Eva Mendes 9 Favorite Things

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If you’re like us, you’ve probably wondered what famous people add to their carts. Not the JAR brooch and Louis XV chair but the hair spray and the electric toothbrush. We asked actress Eva Mendes, who's also the co-owner of sponge company Skura Style, about the Korean exfoliating mitts, minimalist white-noise machine, and old-fashioned calendar she can't live without.

I’ve tried everything: loofahs, bathing cloths, brushes, the this, the that. But nothing beats these because you can control how much you want to exfoliate. I used to go to this amazing Korean bath in Los Angeles with one of my dear friends. I’m going to drop a name: Liv Tyler. The experience is not like a typical spa; it's much more about the ritual of being a woman. You’d go in and there was a cold dipping pool, a hot natural-water pool, saunas — dry saunas, wet saunas — and then you’d get these massages; you’d get bathed. You’re in a room bonding with these women you don't know. Liv and I would spend hours there. One of the things they would use when they scrubbed you down were these mitts. I started asking, "Can I buy these?" They sent me to the right place. I have my little packs I travel with. I need them. You can keep washing them. Throw them in the laundry. Once they start losing their luster, you feel it. But they last for a while.

They’re 100 percent beeswax. They’re nontoxic. They have such a strong, long-lasting scent, which is so important to me because the candles are a little bit more on the high-end side. Right now, I’m still in my kind of Christmas-y phase. I still have my Christmas tree up, so I’m burning the cinnamon. But they have a firewood one. And then they have freesia. So really, depending on the season, is what I burn. I keep them all over the house. Every room has its own scent, in a way. Let's say the freesia one — it's a beautiful floral — I’ll keep that closer to my daughters’ room. I don't keep a candle in their room because it's too nerve-wracking. Then they have this beautiful velvet rose scent, that feels like more for my bathroom. I kept their fir needle around the living room for Christmas. I like keeping cinnamon in the kitchen. Not every room has its own candle, but every section has its own little scent. So you have an experience.

This is actually … to put in these terms, a very chic mom bag. Even if I’m running out the house looking like a slob, when I have my Gucci tote, I feel a little bit better. It literally holds everything. All the snacks, sanitizers, my makeup bag, the iPads, the books. I still carry around baby wipes because kids are messy and I need them all the time. It's just so functional. It will not go down. I have put that thing through different countries, different seasons, and two kids. You really can throw anything in there. My mom has a joke: She says, "Do you carry your iron in there?" It sounds more funny in Spanish. ¿Mi niña, tú tienes la plancha ahí? Now, people can see my business, right? Since it doesn't have a zipper. But the fact that I’m with the kids and can literally throw stuff in and they can get their stuff out — it's better for me functionally. I usually throw a turban, a wrap, a scarf, on top of the tote so people can't totally see my business. But I like that it's open.

This is Miranda Kerr's product. A friend of mine gave it to me, and I didn't know that it was her line until I looked it up. I make sure I don't run out of it. It's got turmeric — I love that it smells very clean. Once I smell something, I can tell whether it's going to be good for me or not. This isn't too perfume-y at all. And she's very, very clean with her ingredients. It's exfoliating, but it's not harsh. I love the size of the beads. I like a bigger bead. They tend to be softer. I use it daily, when I’m in the shower, because it's just that good.

For me, it's not like my morning moisturizer, serum, and I’m done. I get dry during the day, depending on what I’m doing. I carry this with me and I reapply it a few times. I use it on my hands. I hate the way my hands feel after I wash them. I’m pretty obsessive about the oil because it feels so good. I trust it. I don't have the technical reasons. I love that it's botanically based, of course, but my skin just says, "Yes, please." It asks for it. I know that sounds weird, but my skin craves it.

I never had a white-noise machine. Then once I had babies — you want them to sleep so badly. They sleep, you sleep. They don't sleep, you don't sleep. So one of the things somebody told me about when I had our first baby was "Oh, you have to get a white-noise machine." It helped because you can have a conversation in the other room and you won't wake up the baby. There's something really soothing about it. I used it for both my babies to get them through those really tough, first four months. Then I realized it was really helping me as well. So I take two everywhere I go. You never know, like staying at a hotel and there's construction outside. I’m so happy to have mine here in Australia [where she's currently traveling]. There are birds everywhere. There are magpies, kookaburras, cockatoos. You feel like you’re literally in the Tiki Room. The other part is that they wake up early and they’re loud. So I’m super grateful for it. Hit that volume, turn that up. I used to have one that had a train on a railroad, thunder and rain. I stay with that static-y white noise now. It almost sounds like there's an air conditioner on full blast.

It's so archaic. It's so of-another-time that it's laughable. It's a legit old-world calendar from the ’80s. I get the same one every year. It opens up and you see the left side and the right side are all the same month. You have every day as a square. I need to see the full month in front of me. If I don't see the month, I’ll be shocked that it's my birthday tomorrow. I need to see what I have. That's how I operate. I’ve tried so many other things and it just doesn't work for my brain. I start my day with coffee and a bad attitude. Then I have my At a Glance and open it. I have to have it all right there. I like to write in pen, but then I don't like scratching it out. I don't like what that looks like. So guess what I need to solidify the archaic nature of this? Do you know what White-Out is? I’m probably the only person keeping that company alive. It's just ridiculous. But it works for me. It acts like a journal sometimes. "Oh, that's the day we went to Disneyland. Or that's the day I took my mom to … that's when we got her MRI." I never throw them out because it's documentation.

I’ve been told I’m vitamin-D deficient, so I supplement. I think it's one of those things that … I don't know, I don't necessarily feel a difference, but I see it in my bloodwork. It's just part of my overall wellness plan. And it's definitely one of those supplements that it's a must-have. We get vitamin D from the sun, but I don't really spend that much time out [in the sun]. Because the shadow side is that the sun can wreak havoc. My doctor told me to get my vitamin D up and the benefits of it are that it's regulating inflammation, it's immune-boosting. So that's the one. That's my go-to. Sometimes I’ll go through like, Oh, I’ll take my omega oils [or other supplements]. But vitamin D3 is the one I always have.

I love to clean my house. I’ve always been that way. I equate mental wellness, mental clarity, and just feeling good with a clean house. You can tell the mood I’m in by the state of my kitchen. I find doing the dishes very meditative. So I go through sponges a lot. Over the pandemic, I was doing my research and, like everyone, trying to over clean. I ordered a bunch of different sponges because they were a hot commodity at that time. I came across Skura and thought, "Wait a minute." It never dissolved. It never hung onto food. It never smelled. The icon on the scrubby part, it starts to fade when your sponge starts to get to its expiration date, telling you when it's time to change it. Honestly, I fell in love with the sponge. Most sponges are made of cellulose, which is like a bacteria hotel. It's the most ironic thing. This one's made with polyurethane. You feel it immediately when you use it. I was trying to describe this to the owners in my love letter to them before I became a partner: "When I hold it, the way it absorbs the soap?" And then they explained that it's called hand feel. I was like, "That has a name?"

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