Jonathan Van Ness: "If Someone Tells You to Look a Certain Way, Question That Implicitly"

You probably already knew Van Ness was a cheerleader in college. (Check his Instagram page for proof.) But it wasn't all glitter and spirit fingers. "When I was 19, and was very boy-identified, I couldn't really speak about how suppressive your [beauty choices] were in cheer," they said. "There were really rigid grooming rules. Your hair couldn't touch your ears, so you had to keep it short. You had to go get spray tans because they wanted you to be very tanned-looking. It was very weird, honey. That's not where I learned about beauty. It was more that polyester doesn't look great on anyone, and if anyone tells you that you have to look a certain way, question that implicitly — that would be what I learned from my cheer days."

"Any company with sustainability and reducing their carbon footprint at the forefront of their mission is great," Van Ness said. "It's all about the way we come together and make small decisions toward a greener future."

What does that look like for him, exactly? It means reusing glass water bottles, not throwing away uneaten food, stocking up on travel-size beauty products "so that I'm not buying multiple big containers of things that get taken away at the airport." Oh, and then there's scraping every last remnant from inside the product (which "is actually a lot more than you think," they noted). "That way, you are cleaning the inside of the bottle, making sure whatever product is on the inside of that packaging isn't going to contaminate the recycling of other products you're trying to recycle."

They also partnered with Getaround, a peer-to-peer car-sharing app that lets you list your own or ride with others right in your neighborhood. "It reduces the carbon emissions so greatly," they said. "For every car that we get involved in ride share, it takes more cars off the road. It also makes car ownership more accessible to people in varied economic rates."