Naomi Osaka is staking her claim. Not just as the world’s top-ranked women’s tennis player on the court, but as a rising beauty boundary-breaker off of it. With her incredible drive and no intention of being boxed in by anyone else’s expectations—“I’m just me,” she replied during a press conference when pressed about her biracial identity growing up with a Japanese mother and Haitian father—she’s become a role model to countless young women. And she’s about to reach more: Last fall, Shiseido, Japan’s most famous cosmetic brand, announced Osaka as a brand ambassador, and now, she’s joining forces with bareMinerals in the same capacity, drawn to the clean beauty brand’s high-performance offerings. “This is something that I never thought would happen,” she explains of the partnership, days before she’ll face Russian player Anna Blinkova in the first round of the U.S. Open, defending the champion title she earned after upsetting Serena Williams in that now notorious final match. “I’ve always loved makeup, but growing up, the immediate thing was always playing sports. I never thought it would get me into the beauty space.”
Osaka inherited her passion for beauty from her mother, Tamaki, who always wore a red lip, she recalls. “I would always watch her putting on makeup before she went to work and then play with it after she left,” explains Osaka with a laugh. On top of inheriting her mom’s signatures, she also likes to establish a color story. “I really like coordinating with my outfit, so it often depends on what I’m wearing that day,” she says, having recently worn a wash of flaxen eyeshadow to match her gold chain necklace and flicks of onyx eyeliner to complement a custom Sacai x Nike set. As for her game-time routine, it hinges on one thing: “I sweat a lot,” explains Osaka. Not many products can outlast the byproduct of her incredible athleticism, but bareMinerals’s Barepro Performance Wear Liquid Foundation passes the perspiration test; and so for lightweight, natural-looking coverage, she layers it on before a veil of Shiseido Anessa Perfect UV Sunscreen SPF 50 to shield from the sun’s scorching rays in Fort Lauderdale where she primarily resides. While Osaka’s backhand is famously indomitable, her cloud of sun-kissed curls is often at the mercy of Mother Nature. “I tend to put on a lot of leave-in conditioner if I’m in a place where the humidity is really crazy,” she says of tending to her coils, recalling the muggy weather she endured at the Miami Open. “I haven’t [perfected] a technique yet because my hair is so different each day. I’ve yet to figure out how to manage it, so I’ve been switching on and off with different products just to see how different ones interact with my curls. I mostly just drench them with whatever.”
While beauty is a vital facet of expressing herself, Osaka puts the highest premium on self-care for her everyday wellbeing. “I look after my mental health by surrounding myself with a lot of people that I love,” she explains. “Positive energy is one of the most important things in the world.” But when the pressures of being a world-famous young athlete weigh heavy, a restorative bath does wonders, physically and mentally. “After tough matches, I like to go into an ice bath for 15 minutes, because it flushes the lactic acid out of your system,” she explains. “After, I’ll relax in warm water with Japanese bath salts.” But what keeps Osaka grounded, even amidst grueling pre-tournament prep, is her humble attitude. “When I don’t feel like training, I just think about everyone else in the world that wants to be in the position that I am in,” explains Osaka. “I should always be grateful and remember there are so many people working towards where I am. I have to work harder than everyone else if I want to stay at the top.”
Source: vogue.com
