She may be a high-profile star, but Eva Mendes has made it clear to the public that her personal life is her personal business. Sharing two children with Ryan Gosling, she’s been prodded on it all before, and has been vocal about keeping “tight-lipped” on her family.
But seconds into chatting with Mendes, it is clear that there isn’t a whole lot of her day or natural conversation that doesn’t revolve around her family, including the family dog, Magic, who barks by her side. (She refers to him as a “loudmouth that she loves.”) This summer, the 51-year-old actress and entrepreneur is expanding the Skura Style x Eva Mendes Collection, a lifestyle brand she co-owns that’s all about “kitchen well-being.” While it may seem like an unexpected move for someone best known for red-carpet glam, Mendes is deeply invested in the project. She traces her love for a well-kept home to her Cuban upbringing, where taking pride in your space was ingrained in her from an early age.
Congrats on the line. Based on what you are posting on social media, it seems like you are excited to get it out there.
“I always thought it was a Cuban thing that we love to clean, and we love a clean kitchen. Some of my best memories from when I was little are of my mom cleaning the house over the weekend. She’d be playing a record super loudly, and it would wake me up. There was the smell of Pine-Sol and the sounds of her singing to El Puma, which was my first concert. You have to look him up! The Puma. The memories!
But I always kind of thought it was a cultural thing…my friends would be over, and then I started dating Ryan, and he would come over. He just loved it. When my family was around, we would literally take over the kitchen. It had to be clean. It was a bonding experience.
During the pandemic, I was going through sponges like crazy. I found these amazing Skura sponges and thought they were next-level, and I consider myself a professional in this category. I called my agent, connected with the brand and became a part owner, and we went from there.
Now I have my line, Skura by Eva Mendes, and I have my own packaging, which I’m just nuts for. It was so fun designing that. I have my own take on the sponges. I call it the ‘smart sponge’ because it does the thinking for you and tells you when it’s time to change it. Then I added a new product for my mom: the O.G. recycler. When I go to her house and see her little paper towels hanging, I’m just like, ‘Mom! There are other things we can do.’ So, we made a Swedish cloth. People love a Swedish cloth. It’s super exciting for me to be able to have these cool colors and patterns. Here we are, and I’m way, way too excited about it.”
I’m assuming a lot, but in the five minutes we’ve been talking, I feel like you might be a person who can’t sleep unless things are clean and organized.
“I absolutely am! I’m not going to say everything is always organized all the time, because it’s not. The other night, I just couldn’t do the dishes after a long day, and it was a full sink. I knew I was going to hate it in the morning, and I did. But, with two kids, there are times you have to let it go. And I’d rather do them than someone else! Because, of course, I’m a bit like, ‘No, I know how to do it. I have it my way, get out.’ I like everyone out of the kitchen while I’m cleaning. That’s why cleaning after hours works well for me. I’ll put the kids down and just come back and listen to a podcast or some salsa music and do it. It just feels so much better to walk into a clean kitchen in the morning. I’m a coffee girl, so I get my coffee first thing, and to see my sink clear, it’s an automatic feel-good.”
Some of my best memories are of my mom cleaning the house over the weekend.
It sounds like a lot of your mom rubbed off on you. Are there any other habits from growing up that still stick with you now?
“So many. My mother never used to buy Q-tips because we couldn’t afford them. This comes more from necessity, but my mom is the original recycler and repurposer. I get that from her. She never bought Q-tips, so she would take a bobby pin, put some toilet paper at the end, and use it as the Q-tip. Though I don’t do that now, I know I can! And I always have bobby pins on me.
She also would use cereal boxes as some kind of storage. I know every Latin person will understand this, too: Every can, anything that’s in the form of a tin can, is never thrown away. My mom would make piggy banks out of old coffee cans. She’d create room for a coin at the top, or it’s just where we kept spare change. At Christmas, we got those round blue tin cans with shortbread cookies. She had her sewing kit in there. Everything was repurposed. Even when she comes over now, she’ll see an empty box or a can, get excited, and ask if she can have it. That’s never going to change.”
That’s kind of amazing. Are there any other beauty-related things you’ve gotten from her?
“The stuff that was really important to her…I wonder how the hell she did it with four kids! I have so many photos of her in curlers—the old-school foam ones. The minute she would leave the house, whether it was to the market— we didn’t have a car, so she’d walk everywhere—she would take those suckers out, shake her head and her hair was done. Then, she put lipstick on. She wasn’t a foundation person or an eye person, but she always had her hair done and her lipstick applied.
I have definitely not carried on that tradition. I don’t know how she did it. I really don’t. Unfortunately, I just haven’t been able to do that. The thing that’s always in my head, always, is that my mother would never, ever have a facial. I had to force her to have one a couple years ago—at 80 years old. She loved it, but she wants me to spend my money on myself, not on her. She’s totally an old-school mom.
When I put moisturizer on, I hear her voice. Ever since I was a teenager, I could hear her say, ‘You always want to go up, up, up with the moisturizer.’ I don’t know where she got that from or what kind of old Cuban advice that was, but I’m always going up, up. That’s one thing that’s always stayed. Oh, you know what else? You’re making me think of these fun, old things. She always told me to take care of my elbows, which, of course, I ignored. When I was in my late 30s, early 40s, I finally got it. Sorry, mom! I have to admit, she was right.”
Hindsight is always 20-20. You’ve been vocal about beauty musts and aesthetic treatments. What are you loving right now?
“I haven’t tried Sofwave. I haven’t had time, but I hear a lot about it. I’ve been more in a quiet phase where I’m letting my skin just do what it wants to do. I am starting to get into red light again. There is this one brand I just found. I went down a YouTube rabbit hole one night, and I found this amazing woman named Lisa who runs Peach’s Skincare. She’s really a find. People don’t know about her. She makes her own products, and I’m giving her whole thing a try. It’s quite a few products, which is not very me, but she’s almost 60, and she looks incredible, so I’m listening to her.
I do want to get into using tools at home more often. I have one, but it’s not really working. I’m not seeing results, so I’d rather not talk about it. I’ve done stuff in the past my face didn’t like. All this stuff is just about trial and error…but I do love a good laser machine, and I do love a good radio-frequency machine, for sure.”
All the good stuff. Will you be able to relax this summer or take any vacation, or is it a busier time for you when the kids are out of school?
“I don’t know. I have no idea. We just go with the flow. I’m not blaming my kids, but summer is their time to be kids, and I’m really taking it in. Our little one turned nine last week, and our oldest one is 10. I know these moments are fleeting. I just want to be with them. Whatever I’m doing, as long as I’m with them and Ryan, of course, that’s where I’m happiest.”
