Audrey Hobert on Trading Beauty Products With Gracie Abrams, Acne, and Her New Beauty Collaboration

The moment I heard Audrey Hobert’s song “Phoebe,” I knew the 26-year-old singer was a generational talent. “I think I’ve got a fucked-up face,” Hobert sings on the track, “And that thought used to haunt me / ’Til I fell in its sweet embrace.” It was like someone had read my diary, set it to music, and played it back to me. I dove deep into Hobert’s musical universe and found a vivid, colorful, and fearlessly earnest world where self-image is thoughtfully considered and insecurities are celebrated. She sings that acne is a “bitch, but it goes away”—thankfully. Her music videos exist in a fantastical realm of primary hues and free expression.

Naturally, her new collaboration with Ilia Beauty embraces that ethos. Hobert has crafted a beauty edit that includes bespoke shades of the brand’s Overglaze Hydrating Lip Gloss in Studio and Lip Sketch Hydrating Crayon in Blue Note, two reddish-mauve hues that are perfect for both casual wear and a statement lip. Designed for effortless, buildable coverage, they also match Hobert’s vibrant nature and the energy of her upcoming tour.

Ahead of the edit’s release today, Hobert chatted with ELLE about how her self-image has evolved, her best friend and collaborator, Gracie Abrams, and the songs she’d pair with Ilia’s newest lip combo.

What was your inspiration behind partnering with Ilia?

I’ve been wearing Ilia for a long time. I’d walk into Sephora and go, That feels in line with me and my ethics. As far as what I wear every day, it’s really just a lip. I like to do my makeup when the occasion calls for it, but usually, I’m just always wearing a lip color, because it makes me feel fun. The lip pencil is something new for me, but I’ve been loving the gloss. I’m not even trying to straight-up sell right now, but it’s buildable, has a sheer pretty color, and if you add [more], it’s like, Boom, pow.

What songs would you pair with each product?

When I think about the pencil, “Shooting Star” comes to mind, because that song is about getting down in the club, and I’d want a bold lip for that. The gloss on its own—not to be too on the nose, but maybe my song, “Phoebe,” because it makes me feel beautiful.

In “Phoebe,” you sing about your struggles with acne. What’s your relationship to your skin now, and how has it evolved as you’ve gotten older?

When I was writing “Phoebe,” I wanted to write about acne because it felt like everyone might know what I’m talking about. Except for my sister, I don’t know a single girl who hasn’t struggled with acne at [some] point. It all depends on when it hits you. I have friends who started to break out in college. For me, it was in high school, and that’s when the rise of no-makeup makeup started to be a thing. On an emotional level, I identified with that look and was so enamored and infatuated [by it], but I just didn’t have the skin for it.

I was always like, One day, I will be able to slap on my moisturizer, my sunscreen, a lip, and just walk out of the house and feel like a million bucks. Then the second I got to college, my skin cleared up, and it’s thankfully stayed that way. Obviously, hormonal acne still happens to me every month.

I’ve gotten to a place of self-acceptance. I’m like, This is just what I look like.

If someone’s looking at me, I’d rather they just look at my zit than at me trying to pretend that I don’t have one.

Your lyrics often comment on self-image, and you even took a moment while performing “Wet Hair” on your recent tour to talk about how comments about your looks affected you in school. How did that factor into your relationship to makeup and beauty when you were younger?

I feel grateful that most of the time, I can separate someone’s opinion from the truth and not let it affect me. In elementary school, I liked to dress to the nines. I would dress up every day. Putting an outfit together made me so happy and then someone made fun of my outfits, and I started dressing more casually.

Sometimes, I would get—not, hardcore bullied, but in a way that almost feels worse sometimes—a passive-aggressive comment that I would think about for 48 hours afterward. But once I went through puberty, I can’t really remember a time when someone said something that made me go, “Okay, I’m not going to do that anymore.”

I was also on the dance team at school, and on the days when we would have pep rallies, I would have to sit in my first period class in a full beat—smoky eye, red lip, and hair pulled back. I just remember, [thinking] like, No one fucking look at me now, this is mortifying. The second my skin cleared up, I just stopped wearing makeup altogether.

I’ve also been on an eyebrow journey. I was doing the pencil in middle school, and then I was going to [the] Benefit BrowBar. When I went to college, I bought the dye and did it myself. Horrible. Horrible. It’s not that I regret it, but I look back, and I’m like, You had black eyebrows. Around COVID, I just stopped doing it altogether.

The visual world in your music videos like “Thirst Trap” and “Bowling Alley” is so vibrant—how did that translate into this Ilia edit?

I just gravitate towards colors. I always have. My apartment is very colorful. I really like classic colors. I don’t really like in-between colors. I don’t love maroon, teal, or burnt orange. In the “Thirst Trap” video, that shows. I don’t dress super colorfully, but I love a pop of something.

You’re going back on tour this summer. Will we see some of these products used in your looks on the road?

Yeah, definitely. For the first time in a long time, I felt like doing makeup, even if it was just a little bit before going on stage. It would just center me.

You’re such an accomplished songwriter in your own right, but you’ve also collaborated with your friend Gracie Abrams on her music. Did you two ever share beauty tips and makeup products growing up?

Yeah, [Gracie] was always showing me products, and she was always good at her makeup. I figured out what the Pat McGrath highlighter combo stick was because of her. I highly doubt I’ve ever shown her anything in that way.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Shop Audrey Hobert’s Ilia Edit