As a child, Summer House star Ciara Miller constantly found herself in her mother’s bathroom, usually rummaging through her makeup. Her mom jokes with her that she came out of the womb wearing makeup. Ironically enough, she typically wears no makeup now unless she’s going somewhere with cameras. But these days she’s been in front of the camera a lot — on the Grammys red carpet, hosting the Wuthering Heights premiere, attending New York Fashion Week — and this weekend she’ll be The Cut’s red-carpet correspondent at the 98th Academy Awards.
Ahead of that, Miller hung with us to tell us why her skin is so good. Spoiler alert: She doesn’t spend a ton of money on skin-care products because she doesn’t believe in expensive products unless they are gifted (so real). Here, how Miller gets her everyday dewy skin and red-carpet glow before the glam.
Step 1: Cleanse
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She uses a tried-and-true product to cleanse her face, Cetaphil’s Oil to Foam Cleanser. She doesn’t believe in expensive cleansers. “Nobody needs a $1,000 cleanser … well, I don’t. Even $100, no.” She loves an excessively foamy cleanser because she wants her skin to feel squeaky clean. “If it doesn’t foam, I don’t want it.” Miller uses it to remove her makeup or just for a morning-routine cleanse and as for the water, it must be the “hottest water ever.”
Step 2: Apply an exfoliating scrub
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Two to three times a week she uses an exfoliating scrub. Her goal is to never overexfoliate her skin, but since she gets cystic acne she needs a scrub to decongest her pores. Her go-to is Clearstem’s scrub, a vitamin-C and chamomile formula that brightens and calms the skin and for Miller, it helps to prevent more acne from showing up without being harsh on the skin.
Step 3: Apply a vitamin-C serum
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Applying vitamin C every single day is a nonnegotiable for Miller, specifically Dr. Dennis Gross’s serum. “I have acne marks and hyperpigmentation. I’m a Black girl who can’t get rid of them,” she says. She loves how the high percentage of vitamin C helps to brighten her complexion. Her hot take? She enjoys the stinging sensation. “I love for skin care to sting a bit, I want to know it’s working.” This serum tingles just a tad but not in a way that’s damaging to the skin barrier.
Step 4: Double up on milky toners
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Rhode Glazing Milk
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Miller uses not one but two milky toners to follow her vitamin-C serum. First she applies Rhode’s cult-favorite Glazing Milk. She warms it up in her hands before applying it for an effortless plump and glow. Next she layers it with Laneige’s Cream Skin mist, another ceramide-rich toner that hydrates and supports the skin’s barrier. She likes to double up because she rarely wears makeup, so layering these two products leaves her skin dewy just how she likes it. “I want to look intentionally oily. I want to look like I have Botox all over, snatched. I want my face to move, but I want it to look firm and plump.” This duo does the trick.
Step 5: Apply SPF
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Next she applies her SPF. Her No. 1 rule: It absolutely cannot have any white cast, not “casket ready.” She always reaches for her Laneige SPF and she typically overindulges in how much she applies because “I want to look like this when I’m 90. I don’t want to look like a dried-up potato.” The top piece of skin-care advice she tells everyone is that “the true anti-aging product on the market is sunscreen.”
Step 6: Apply a lip oil
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After her skin care is done, she applies lip oil. Her go-to is Gisou’s nonsticky honey-infused oil because it glides well on top of any gloss she’s wearing and gives her lips a glowy finish.
Step 7: Apply eye patches
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Lastly she pampers herself with eye patches. Miller loves Clearstem’s matcha hydrogel eye patches. They’re made with caffeine, peptides, and green-tea extract to brighten and de-puff the under eye, and her favorite part about them is that they don’t slowly glide down her face.
On her acne journey:
Miller has been on Accutane twice in an effort to no longer have acne. “I’ve done a lot of lasers, too. I guess I’m just supposed to have acne,” she says. Her Accutane experience severely dried her skin out and caused her hair to fall out, too. Her first session was four months, and she couldn’t handle it, and the second was five months. Her skin was clear for a little over a year until hormonal acne started showing up again. Now she’s just consistent with her routine. “It’s all a journey, and it’s never perfect.”
On the product she’ll always splurge on:
She doesn’t believe in expensive products, but the one product she’ll always splurge on is Dr. Dennis Gross’s daily peel pads. When she doesn’t use them, she can tell the difference in her skin. She sees improvement in both the texture of her skin and the brightness from using them in her night routine. She uses the OG one as opposed to the extra-strength version or the extra-gentle one for sensitive skin. She doesn’t use the extra strength because she doesn’t want it to burn too much. “I don’t know why we as girls feel like we need to feel things burn in order for them to work, but we have to unlearn this.”
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On using her medical background to her advantage
Miller was a nurse before reality television so it’s easy to dodge skin-care and wellness trends because she knows the facts, but she still falls into the traps sometimes. “I bought a vibration plate. I know it’s not going to do that much for me, but I had to. So I do fall victim sometimes; eventually trends cycle out. It’s why I stick to things that are tried and true to me. I know that I can’t layer all of these chemicals on top of my face. I try to bring some of that knowledge to my routine and when I’m at the dermatologist, honey, they hate to see me coming, because I have a plethora of questions. I should have gone into dermatology. It’s not too late for me, either, if anybody would like to mentor me or hire me.”
How she combats hangover skin:
There’s a lot of rosé on Summer House, and being hungover is the norm. “We don’t have glam teams [in the house], not a team in sight. We are the beauty team. Half the time I wake up hungover, looking distressed with dry skin.” She combats it with sheet masks, usually Augustinus Bader’s signature gold plumping mask or the viral Biodance collagen mask. “After all that rosé, I need hours of hydration; alcohol is not good for your skin.”
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