“I really believe in doing little things that make you feel good,” a fresh-faced Sofia Carson muses on a recent morning, moments before lighting a scented Diptyque candle. Today, the 28-year-old actor and pop singer is taking Vogue through her beauty routine, beginning with a handful of complexion heroes. “I think skin care is most definitely a part of self-care,” she says as she applies a dot—not a dollop—of Obagi cleanser and de-puffing undereye patches. A gua sha massager, unearthed from a bowl of ice, provides a cool, sculpting touch. “It just feels so nice to do something nice for yourself. Sometimes it’s exactly what we need.”

The same ideals apply to the makeup arsenal that helps Carson achieve her preferred soft-glam beauty equation. “Over the years, especially when you start working on camera, you really start to learn about your face and what works for you and what doesn’t,” Carson explains after prepping her canvas with a tinted moisturizer and a mattifying powder baked into her complexion. “I think it’s really empowering to know how to do your makeup and what works for you as a woman.” As for what works for Carson? A Tower 28 terracotta-colored cream for her eyelids; a nude lip courtesy of a liner and two bullets from Charlotte Tilbury; and a set of her signature out-to-there false lashes, which she sticks on with super-blendable black glue. Finishing it off with a coat of Revlon’s Big Bad Lash, she adds, “The power of mascara is a really beautiful thing.”