Peyton List Wants to Show You a More Playful Side of Clean Beauty

Peyton List has spent the better part of her life in a makeup chair. It’s her safe space. It’s a place where, for nearly two decades, the actress has been fostering her love of all things beauty and soaking up every insider tip and trick in the book. In other words, List knows beauty. So when the 23-year-old was approached to create a cosmetic brand on her own terms, the opportunity was too good to pass up. "Beauty has just been a part of my life since I can remember,” she tells us via Zoom in early January. "I have worked with other people for so long that getting to do something on my own was something that really spoke to me.” In a market saturated with celebrity skincare and makeup lines, List found her niche in clean beauty with a playful Gen Z spin. The brand is named Pley Beauty and encourages people to do just that—have fun with their makeup. Think environmentally-friendly, skin-loving formulas coupled with bold color palettes and stick-on adornments fit for an episode of Euphoria. 

Pley Beauty is List in makeup form: vibrant, adventurous, and conscious about the planet. While it’s easy to slap a name on a cosmetic brand these days, List assures us she was involved every step of the way. That meant interviewing and hiring the right team, participating in product and creative meetings, and ensuring the brand met its clean-beauty requirements. The latter was a crucial piece of the brand for List and is one of the big things she believes sets Pley Beauty apart from other celebrity lines out there. "We wanted to make sure that our ingredients were ethically sourced, and we are Leaping Bunny certified [a guarantee that no new animal tests were used in the development of any product],” she says. It also involved avoiding the over 1500 ingredients that are on the "no” list for being detrimental to the environment. Additionally, nearly all of the packaging is made from recycled materials. "We think beauty should be fun, and it should be something where we don’t harm anyone or anything when playing with it,” List adds. 

The fact that clean beauty is an outlier and not an industry norm was a frustrating revelation for the Cobra Kai actress in creating Pley Beauty. Even more so was the fact that clean beauty often isn’t accessible. "The consumer only has so much power,” she tells us. "If you are going to CVS, that’s where you buy your makeup, and you only have a certain amount you can spend, and you want to keep up and make a change. You really only have so much power.” Pley Beauty aims to serve that consumer with a product selection ranging from $16 to $36. 

The debut collection, which drops today, features a treasure trove of eye shadow palettes, eyeliner pencils, powder blushes, and color sticks. List’s personal favorite is the Love Child Pleyer Palette ($36), a collection of gorgeous rosy and turquoise shades inspired by the dreamy energy of vintage California in the ’60s. "It’s super colorful,” she says. "I love wearing those pinks every day.” She also raves about the Pley Date All Over Color Sticks ($18), which come in beautiful shimmery colors such as Moon Dust and Sunshine State. List loves how foolproof they are and uses the sheer and blendable formulas on her eyes, cheeks, and nose and all over her body. 

With Gen Z beauty reaching new levels of creativity, the Pley Things Stick On Adornments ($16–$24) will, no doubt, be a hit as well. The assortment of mix-and-match pearls, graphic shapes, and rhinestones are easy to use and add an eye-catching statement to any look. "I love lining the pearls underneath the eye when everything else is clean,” List tells us of her go-to look right now. 

Pley Beauty is a welcome reminder that self-expression should have no restrictions. When we ask List about her 2022 beauty goals, she leaves us with this: "If I’m able to go out anywhere, I’m going to really embrace being able to go out and really take my time getting ready and enjoy makeup.” In the words of the brand, "It’s time to pley!” 

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