The actor is the face of Armani Beauty’s newest perfume, My Way—inspired by travel, even if that lately arrives in a Gabriel García Márquez book.
In a parallel universe, a video chat with Adria Arjona might have seen the actress beamed in from a faraway movie set or a beach vacation to her native Puerto Rico. That’s the benefit of having the technological means to track a life in perpetual motion. “I really grew up on a tour bus, which was this magical place full of creativity and craziness,” Arjona told Vanity Fair last year, describing her childhood on the road, alongside her father, the Guatemalan musician Ricardo Arjona. “Sometimes I’d have breakfast in Guatemala and go to sleep in Mexico,” she once put it.

But when we speak in late July, Arjona is stationed in Los Angeles, where she has lived since landing a breakout role in True Detective’s second season. “I don’t think I’ve ever spent four months in one specific place,” the 28-year-old says into the screen. Her hair is smoothed back, showing off punctuation-mark eyebrows. A thin gold necklace, in the style of an Edwardian paper-clip chain, gives our conversation the feel of a time hop.

Travel isn’t on the docket in a summer of pandemic, but it’s still front of mind. Arjona is the face of Armani Beauty’s latest perfume, My Way, billed as a love letter to exploration and shared experience. The campaign film is something of a whistle-stop tour, from flamenco in Spain to a tea ceremony in Japan. Meanwhile, the fragrance—housed in a refillable glass bottle, with a production goal to be carbon-neutral—mirrors that global impulse. Tuberose, sourced from a village near Mysore, India, melds with jasmine and Italian bergamot; notes of vanilla come from a sustainable operation out of Madagascar.

Can a perfume ease wanderlust? Or perhaps the cure arrives in a book, Arjona explains in the interview below. She shares her nostalgia-tinged reading, olfactory postcards from travels past, and how her role in Marvel’s upcoming Morbius (postponed to March 2021) resonates with the current moment.)

Head over to Vanity Fair to read the interview with Adria!

Five minutes in on a call with Adria Arjona, and it’s clear she’s a free spirit. We talk about how she believes everything happens for a reason and how, whether it’s good and bad, those experiences shape who you are as person. It’s no wonder then that Armani Beauty tapped the actor—who you probably recognize as Jules from Pacific Rim: Uprising and Emily from the second season of True Detective—as the face of its new fragrance, My Way.

The ethos behind the perfume and its new campaign is “I am what I live,” a call to soak up the best of what life has to offer—and a mantra that undoubtedly carries new weight as our lives continue to shift with the ongoing precautions surrounding COVID-19.

In fact, that message is what drew the rising star to the campaign in the first place. “It resonates a lot with me,” says Arjona. “I love the idea of opening your horizons and paving your own journey. No path is the same.”

I’ll admit, it all sounded a bit woo-woo, but one spritz of this scent and I got it. Its bright, flowery mix of vanilla and tuberose is happy, inviting, and vivacious—everything Arjona represents. But here I’ll let her tell you more. Ahead, she answers all of Glamour’s Big Beauty Questions, including her beauty must-haves, the women inspiring her right now, and the hair advice she swears by.

What’s one beauty rule you swear by?
Moisturize! You can never moisturize enough. I love the Armani Crema Nera Extrema Supreme Reviving Light Cream. It’s pretty dry here in L.A. and I’ve been in the sun a lot. I feel like that’s the one product my skin just soaks right in. I use it both during the day and at night.

How has your upbringing inspired your beauty routine?
All my travels inspire me, but the natural colors and textiles that are used in Mexico and Guatemala specifically are so bright and so beautiful. They use the most beautiful natural reds. I think one of my favorite looks is a bare face and red lip, especially for summer—a nice bright red or orange.

Head over to the Glamour website to read the rest of the interview!