The Beauty of Alicia Keys

Letter From the Editor

I’ve long admired Alicia Keys’s journey. From the meteoric rise of her musical career to her seemingly effortless transition into motherhood and fearless leap into the world of beauty, she’s been on a winding path of success, soul-searching, and self-discovery — and it’s still going. It’s something she’s very proud of, in fact, and that ongoing evolution has informed one of the many rituals she’s adopted: checking in with herself and really listening. And it’s why Keys is the perfect cover star for our June Destinations Issue. 

In our cover story, Keys takes InStyle’s News Director Madeline Hirsch on a “soulcation” to introduce her to Keys Soulcare’s latest offerings, which include a brand new skin tint, It’s Like Skin 2-in-1 Concealer + Tint (don’t worry, we tried it!). Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll find book recommendations that will transport you someplace else this summer — even if your travel plans don’t involve leaving the couch. Writer Taylore Glynn explores the mental health benefits (and downsides — yes, there are some!) of taking a vacation. Plus, our editors share what they're wearing to their dream destinations this season, whether that be the Italian Riviera or their local Italian restaurant.

So whatever kind of journey you're on this summer, I hope you'll find something in this issue that fulfills a little bit of your wanderlust — even if you discover that you, like Alicia Keys, are very happy exactly where you are.

Alicia Keys will be the first to tell you: There’s no secret ingredient, no magic elixir, no single product that will fix your skin — or your life, for that matter. “My skin journey has definitely been really, really unique,” she shares with me over lunch on a late spring afternoon in the hills above La Jolla, California. “It's been complicated,” she adds, implying we’re talking about more than just acne here. “I mean, for some people, I guess it's really nothing. But for me…”      

I can see her wheels turning as she trails off. Keys is pretty upfront about the importance of her mind-body connection — and that there’s no magic bullet in life. Yes, she knows the fundamentals about what to (and not to) put on her face (non-comedogenic oils, yes; pore-clogging moisturizer, no), but for her, a conversation about skincare is a conversation about mental health, too. 

In an age where it seems like every celebrity has a beauty brand they claim will change our lives, it’s a refreshing perspective. A famous person who admits that stress management and, for lack of a better term, “doing the work” is just as much a key ingredient to healthy skin as nightly hyaluronic acid? That’s a rarity, indeed. And the Grammy-winning singer doesn’t just say it, she lives it.

When I arrive at Alicia Keys’s InStyle photoshoot, I don’t see her, but there are traces of her life everywhere: Her 8-year-old son Genesis is out back, shooting hoops behind the set with his grandma (Keys’s mom, Terria Joseph), who’s in town from New York. Samples from her lifestyle brand, Keys Soulcare, are strewn about the room, including unreleased offerings for testing and fan favorites like the Sheer Flush Cheek Tint and Illuminating Priming Serum.

When she emerges from hair and makeup, I hear her voice first. It’s lower and quieter than I expected from her plethora of stunning a capella performances and multi-octave range, but it somehow still carries from the next room. We’re scheduled to eat lunch together (her a veggie stir fry, me fried tofu and rice) while we chat. She’s wearing light blue skinny jeans and a simple nude ribbed top with a cool cutout. As I clock her radiant skin, the subtle sheen on her cheekbones, and her visible freckles, I wonder if she’s wearing makeup. (She is — it’s Keys Soulcare’s new It’s Like Skin tint, but more on that later).

Keys, who describes herself as spiritual rather than religious, asks if she can say a quick prayer before we eat, checking in with me to ask if I’m comfortable with her saying it out loud. It sets the tone for the rest of our conversation: Everything can be a moment of reflection or a ritual for Keys. Nothing is skin deep. 

It’s easy to forget — perhaps because of her inherent poise, the soul she brings to her music, or the maturity of her voice — that Alicia Keys was just a kid when she became famous. Columbia Records signed her at 15, and she’s been cranking out hits since “Fallin” debuted more than 20 years ago. And it’s not a huge leap to infer that the ongoing internal work she’s done (and continues to do) on herself is part of how she’s avoided the many pitfalls of child stardom.

“I was just dealing with a lot of toxic energy and stress and things that I didn't really know how to handle or what to do about it or how to regulate,” Alicia explains about the early stages of her career. She eventually discovered ways to regulate her emotions in a huge physical and mental breakthrough, but it took years of experimentation and self-discovery to get there. “I think that the biggest thing that I really learned is having that relationship with yourself. So you know how to regulate these emotions or these stress factors. It's really one step to finding not only your peace but then your own inner beauty because it's coming from that space.” 

Being Alicia Keys, however, these personal revelations played out in public. “I went through my own experience of really feeling rebellious about what people were telling me, what the world, society was telling me, what I was supposed to look like because I fell into that, I subscribed to it,” she explains about when she famously stopped wearing makeup on album covers and on red carpets in 2016. Unlike many women who have had to unlearn and unpack their complicated feelings about beauty, Keys’s journey happened with millions of people watching.

“When I had my rebellious moment, which obviously the world witnessed with me, I was just getting to know myself. You know what I mean?” Today, with enough critical distance, Keys has made peace with that fact. She also realizes that her makeup evolution was as much about rejecting society’s beauty standards as it was about getting to know herself. She had to break down what she’d been taught about what she should look like and how she should act (“I signed up for this is what beautiful is, and I have to do these things to be beautiful”) so that she could rebuild a new set of values based on what she thinks, what she feels.

“As I started to get more into that personal relationship with myself, that's when I started realizing, ‘Okay, it's not about anything specific,’’’ she adds. “It's not about makeup or no makeup. It's not about mascara or no mascara. It's not about lipstick or no lipstick. That's not what it's about. What it's about is, how do you want to express yourself, and what space do you want to claim for yourself. And what boundaries do you want for yourself?”

Admittedly, setting those boundaries took time — and listening to her inner voice is something she still struggles with: “You're not even taught how to have your own opinion about yourself or what you want, or you can't even verbalize what you want. Someone asks you, ‘What do you think or what do you want?’ And you kind of have no idea, right?” 

“That was me,” she says. “I had to ask 75 people and get validated first before I said, ‘Okay, I know what I want. I know what I think.’ No, you don't. You know what they want.”

Today, her whole life revolves around sharing what she’s learned. It’s something she tries to instill in her two sons, who she shares with her partner of 13 years, music producer Swizz Beatz: “I really talk with them a lot about listening to themselves. And we talk about that. I said, ‘Well, what do you want? What do you think? What are you feeling?’”

That kind of self-reflection is one of the many rituals Keys embraces in her daily life. She cultivates moments of quietness and stillness whenever she can to stay grounded — something that’s not easy but especially impactful in 2023’s screen-filled world. “It’s noisy as hell,” she tells me. “It's so loud. Everything is so loud. And you are on your phone, you're on your list, you're scrolling through that. Your friends are super opinionated. Your boyfriends and girlfriends have all their opinions. Your mother, your father, your family. It's like, whoa, I can't even hear. So this idea of ritual is really to create that space so you can hear.” 

It’s a core value, and Keys’s love of rituals is a throughline in all of her projects, chief among them Keys Soulcare. She’s created a whole soul-inspired language around her brand built to encourage moments of calm: New launches are called “offerings,” and every Keys Soulcare bottle has an affirmation outlined on its base. It’s almost as if, for Keys, skincare is just a means to create little moments of grace in your life.

Just after wrapping her InStyle cover shoot, she insists on making time, despite a drum-tight schedule, to connect with me on a “soulcation” around her brand’s latest offerings. The ritual was little more than an exchange of bracelets (mine reads “Connection”) and intentions (her brand’s new skin tint is engraved with the affirmation, “I own my power”), but I was struck by how a less than five-minute break from the frenetic pace of a packed set felt like an hour-long conversation in Alicia’s grounded presence.

It becomes abundantly clear to me that this is someone who brings her full self to work. There is no Singer Alicia, there is no Beauty Founder Alicia, there is no Mom Alicia. There is simply Alicia Keys, living out all of these roles simultaneously on set today.

So what’s next for this busy multi-hyphenate? On the beauty front, she’s all about embracing the newfound equilibrium she’s reached with makeup. Case in point, her brand’s surprising new launch is a lightweight, easy-to-use skin tint. It’s a delightfully unexpected move: Alicia Keys, quite possibly the most notable public figure who is famous for going without makeup, releasing something akin to foundation. But if you think about how her relationship with makeup has come full circle, it starts to make sense. In every way, the product caters to Alicia and people like her who frame makeup as a way to showcase their best selves rather than cover imperfections.

“Sometimes you need more, sometimes you want less. Sometimes I'm performing. Sometimes I'm chilling,” Alicia explains about the product’s inspiration. At its core, It’s Like Skin embodies how she uses makeup today: to match her needs and to adapt to her wants. Versatile, buildable, and meant to be applied with your fingers, this is makeup for people who haven’t always loved makeup. “Whatever you are today, it's like you, and it's like skin, and it's simple,” she continues.

On a personal level, Keys is still working on becoming “comfortable with space.” When I asked about her future aspirations, her answer was less about concrete goals and milestones and more about her state of mind. “I want to be comfortable with the non-work, the non-movement. I want to just keep pushing myself to be comfortable [so] that I'm just as productive and progressive by not moving as much.”

She’s also working on saying no. “I think particularly women have a little bit of a harder time just saying, ‘I can be important to me without feeling uber guilty about it,’” she adds. For her, that means fewer hard boundaries and more giving herself grace when she falls short — whether it’s skipping her meditation practice, prioritizing sleep over working extra hours, or the millions of other little tradeoffs women with full lives make every day. 

“Do I mess it up? Yep. Sometimes I'm great at it,” she adds. “Sometimes I'm like, ‘I'm killing it.’ I'm doing this, and then I fall off, and then I'm like, ‘But it's okay because right now I need more rest.’ Right now, I'm noticing that I just, for whatever reason, that's not calling my spirit in that way.” In the end, it all comes back to listening to her inner voice. Because Alicia Keys knows the way.