Anya Taylor-Joy on the Secret to a Perfect At-Home Spa Day

What is your favorite way to take a moment for yourself?

ATJ: I love a bath. I have a whole bath game going on where there's very specific salts and candles I use. I can't remember who makes it, but there's this product that's basically mulled wine in a bath. It creates this deep glittering, gorgeous color, and there's cinnamon and orange rinds in it. It feels like you're taking a bath in a big vat of mulled wine, which is kind of amazing. I put on music, and then I'm just writing poetry or reading a script or a book or something like that.

Also, I think having a moment where…things have been spinning so fast for such a long time, and they only seem to be getting faster. I think it's important to take a step back and be like, "Wait a second, just because things are moving this fast doesn't mean that I wasn't an active participant in any of it."

Screw, marry, kill: mascara, lipstick, highlighter.

ATJ: Kill highlighter. Screw mascara. Marry lipstick. I don't trust myself with highlighter. I'm sure I probably would paint like tons of dots all over my face and make myself look like a disco ball. Mascara, I do love. My friends know I've made an effort when we've gone out together if I'm wearing mascara. For them it's like, "Oh, she turned out. She did that!" But there's something about lipstick that, again, is just so effortless. I have so many of them, and it's able to put everything together without really making any effort.

What's the last Instagram rabbit hole you went down?

ATJ: It's bad. My makeup artist is the queen of Instagram, and she knows that I hate to clean. So she showed me this woman called Mrs. Hinch. She names all of her cleaning products different things, and she's from Essex and has a dog called Henry that has its own bedroom. It's the most bizarre thing, but, surprisingly, her voice is very soothing. She'll talk about like, I don't know, her different closets, and she's like, "This is where we keep the Jeffries, and I love using this Jeffrey with this thing..." I hate cleaning, but I watched a fair few of her Instagram videos and was like, "I get it."

What's your favorite emoji?

ATJ: I'm loving the eye roll right now. It makes me happy. It's so evocative.

You've got $20 and free roam of a drugstore. What do you buy?

ATJ: I would first separate some money for snacks, which would include popcorn, Cheetos, and Diet Coke. Then I would probably go for anything that could be an at-home spa day. I love doing that. I love being in the comfort of my own home and having a face mask or hair mask and nice bath salts or a scrub and loving yourself for a little bit.

If you could change one thing about beauty perceptions on social media, what would that be?