Amanda Nguyen Is Ready To Take Flight

Amanda Nguyen is an activist. And a bestselling author. She’s also a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, founder of a nonprofit, and she happens to love makeup. (Oh, and one more thing: She is the first Vietnamese woman to go to space.) A quick scroll on her Instagram feed reveals snippets of her incredible career, which has spanned her groundbreaking aerospace achievements, critically-acclaimed memoir Saving Five, appearances as TIME’s Woman of the Year, and her work with Rise, a non-governmental organization she created to protect sexual assault survivors. (In 2016, the United States Congress passed the Sexual Assault Survivor Bill of Rights after she publicly testified, which guaranteed, for the first time, statutory rights in federal code for survivors of sexual assault and rape.) Point is, she’s already a veritable force for change — but wasn’t too busy to add one more line to her already-impressive CV: Star of e.l.f. Cosmetics’ Show Your(s)e.l.f. campaign. 

The editor-beloved makeup brand is known for its accessible, high-quality products, but it is a shared mission of inclusivity and joy of beauty that made this partnership a natural fit for Nguyen. “e.l.f. is all about democratizing beauty,” she tells Refinery29. “And for me what that means is seeing myself reflected in the ways people consume beauty, either through content, film, or advertisements — and I actually do use e.l.f. every day.” 

In addition to the campaign film, Nguyen is preparing to literally take flight as she embarks on an upcoming space expedition with Blue Origin, making her the first Vietnamese woman to go to space.

In our latest Power Diaries, the trailblazer candidly speaks about how she stays inspired and empowered, and shares more about her new role as an e.l.f. ambassador.

I show up as my authentic self.

The freedom to make my own choices.

I remember that no one is powerless when we come together and no one is invisible when we demand to be seen.

Our voice. It's the most powerful tool we have, so use it.

My power icon is Sally Ride. She trailblazed so that I could fly.

I wear red lipstick.

Amanda Nguyen: I always want to show up as myself authentically. Beauty has always been a part of that. I'll speak from a very vulnerable place, but growing up in California, I was one of the few Asian Americans in my school. There wasn’t representation, so I grew up having to learn that my self-worth and beauty were things that were inherent to me.

AN: In the beginning, when I was in these very intimidating and hallowed spaces — say testifying in front of the Senate or at the United Nations — I thought, Maybe I should try to assimilate and be ‘less than’. But I realized that my power is in my story — what I represent — and I actually did want to stand out fully as me. In wearing lipstick and glam, I chose to intentionally show up as who I was. I chose to not shy away from the fact that I am there representing a story and I can in fact be both a changemaker and love makeup.

AN: Yes, for sure! I travel a lot, so one of the things that I bring with me on the plane is the Holy Hydration Jet Set. Then there's a concealer that I'm running out of — the Hydrating Camo Concealer. I actually wore an e.l.f. red lipstick in my first astronaut photo shoot, before this partnership.

AN: The red that I wore in my headshot is the shade No Regrets. I deliberately did that because in the STEM world, you’re either a scientist or engineer — or you like makeup. It's very separate categories, and I wanted to break those boundaries and show that you can do both and love both.

AN: One of the comments that I get often, which was kind of unexpected, was from survivors who had come up to me and said, “Hey, thank you for showing up the way that you do. Thank you for wearing lipstick.” I hadn't thought about that before [until] it kept coming up. Sexual violence is inherently about taking away power from our own body and being able to feel like ourselves again [through makeup] is so empowering. And so it was such a moment of solidarity that these survivors came up to me and expressed that they felt community because of a choice that I made with my makeup. 

Makeup and beauty are so often trivialized or considered frivolous, when it's the furthest thing from that. In these conversations with other survivors, [I've learned] it's these choices that we make about how to heal ourselves, which are the things of joy. Lipstick brings me joy. That's actually a radical act of healing. The most radical act of rebellion is joy.