"Elizabeth Bennet Is the Original Miu Miu Girl": Emma Corrin on Perfume, Primer and Pride and Prejudice

Welcome to The Glowdown, the series where we dive into the beauty secrets of our favourite celebrities as they get real about their routines and non-negotiables exclusively with us. Join them as they sit in our beauty hot seat, and we fire off a round of quick questions, giving you never-before-shared insight into the products they can't live without, their secrets to getting red carpet–ready, beauty pet peeves and the genius tips they've picked up along the way. This is no-holds-barred beauty at its finest.

This month, we sat down with Emma Corrin. The 30-year-old actor is the face of Miu Miu's latest fragrance, Miutine Intense, a heightened version of the original scent. "It definitely becomes your armour," Emma shared when asked how the new perfume makes them feel. "You put it on before you go out, and people are going to notice when you walk into the room. There’s a real sexiness to it; there’s a rebelliousness to it. It’s really bold; it’s there to be noticed, which is what you want."

Below, Emma talks about go-to makeup products, their best beauty advice and how they use fragrance to channel the characters they are playing...

1. Which beauty product gives you the biggest mood boost?
Definitely fragrance. I use fragrances multiple times a day to bring me back to life. I think Miutine does that so beautifully; [the brand's] scents are really bold. They last a long time as well, which I feel like is actually quite unusual.

2. You only have one product to use for the rest of your life—what is it?
Apart from Miutine, probably retinol. It’s rejuvenation. Shed the skin and start again!

3. What’s the best piece of beauty advice that you have ever received?
In the evening, when you’re putting your cream on or whatever you use, don't do it in the bathroom, not under good light. Do it in the dark or under a softer light, because otherwise I feel like I scrutinise everything going on with my skin. There is some terrible hotel lighting out there!

4. Strong lip or a strong eye?
Strong eye!

5. What's your beauty philosophy in a sentence?
Less is more. Don’t overcomplicate it. Your skin is always happier with less.

6. What's your signature fragrance?
On a day-to-day basis, well, it was the original Miutine, which I think is such a good daytime fragrance. It’s got such light, uplifting notes, like strawberry and gardenia. Miutine Intense has a very similar base family of notes: gardenia and brown sugar and vanilla, but it uses blackberry, which is really rich and sensual, and I feel like that moves it a bit day to night. Also, you could do it the other way round. There are no rules here!

7. What's your favourite lipstick colour?
I was always an Elizabeth Arden person—the Eight Hour Cream—but then Laneige came along, and I do love that. Recently, someone used the chocolate [lip balm on me]. … It’s absolutely insane.

8. Candles, reed diffusers or nothing at all?
Candles, so many candles. I use them all the time. I recently went to Japan, and they have beautiful scents there. They have these incense cones, and I bought loads back, and I’m burning them everywhere, but they don’t last as long [as candles].

9. Name one beauty product that is always in your handbag.
Miutine! Miutine Intense.

10. Are you team dewy or matte?
Dewy. Matte is coming back, but I am holding onto dewy with my life.

11. Makeup primer: love it or hate it?
I’ve never really used it that much, but...I watch where people use it; I really get why they do. I think I use it when I get my makeup done; it just helps it stay.

12. What beauty rule do you always break?
I always leave the house with wet hair. I have this thing in my head that I think air-drying my hair makes it better.

13. Which era of beauty inspires you most?
I like minimalist beauty, which I feel like is very much the era of now. I think there are so many products out there that help you enhance that. You can wear makeup and have the joy of doing makeup and getting yourself ready, but it’s quite minimalist and sort of "no makeup" makeup. But I was looking back, and I feel like the era of Françoise Hardy and that kind of thing, where she did a very light, defined eye and then the skin was really like sun-kissed, a simple lip; I feel like that era, 60s, 70s? There was a lot of stuff going on in the 70s which was quite bold and quite punk, like a lot of colour, so I feel like in every era maybe there is the bolder one and the more minimalist, and it’s whatever side of that you fall.

14. What do you do in your downtime to relax and reset?
I’ve been watching a lot of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. It’s my guilty pleasure. Walking my dog, seeing my friends, cooking…I like cooking.

15. Do you ever use fragrance to help get into the character you’re playing?
Yes. Not for every character, but some. It really helps because I feel like scent is so tied to a memory, and it helps you lock in. Actually, I was doing a lot of stuff for Miutine whilst I was filming Pride and Prejudice, and it occurred to me that Elizabeth Bennet is the original Miu Miu girl. Miu Miu and Miutine always champion the individual and want you to celebrate being yourself, and I feel like Elizabeth Bennet was the original heroine who stood for that.

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