In the head-spinning age of multistep skin-care routines and mic-drop makeup launches, The One is a space for minimalists to sound off on a single beauty product that has had a longtime spot in their carefully curated routines.

When Mekdela Maskal, a media activist who occasionally lends her face to brands such as Nu Swim and Subrina Heyink Vintage, relocated from from New York to Northern California last June, she was seeking a deeper connection to the land. Now, when she’s not working from her computer, her days are spent plotting a garden, rehabilitating the soil, and tending to her two new puppies. It’s a slower pace of life—and one that aligns with her meditative beauty philosophy. “I definitely think about my routine ritualistically and what I want to spend time doing,” she says. Emphasizing the practice over the end result, she relishes massaging her visage with oils after a steamy shower, say, or luxuriating in the frankincense scent of her go-to multipurpose soap from beauty shop On & On in Hanalei, Hawaii. 

“We use frankincense in ceremonies, so the smell brings family and history and ritual to mind,” notes Maskal, who was raised by Eritrean and Ethiopian parents in a town not far from her new Grass Valley home. (A whiff of it last spring was also, she happily notes, proof that she had recovered her sense of smell after contracting COVID-19.) Now, the heady cleanser elevates her mundane tasks: She has one near every sink (to squeeze onto her skin, into the bath, or when washing her delicates) and even keeps a palm-size two-ounce bottle in her car to use at a gas station or after going for a dip in the nearby Yuba River. “It doesn’t just feel like I’m just cleaning my hands, but also cleansing the space and the environment,” muses Maskal. “It just makes everything feel so special.”

Below, shop Mekdela Maskal’s The One.