Mika Abdalla's Everyday Routine: Skincare, Brown-Toned Makeup, and a Curl Refresh

Starting Around Allie's Nails

Abdalla begins by taking off her large, chunky ring, pulling her hair up, and removing her pimple patches. She says right away that the long nails she's wearing belong to Allie, not to her. She never wears long nails in her everyday life, and she says they make the routine "so tedious." The nails come up again throughout the video, especially when she tries to blend makeup with her fingers.

Cleansing and Recovering From Travel

She washes her face with a Tatcha cleanser. She likes it because it exfoliates a little, "but not in like a bad way." She has also been trying to use a brand-new towel every time she washes her face. She explains that lack of sleep, travel, and work have left her skin "holding on by a thread."

Next come Peter Thomas Roth under-eye patches, which come with a small spoon she calls cute. Then she uses a microcurrent device with a gel. She says her face "gets huge" after long flights or nights out, and this is her fix for the puffiness. The device connects to her phone over Bluetooth, and the app offers guided videos for different results. A voice tells you what to do and the device beeps along. She says she sometimes uses it while people are visiting, and they are confused by what's going on.

She adds, with some irony, that sleeping more, exercising, eating better, and drinking more water clear up her skin. After that she applies Algenist Skin Firming Under Eye Cream, then a second cream whose name is unclear in the transcript. She says the second cream has been especially helpful because recent scenes used a lot of fog, and the constant smoke and mist on set have been drying out her skin.

Breakouts and What She Learned From Set

Abdalla says she no longer gets very insecure about breakouts, and she gives credit partly to the makeup team on set. Her makeup artist, Rox, is "very skin care forward." He starts her mornings with an under-eye mask and handles breakouts with a pimple patch or Mario Badescu. Then he does makeup right over the treated spot, which she says she hadn't known was possible.

She finishes her skincare with a Lawless lip-plumping product. It is meant as an overnight mask, but she uses it "literally all the time" and keeps it in her purse as her lip balm for going out. When a guy friend asks if anyone has chapstick, she hands this over, and they are surprised by how strongly it tingles.

Primer, Skipped Sunscreen, and Blending With Her Fingers

For makeup, she says she only recently started using primer and was surprised that it works. She also points out that she didn't put on sunscreen. She wears it on her face when she goes to the beach, partly because her freckles come out a lot in the sun without it. When she's just running around town, though, she tends to leave her face alone.

She applies a Chanel concealer with her fingers, which is how she does much of her makeup. She believes the warmth of her hand helps the product blend into her skin. She uses very little concealer under her eyes these days because she has come to like the dark under-eye look: she's tired, and she isn't trying to hide it much.

She says she learned makeup mostly by watching others. She has been on sets since she was about six years old, so she has watched many people do her makeup. Like many teenagers, she also went through a phase of watching makeup tutorials in middle and high school.

The Eyebrow Story and a Brief Stop at Barney

Brows lead to a story she calls her "trauma." The first time she did her own eyebrows, she used a pot of pomade, because, as she puts it, people didn't really have the knowledge yet. She then went to watch a friend cheer at a high school football game. The friend spotted her in the stands, ran over, and asked, "Did you do your eyebrows today?" Abdalla says that was the last time she tried it.

In a short aside, she mentions Barney. She says she doesn't remember much about it, but in Dallas it was the thing child actors did, "just the pipeline" for performers from Texas. She jokes that it was the peak of her career.

Her brow routine today is minimal. She uses a clear gel sparingly. She prefers one of her eyebrows to the other, because one grows straight up and the other grows to the side, so she fills in the second to match and brushes both up.

Brown Eyes, Inspired by Her Aunt

For eyes, she uses a tiny amount of a soft brown kohl liner from Hummingbird. She explains that the reason is her aunt, who has beautiful eyes with lashes that grow far into the inner corner and create a naturally dark inner corner. Abdalla loves the look and admits she is jealous of it, so she recreates it by putting a little brown in her inner corners. If she's "feeling crazy," she also adds some to the outer corner, and she says she is feeling crazy today. She finishes with Ilia Tubing Mascara in brown and points out the theme: she prefers brown on her eyes because it looks softer.

Not Having Processed the Last Three Months

While doing her eyes, Abdalla says she hasn't processed anything that has happened in the three months since the show came out. So much happens all the time that no one in the cast stops to acknowledge how crazy it is. Instead, she describes cast members mentioning upcoming shoots or trips in passing, on set or while hanging out, and the people around them pointing out how crazy that is. She says those reminders are nice to have, because otherwise they would all be running around with their "feet not touching the ground," not knowing what's going on.

Allie's Deeper Story This Season

Abdalla describes what she thinks the show does well. The characters are fun and are shown living normal, happy lives, but the show also acknowledges their histories and traumas. She says that last season audiences mostly saw Allie the way everyone on the street sees her: fun, cute, bubbly, and great. This season digs deeper into Allie's past, what she has been through, and what made her who she is. It also explores why she might be so bubbly and outgoing, and what that energy may be hiding or compensating for.

Cheeks and the Vogue India Cover Moment

She says her next habit is one "nobody's going to like": she uses the two ends of a single brush for bronzer and blush. She presses in a warm, but not too warm, shade on the cheeks.

While she works, she describes how she realized only the day before that she would be on the cover of Vogue India. She had gotten the news on a phone call and responded casually, with something like "cool, cool, cool," then filed the flight and shoot in her mental calendar. Later she was in the car with India, the castmate who plays Grace. India asked why she was going to LA, and Abdalla answered, "I got to do the cover of Vogue, India." India's reaction of "What?" made her realize it was actually crazy. She adds that this kind of thing happens all the time.

Next she uses a blush-and-highlighter duo. She likes two-in-one products because her makeup bag is small. She applies highlighter with her pinky to her nose and a few other points, and says the long nails make this hard. She also briefly mentions watching a show with a friend, Ellen, after a night out; the title is garbled in the transcript.

Dewy Skin, Adjusted for Street Photos

Abdalla likes to leave her skin very dewy. She now powders her face, though, because the weather is warm and she is being photographed on the street more often, so she's looking for a happy medium. She uses a Chanel powder. It also adds coverage and helps keep her concealer in place, which matters because she touches her face a lot.

For lips, she uses a Makeup Forever brown lip liner. She overlines a little, applies it deliberately messily, and smudges it out. Then she dabs a Givenchy lip oil in the center. She says it is slightly plumping and looks very red in the tube but isn't on the lips. She finishes by concealing a few spots again after powdering, because she feels concealer works better at that stage, and then powders once more.

Curl Refresh and Her Current Soundtrack

The last major step is her curls. She jokes that the squeaking spray bottle is the soundtrack of her mornings. The music she's actually been listening to includes Missy Elliott's "Dog in Heat," along with Bon Iver and Sufjan Stevens, who make up her last seven or so saved songs. She explains that the cast was filming an emotional scene recently, so she started listening to her sad music.

Once her hair is damp, she diffuses it again. She says she didn't know her hair had any texture until about four years ago; before that, she thought it was just very frizzy. She now prefers it messy, "the messier, the better." She finishes with an Oribe texturizing spray, which she is using as hairspray and says works. Once her hair is "slightly larger than it was before," she's satisfied.

Body Oil, Fragrance, and a Bulgarian Rose Ritual

For her body, she uses Eminence solid body oil. It has a coconut-oil texture and melts into an oil when warmed in the hands. She likes it because she travels constantly and can't deal with liquid body oil exploding in her suitcase again.

Her fragrance is a combination. First comes Le Labo's Matcha, which she wears as a base. Then she adds a small perfume that her grandmother brought her from Bulgaria. She says she has a tattoo on her body of that actual object. She first wore the Bulgarian scent to the chemistry reads for Off Campus. After that, during the first season, she would layer it over the Matcha whenever she had something stressful, such as a lunch meeting with executives, and it made her feel good. She describes it as somewhere between an oil and a fragrance and rubs the small stick directly on her skin, admitting that is probably not how you're supposed to use it. She believes it is rose oil and notes that rose oil is one of Bulgaria's main exports.

Rings Back On

Abdalla ends by putting all her rings back on, joking that she couldn't possibly leave the house without her hands "weighing a million pounds." She sums up where she's landed: her hair is big, her makeup is done, her skin smells the way she likes, her rings are back on, and she's ready to go.