural beauty. That is by no means the easiest of tasks, but it lies at the heart of her beauty brand, The Outset, and functions as a “huge source of pride” for her each and every day.

It also resonates with Johansson on a profoundly personal level. Having experienced her own “debilitating” acne struggles, “The Avengers” star knows exactly what damage skin-care issues can do to your self-confidence. “As somebody who has had acne, I understand how debilitating that can be,” she says while discussing the launch of her brand’s new Lip Oasis Glossy Treatment ($28). “It really can be something that takes over your whole thought process and makes you feel so self-conscious about yourself. And then that affects how you carry yourself throughout the day.”

For Johansson, conquering her acne came down to adopting one very simple but “life-changing” skin-care habit: Paring back her routine to focus on gentle, restorative essentials. “It was an important part of my desire to create everyday essentials and pare back the stress that’s now come from the 14-step skin-care routine,” she says. “It’s a lot. People spend time on self-care, which is awesome, but it also feels overwhelming to me. That paring [back], to me, it was life-changing.”

So effective was this scaled-back regimen that Johansson says she rarely steps away from it — because she knows what harm can be done by deviating from the products that she knows work well on her “sensitive” skin. “When you have sensitive skin and something is working, you just use those products. I don’t use anything else. I get sent a lot of products, too, which is awesome, but all my girlfriends benefit from that because I’m like, ‘I’m good, I don’t want to break out.'”

The importance of using clean, potent products that work to repair the skin is a lesson that Johansson is already teaching her 10-year-old daughter, Rose, who she admits is already something of a budding skin care guru.

Despite her tender age, Rose, like so many other youngsters, has already developed a passion for beauty — a passion that her mom is happy to encourage, but only in the right way. “My daughter is 10, and it’s so crazy how they’re all so into skin care now,” she says. “She’ll go on a trip to a cosmetics store, and I have to pull all the actives out of her hands.”

That determination to only use clean, healing ingredients (including a botanical alternative to hyaluronic acid sourced from Cassia seeds) poses challenges for Johansson as she endeavors to craft efficacious formulas for The Outset.

In fact, her latest product — the first intended for the lips — has been more than five years in the making because it took that long to figure out the perfect formula. “It’s difficult to get it right because we set our standards so high for ourselves in the clean category that getting something effective and clean is tricky,” Johansson says. “There’s always going to be some sort of wax or stabilizing product that’s not clean. So we went through several iterations [of the Lip Oasis].”

Described as creating a “fuller looking pout” without the need for filler, the product marks the brand’s move toward cosmetics-style skin care, serving as both a moisturizing treatment and a gloss. “I have painfully dry lips in the winter, and this is an answer for that,” she says. “And I also like to wear that glassy look, so it’s a win-win. It’s the best of both worlds.”

Johansson has nothing against cosmetic treatments like filler, but wants to focus instead on helping people enhance their natural beauty. “We advocate [for people] to be the best version of yourself and feel like you’re presenting your best face forward, just by having the healthiest version of your skin,” she says. “It’s about feeding the beauty that’s there. And not to judge any kind of cosmetic procedures — I think everybody does their own thing — but if we can make you feel like the best version of yourself in a way that celebrates what you come to the table with, that’s great. To me, that’s a huge source of pride.”

Johansson reveals that Lip Oasis is likely the first of many products that merge skin care and cosmetics, explaining that a move into color is the next big step for The Outset, as well as the launch of a body care range. “I would love to enter into color, I think there’s a lot of space for us to play in this idea of skin care as cosmetics or cosmetics as skin care,” she says.

Color us intrigued.

Charlie Lankston is a freelance beauty, fashion, and lifestyle writer and media strategist based in New York City, having relocated to the US in 2014 from her home in London. Charlie spent 10 years working at DailyMail.com, where she oversaw the website’s style, beauty, fashion, and lifestyle content. Charlie also appears as an on-air royal and celebrity correspondent.