Phenomenon is the high-gloss phrase for a 22-year-old mega-star capable of shutting down a Met Gala red carpet before stealing Spider-Man’s heart in a summer movie. But, to borrow a word from Maya Angelou, Zendaya is a phenomenal woman. The Oakland-born performer has the magnetism to sway “a hive of honeybees”; she doesn’t need to “shout or jump about or have to talk real loud” (on Instagram or otherwise) to keep the globe captivated. True, unlike the poem’s curvier protagonist, Zendaya had the figure of a fashion model, as she fell onto the sofa in a Beverly Hills suite Thursday, dressed in an off-the-shoulder tropical-print party dress. But don’t try to get away with excessive photo manipulation. Perfect—at least the manufactured, unachievable kind—is the enemy of good in her book.

Lancôme has just tapped the 22-year-old as its latest ambassador, making her the brand’s youngest face at the moment, in a year already packed with important moments, including a planned HBO series called Euphoria and another Spider-Man feature. “I’m stepping into this new phase of my career and my life,” she says, no longer the precocious powerhouse who starred in a Disney Channel show for three years. Collaboration with a legacy brand whose spokespeople include Isabella Rossellini and Lupita Nyong’o—”Hello!” Zendaya trills, referring to the heavyweight roster, is a sign of maturation. “It’s for a woman, Zendaya,” she explains. “It’s me finding out what that means.”

The actor reflects on the tools she uses to stay grounded (more Harry Potter than yoga), the everyday glamour of her first beauty icons, and the reverberation of the 2015 Academy Awards, when a commentator noticed Zendaya’s sideswept ‘locks and remarked that she smells “like patchouli oil or weed”—catapulting the then-18-year-old and her measured, thoughtful response into the news cycle. Since then, people have started paying attention.

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