St. Vincent, an Experimenter in Music and in Makeup

St. Vincent (nee Annie Clark), 32, has been performing under that name since 2006. In February, she won her first Grammy, for Best Alternative Album, for her self-titled album.When she’s not on tour, the singer, who grew up in Dallas, lives in the East Village in Manhattan, which will be her home base when she performs at the Governors Ball Music Festival on Friday and at Barclays Center for the “Contemporary Color” concert June 27 and 28. Here, she discusses her beauty regimen. BEE SHAPIROSkin CareI wash my face with a Dayle Breault wash. She’s a facialist a friend recommended, and she lives just a block away in the East Village. And then I put on SPF, which I always wear. I’m very fair, so I freckle and burn. I’ve been vacillating between a Neutrogena one from Super Target and Kiehl’s. That’s it. I’m very, very low maintenance, bordering on extreme laziness.Skin Deep

From left: Dayle Breault Bonifide scrub; Brécourt Contre Pouvoir; Aesop deodorant; Leonor Greyl serum for hair.For moisturizer, I use the Egyptian Magic stuff. It’s not too heavy for me.MakeupIf it’s just day to day, I try to get away with wearing as little as possible. I have a Laura Mercier tinted moisturizer that I use on my face. And I’ve been using the pink and green Maybelline mascara I get from Super Target. I love it there. I go whenever I’m in Dallas, since I was 13. I also have a red lipstick from a drugstore in Paris that has served me well. It’s by a brand called Mavala.We do our own makeup on tour. I try to pick up tips whenever I can, such as go about 10 percent more than you would day to day. I wear a lot of black onstage, so it’s good to have a bit of color. I’m not wearing heavy foundation onstage, ever, though maybe I should.For a while, I was doing a Laura Mercier blue shadow. I just went to MAC, though, and got some really bold matte colors I’m going to try. I like textures. Any dewiness you see is probably just a product of sweating. I guarantee you that’s not intentional.My eyebrows, sometimes I fill them in with this crayon my bandmate gave me. I bleached them when I was blond.

It made me look like a very nice person. There’s something really sweet about a light brow.I’m really excited for Governors Ball. I worked with Phoebe English on some custom looks for the show. I’ll be coordinating the beauty to those looks, but it’s more instinct and going in the moment than completely planned out.I’ve gotten more interested in experimenting lately. Sometimes it’s a failure, sometimes it’s a hit. It’s a funny nexus of, obviously, a certain amount of vanity because you’re acknowledging that you’re going onstage and asking people to look at you. But then you can just have fun with it. It’s makeup, it’s not going to cure cancer.HairGrowing up in Dallas, sure, there are beauty stereotypes. It’s mostly all about being tan and having straight blond hair. I didn’t really have an “in” in that regard. But I didn’t worry about it too much. My hair is naturally very curly and dark. It’s been through a lot.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyEarlier in the year, I had silvery lavender hair. Pamela Neal, out in Los Angeles, who does David Bowie and Bjork’s hair and basically everyone in the world who I think is cool, did it. I came in with a mess of hair, and she took a look and brought out this lavender wash.

It was spontaneous. It was definitely a punk-rock, guerrilla-style moment.Pamela is responsible for the highlighted mullet I had at Coachella, too. I got an unfortunate grief haircut over the holidays that I like to call “Audrey Hepburn with an anger problem.” Pamela did the best she could with it. Then I had really unfortunate boy-band frosted tips; it was a look. But I think it’s fun when things look kind of silly.Now, I don’t really know what it is. I have long fringe that starts at the crown of my head, but then it’s really curly in the back. For events, I’ve been straightening it and slicking it back. It’s also back to dark, and there’s about 2.5 inches of actually natural color that’s healthy and still about two inches of the boy-band frosted tips that have been dyed over. I’m just going to go into the salon and say I want the Nick Cave minus the receding hairline.My hair is pretty fry guy.

One of my friends suggested using Leonor Greylproducts. I’ve been using a mask. It comes in a square bottle, it’s really heavy and it takes up a lot of space in the suitcase. There should be beluga caviar in it for what it takes to lug around. But it’s the only thing that’s been helping me grow my hair out.FragranceI got a tincture of some lavender-y thing from a friend who’s really into essential oils. And I like the Aesop deodorant. I use it as perfume. When I was in Amsterdam, I got a man-scent called Brécourt Contre Pouvoir that I like.Other ServicesI get massages on tour because holding a guitar for two hours a day has done a number on my back alignment.Diet and FitnessDiet? Pass on that.I do run and lift weights. I grew up doing sports, and I don’t like to sit down. I’m usually at hotels, so I run at the gyms there.In New York City, I just ride a bike around, but that’s not really exercise. It’s not very strenuous.Correction: June 4, 2015

An earlier version of this article misquoted St. Vincent regarding the type of haircut she had over the holidays. She said it was a grief haircut, not a “Grease” haircut.

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