What Summer Away’s Meghna Goyal puts on her face

Meghna Goyal splits her time between New York City, Mumbai, and wherever her next trip takes her. While at home in New York, her days begin before the city is properly awake. At 5 am, she’s already on calls with her India-based team, coffee in hand, easing into the logistics of running her clothing label, Summer Away. “I don’t actually start my day until much later,” she laughs. “After I’m done with everything at 10 am is when I technically begin. That’s when I relax, shower, and then get ready for the day.”

Despite her glowing skin and an Instagram feed that reads like a vacation moodboard, skincare wasn’t always part of her vocabulary. In fact, it took a global pandemic and months of mask-induced breakouts for her to start paying attention to her skin. “That was the first time I ever had acne,” Goyal recalls. “It really weighed me down and made me insecure about my skin.” What followed wasn’t a 12-step routine but a slow education: learning that moisturiser alone doesn’t cut it, SPF matters, and that skincare can be fun and enjoyable without one being obsessive.

“What got me excited about skincare was talking to my friends who are passionate about it and who educated me on the different brands that are available and the new things I could try that made it fun and not boring,” she adds. Friends helped, recommendations were swapped, and skincare became less of a chore and more of a quiet ritual—one that fit neatly into her pared-back, minimalist lifestyle.

Below, she tells us about everything in her current rotation at home and in her travel bag:

I have combination skin, but I actually have the opposite problem of most people, which is that my T zone gets very dry and then the rest of my face gets a bit oily. I do different things for different parts of my face. For instance, every time I do a deep cleanse, I skip the T zone because it just strips all the oils. I just do it around my chin and my cheeks because I need it on those parts.

When I started off, I was super excited and I made my routine very complicated because I just loved the ritual of it. I had toner, niacinamide serum, vitamin C, moisturiser, and sunscreen. But over time I realised that it’s not something I can keep up. So, at the moment, I just use a brightening serum, moisturiser, and sunscreen. I use the Caudalíe Vinoperfect serum as my first step, then the Belif True Cream Aqua Bomb, because it’s hydrating but not greasy. For sunscreen, I use the Elta MD sunscreen—it’s the only one I use because I find that I break out with anything else. It’s not available in India, but every time I’m coming back, I have friends who beg me to bring it for them.

My nighttime routine is pretty simple. I just wash my face and moisturise. I do retinol twice a week but not more than that, because my skin gets really dry and I’m still building my tolerance. It’s currently winter here in New York and my face feels like it’s going to fall off whenever I end up using retinol—it flakes so much that I feel uncomfortable. Keeping it simple works best for me. When I complicate it, I end up missing steps and psyching myself out where I’m like, oh my god, I’m doing all these things and nothing’s working! So, I keep it pared down.

In the beginning, I went to a dermatologist because I was scared of stuff happening to my skin for the first time. That really helped me tackle the acne at its root. No matter how many friends you talk to and YouTube videos you watch, everyone’s skin is different. Whenever I’m in Mumbai, I see Dr Punit Saorogi or Dr Jaishree Sharad.

This is TMI, but the skin on my body also gets really dry. I’ve recently started using urea moisturiser. I read about it online and when I was in Paris last summer, the salesperson in the pharmacy told me about it and that’s how I got on it. It’s amazing—I genuinely felt the difference literally the next day.

I can’t live without lip balm. I feel like I’m addicted to it. I’m constantly reapplying and am a big lip balm hoarder. I end up buying one even if it just looks pretty and may not have the best formulation. Currently, I’m using the Summer Fridays lip butter balm—it’s the most hydrating.

I’m a big minimalist when it comes to everything. That’s something you can even see in Summer Away’s language. So, even when it comes to makeup, I keep it pretty minimal. I mostly just use skin tint, blush, and mascara. I love blush—I have so many shades, even if they all end up looking the same; I don’t care. I’m gonna keep buying blush. I also use a colour corrector and concealer, because I have dark under-eyes. For lips, I use a Make Up For Ever lip liner in the shade Anywhere Caffeine and then I just top it off with lip balm or lip gloss.

I don’t wear makeup everyday, but if I’m stepping out I will one hundred per cent wear skin tint and a little bit of colour corrector under my eyes even if I’m not using a concealer. I don’t always wear mascara—I just curl my lashes for a natural lift. And then just blush, lip liner, and lip balm.

I can’t live without my Make Up For Ever lip liners—they’re insanely good. Even if I don’t put anything else on my face, I will still put on lip liner. And the Rhode Pocket blush in the shade Toasted Teddy—it’s my favourite and gives me the perfect sun-kissed look.

In terms of treatments, I used to do the Q-switch laser treatments at The Ageless Clinic when I was in Mumbai. I wouldn’t dare do it here because it’s like 10 times the price. Every time I’m back in India, I try to get some kind of laser treatment done. I get pigmentation very easily after I have any acne or even the smallest flare-up. So, it definitely helps break that down and just expedite the healing process.

I travel a fair amount, and when I’m travelling I’m out as long as the sun is. I keep reapplying my sunscreen, which can sometimes make my skin feel a little oilier. Sometimes, I’ll just cleanse one extra time during the day. I have the finest straight hair and it requires little maintenance, but it does get very frizzy on vacation. So, another thing that I do differently on holidays is use an anti-frizz serum. I recently got the Color Wow mist, which has been super helpful. No matter what I do, my hair will always, always frizz when I’m in a humid climate. So, I just spray the fuck out of it and blow-dry when I’m on vacation.

I’m a big Sephora shopper. Every time I look at my account, it’s like, oh, you need to buy five more things to keep your status. I’m like, yeah, sure, take my money. I’m pretty comfortable shopping online when it comes to skincare, but I like to buy makeup only in person unless it’s to replenish something so I can see how it looks on my skin.

The best beauty advice I’ve received is from my best friend, who saw me struggle to keep up with my routine. She just told me to just keep it simple—a good moisturiser is key and really all you need. And that’s when it actually started changing for me. I go to bed at 9 pm because I need my eight hours of sleep. So, sleep, obviously, is really important when it comes to taking care of your skin.