At 18 years old, Chloe Kim has one hell of a résumé. She’s the youngest woman ever to win an Olympic snowboarding medal (and a gold one at that), one of 2018’s Most Influential People, and the world’s coolest teen, if Twitter has anything to say about it. She can also slay a cat eye and talk skin care like it’s nobody’s business. Which is why it should come as no surprise that Korean Beauty brand Laniege tapped her as an ambassador.
We caught up with Kim before she sets out for another season of training—and possibly Princeton, NBD—to have her answer all our Big Beauty Questions. Hot Cheetos may or may not have come up.
Glamour: Your skin probably takes a beating out on the slopes all day. What do you use to fix it?
Chloe Kim: I’m obsessed with K-Beauty. I use Laneige’s Lip Sleeping Mask as a lip balm—I can’t remember the last time I’ve bought normal chapstick. It goes with me everywhere. And for the rest of my face, my other two go-tos are the Water Bank Essence and the Water Bank Sleeping Mask. I use the essence before I put on makeup and at night after I wash my face, while the mask is perfect whenever I’m feeling really dry. My skin looks totally revived the next day.
Glamour: What’s one beauty trend you wish you’d never tried?
CK: Oh my gosh, thin eyebrows. My friend had really pretty thin ones. I tried to copy hers, but I ended up plucking them on top and not from the bottom, so I completely lost my arch. I had two really sad, diagonal-looking eyebrows.
Glamour: What’d you do to grow them back? They look great now.
CK: I prayed. [Laughs]
Glamour: What’s one beauty rule you swear by?
CK: Moisturizing. All the time.
Glamour: What’s one beauty rule you think is bullshit?
CK: Primer. I don’t get it. Eye primer makes sense to me, but face primer…I don’t know. I swear it doesn’t actually do anything.
Glamour: Fill in the blank, I love my hair…
CK: Not crazy. Sometimes if I sleep with wet hair, I’ll just have a rats nest in the back that I can’t get out, and the only way to fix it is to shower again. It’s the worst. So now if I shower at night, I’ll braid my hair so it doesn’t wrap against the sheets when I sleep. But sometimes when I forgot or I don’t have hair ties, I just can’t deal. It’s too much.
Glamour: Your house is burning down! What are the three products you grab?
CK: My curling iron, my essence, and highlighter. My friend just gave me this highlighter she had custom-made in some random country. It doesn’t even have a label on it but it’s so pretty. It’s like a cream compact that you dab your Beautyblender into and put on your cheekbones. I’ll have to ask her where she got it. I’m obsessed.
Glamour: What color are you loving on your nails right now?
CK: I got my first set of acrylics done a couple months ago, and I love them. It was like a white French tip with sparkles and roses on them. So right now I don’t really want my nails done unless they’re acrylics and long. They’re coming back—the claws are out.
Glamour: What’s your go-to getting ready music?
CK: I love Post Malone. When he’s in his feels, he’s the best. Stay is such a good song. And I love Billie Eilish. I’m into more mellow music typically, but when I’m snowboarding I’ll listen to hard rap. Playboi Carti is everything.
Glamour: How much time do you spend getting ready?
CK: It depends. If I have a hot date and I want to be fully beat, it probably takes me around 45 minutes to an hour. But if I’m just going out for whatever, with these lash extensions I only need 10 minutes.
Glamour: Where do you get your lashes done?
CK: It’s this new place in Santa Ana called My Lash Studio. Their lashes are fake mink, so they’re not hurting a little baby animal out there. They look so natural and fluffy, and they’re so light. I didn’t know how good they were until I got extensions done while I was traveling. My eyes were drooping because they were so heavy.
Glamour: What’s your favorite way to take a moment for yourself?
CK: I like to lay in bed and do nothing. If I have food and RuPaul’s Drag Race is on, even better.
Glamour: Screw, marry, kill: mascara, lipstick, highlighter.
CK: Kill mascara because I don’t need it anymore. Screw lipstick—I’m all about that lip mask and it gives my lips a tint anyway. Which leaves me with marry highlighter—my mystery one!
Glamour: What’s the last Internet rabbit hole you went down?
CK: You can’t judge me.
Glamour: Never.
CK: Soap cutting videos.
Glamour: Soap…what?!
CK: I found them on Instagram. Here, you have to listen to it. [Pulls up the following video…]
Doesn’t that sound so good?
Glamour: What’s your favorite emoji?
CK: The rose ?. If I don’t have a caption for my Instagram? Rose emoji. If you want a conversation to just be over and bye? Rose emoji. I use it to get myself out of any situation.
Glamour: You’ve got $20 and free roam of a drugstore. What do you buy?
CK: Waffles.
Glamour: $20 worth of waffles?
CK: And Hot Cheetos.
Glamour: You probably have, what, 10 bucks left?
CK: No, definitely $15…oh! In New Zealand, I bought the best charcoal peel-off mask for your pores. So I’d probably buy one of those. And then hair ties—I always need them.
Glamour: If you could change one thing about beauty perceptions, what would it be?
CK: I feel like girls always try to cover up their “flaws” with all this makeup, but you need to own it. I have a scar on my face that I used to be so insecure about. I got scratched by a dog when I was nine. It starts right under my eye and goes all the way down my cheek. That’s what made me want to start wearing makeup in the first place. But once I started to flaunt it more, everyone was like, “That scar is so cool. Where’d you get it from?” Don’t be scared of what makes you you.
Glamour: Who are the women inspiring you the most right now?
Zendaya. She’s a queen. She always makes bold statements and doesn’t really care what other people think. I think it’s so dope that women are using their voices and putting themselves out there. Like, “I feel strongly about this, and thats how its going to be—deal with it.”
