I’m holding up a coffee mug shaped like a haunted house and a light-up crystal ball to Vanessa Hudgens over our video call. Showing off my latest Halloween finds to the actor, singer, and sweetness icon wasn’t something I saw in my very own 2023 crystal ball, however it only felt natural. Like true Filipinos, each Hudgens and I really like the “Ber Months,” or the time of the yr when all the months end with ‘ber. But while the Philippines starts celebrating Christmas as early as September, Hudgens, like me, has been readying herself for fall and the spooky season. “I began decorating at the tip of August and got out all the fall scented candles,” she says. “Obviously, Halloween movies come on continually. After which the wardrobe changes. I literally got dressed this morning, and was like, ‘It is time to start out wearing all black. It’s time. I just love the entire energy of the season, the sights, the sounds, and the smells. Oh, after which my Halloween playlist goes on, which is pretty aggressive techno.”

Except for the ghosts, goblins, and aggressively techno playlist, fall also brings a latest product launch for Hudgens and KNOW Beauty, the personalized skin-care brand she initially co-founded in 2021 with singer Madison Beer. The corporate relied on complex DNA testing to recommend routines to customers, but that never really took off, so it scrapped the concept and rebooted this past March, with Beer taking a step back. Now, with Hudgens on the helm, the brand’s focus continues to be on skin, and specifically face masks. For the brand-new Arctic Gold Vitamin C MaskHudgens was inspired after using a “random vitamin C sheet mask” which led to her makeup artist commenting on how beautifully her skin looked and held up her glam. “Vitamin C is incredible at obviously reducing pigmentation, evening out skin tone, and brightening,” she says. “So, I used to be like, how can I incorporate this right into a mask, and what if we did an overnight moment, so it gives the product time to penetrate your skin to the utmost degree?”

The vitamin C mask complements KNOW’s first launch, the Glacial Bay Clay Maskwhich was made for breakout-prone skin, like Hudgens’s. “I’m 34. I believed that by this point, I can be done with pimples, but because I actually have oily skin, the pores get clogged.” The clay mask comprises colloidal clay harvested from a Canadian glacier, while the vitamin C mask uses Arctic Cloudberry, a “little, tiny, cute berry” that grows in Norway and has significantly more vitamin C than an orange. (Per Krupa Koestlinea cosmetic chemist, arctic cloudberries have twice the vitamin C content of oranges, and says that these berries “are abundant in antioxidants and ellagic tannins, offering cosmetic advantages comparable to moisturization, soothing, brightening, and anti-aging properties. Cloudberries are also in a position to thrive in temperatures as little as -40°F, and might retain moisture in extremely cold conditions, she says, making them highly wanted within the production of moisturizing cosmetics across Nordic countries.) “I just love seeking to nature to seek out ingredients,” says Hudgens. “There’s a lot that Mother Nature has for us.” I ask Hudgens if she ever plans on incorporating ingredients which might be native to the Philippines, where each her mom and mine are from, and he or she says that it’s “something that is being thrown around by me, continually, and we’re working towards.”

Hudgens visited the Philippines together with her mom, Gina, and her sister Stella, for the primary time in March of this yr. She tells me how much she connected with the country, especially the spiritual facets, the connection with nature, and the importance of family and friends. “It was such a phenomenal experience,” she says. “I feel like I didn’t meet a single individual that felt like they were having a foul day, everyone was identical to, so glad. I believe the key to life is community; it doesn’t matter how much you’ve what you’ve, it’s concerning the people you select to fill your life with.” Through the trip, she was given the title of Global Tourism Ambassadorwhich was met with criticism since it was her first trip to the country. But Hudgens says that, until a member of the family passed away in 2019, her mom hadn’t gone back to the Philippines since moving to the US — and Hudgens didn’t wish to visit without her. “It just never got to occur until recently,” she says, noting that she was vacationing in Italy during her mom’s previous trip. Some individuals who emigrate to the US don’t find yourself going back to their home country for one reason or one other, which I’ve seen with Filipinos and other migrants. “I feel just like the American Dream is something that plenty of people have. So, whenever you finally do make it out here, you must live that dream,” she says. “It is sensible, but I’m now at this place where I’m like, No, let’s embrace it. Have fun it, shout it from the highest of the mountain.”

Hudgens was also raised “super, super American” and he or she says that her mom didn’t really speak plenty of her native language of Tagalog at home. “Yes, I had rice with every meal, but I didn’t necessarily feel like I used to be super separated from the opposite kids at school, simply because my upbringing was so extremely American,” she says. It wasn’t until later in her life that she felt she was “missing a bit” of herself by not being strongly connected to her Filipino background, which was a giant a part of why she desired to make the visit. “It felt so empowering to know where you are from, and find a way to represent your heritage.”