I used to be one of those eyeliner people. I didn’t put on anything but eyeliner. I was heavy into that. I was probably 20, and one friend, when we were in China, remarked to me, “Why do you wear eyeliner only there?” That’s because I would just put a line on the bottom, and that was it. Why didn’t anyone else say anything?

Now I take a thin brush and use one of the colors in the Charlotte Tilbury palette as an impromptu eyeliner on my upper lash line. Then I do some nude eye shadows from the same palette. I don’t wear mascara because I don’t have a lot of eyelashes. It’s pointless — like painting nail polish on your pinkie toe.

Asian eyes are difficult to do makeup on because of the lid. Some days I have a monolid, and some days I don’t. Some days only one is a monolid, and the other one isn’t. When that happens, I still don’t know what to do. But YouTube is fire for Asian-girl makeup tutorials. I’ve learned not to do too much on my eyes now.

For a long time, I had a habit of laying on the blush really hard. I’d look like a pageant girl but have no other makeup on. One day I was riding the subway and saw my reflection in the window, and it was a moment. I looked insane.

From that day onward, I stopped using a lot of blush. Instead I started using bronzer. I had a Nars stick with a highlighter on one side and a bronzer on the other, but I can’t find it now. So now I use a Charlotte Tilbury bronzer.

Hair

I think there’s this idea that all Asian hair is stick straight. I’ve yearned for that hair so much. My hair, after I shower, it’s a little frizzy. So when I was in Singapore, I got it relaxed. I was shooting “Crazy Rich Asians,” and I was wearing a wig, so I could pretty much do what I wanted with my hair. I went and got the treatment, and it was way too relaxed. I really wished it was more lively. I missed its life.