What can’t Keke Palmer do?
The star is an an award-winning actress, host, singer, producer, podcaster, author, mother and everything in between. But if there’s one thing she is working on getting better at, like the rest of us, it would be increasing her water consumption. While many are doling out big bucks for trendy cups to get an adequate amount of H20, Palmer has found the best solution to dehydration in a electrolyte drink mix.
“I have 10 of them in my bag,” Palmer tells ESSENCE of her love for Liquid I.V.’s popular mix packets that help people hydrate faster, all without an ounce of sugar. “I can just use them throughout the day, throughout the week, especially before my training and after my training just to replenish myself. So they’re accessible, easy, tasty, and they don’t come with all the trash stuff that you don’t want.”
And a hydrated Palmer is certainly Palmer at her best. She knows well the importance of feeling her best, as the renaissance woman has to wear a lot of hats well, none more important to her than being mom to son Leo, who recently turned 1.
“It made me stronger in all these other ways I didn’t know I had to be where it pertains to creating more balance and more time for myself, creating more fun for myself and doing things that feel good for me so that I can be the best mom that I can be,” she says of taking on the role of mother, or as she would say, “motha.”
ESSENCE chatted with our fave about the benefits of all things Liquid I.V., but we also got deeper than a tall glass of water about motherhood, 2024 resolutions and the key to career longevity now that the Emmy winner (the first Black woman to win for Outstanding Host for a Game Show by the way) is getting the flowers she deserves 22 years into her red hot career.
ESSENCE: The girls are going to great lengths to get more serious about water consumption these days. I’m sure you’ve seen all the cups people are buying and carrying everywhere with them to keep them motivated. Are you getting your liters in and how is Liquid I.V. helping in that effort?
Keke Palmer: Well, first of all, I think it makes drinking water a little bit more fun. I don’t mean to be the person that is like, “Water’s boring to drink.” But it is a bit at times. So I think, A, it spices it up. It gives it some really good flavor, but no sugar. So none of those extra things that you sometimes get when you’re trying to up your intake of electrolytes. Sometimes it has a lot of that negative stuff added to it, and that’s not what you get with Liquid I.V. But then you still get three times the electrolytes that you would from the leading sports drink.
What do you notice about yourself when you don’t feel hydrated? For me, for example, I feel disoriented and hungry, but it’s really thirst.
Right? I think that’s the same thing for me, right? I feel hungry. I remember talking to a trainer about that when they were saying that when you think you’re hungry, you’re actually not hungry, you’re thirsty, and it’s because you’re dehydrated. So I think that’s the main thing. I feel lethargic, you know what I mean? So when you’re feeling lethargic, it also changes your mood, meaning you maybe don’t have as much patience as you usually would. You’re really tired, you’re sleepy, even though you might’ve gotten eight hours of rest. You’re just not getting that boost that you need. And so it helps obviously to drink more water, but then also to get a ritual that makes drinking water easier. And then also can speed up the speedometer, I guess, of getting hydrated quicker, making that jump a little bit easier. And so I think that’s for me, where obviously Liquid I.V. comes in.
Would you say you are a resolution girly? If so, what did you come into 2024 aiming to do differently?
I think I’m a resolution girly in spirit and in ritual. So for instance, this year my little sister had us go onto the table and eat grapes and make wishes or something. It was this thing going around TikTok and she’s super Gen Z, so I was with her on that resolution making. She also got me into the habit of making a mood board of all the things that I wanted this year, to write it down and then visualize it. And so some of that stuff is year-round stuff and some of it is typical resolution things, but I think for me personally, the thing that I’ve always done all my life is just trying to be better each year.
I think for me, coming into this year was all about balance, having more fun, getting more in touch with my childlike self. The part of me that isn’t always ridden with responsibilities and just being this mature person, but also giving myself the opportunity to kind of let my hair hang down.
And I think my son brought a lot of that into my life, even though he brought a great big responsibility of being a mother to my world. With that also came like, well, in order to be a good mom, I have to be happy with myself.
How do you prioritize self-care? What are the things that help you unwind and free yourself of stress and tension?
Well, I love baths. I’m big on baths. That helps me unwind. I always like to get a facial, massage. I like to work out and I like to have a good workout in my schedule. Some of it is for work, obviously, but a lot of it to me, I try to treat myself almost like an athlete in a lot of ways. And so I try to work out in the morning and then maybe I’ll do a Pilates class or something else in the latter half of the day.
I think sometimes you can be hard on yourself because you’ll be better at it for the first six months and then you might fall off the next six months. And so I’m patient with myself as well, but I think I’ve gotten really into a good groove of rituals too. I really take my time with my skin and washing my face and getting myself wound down for the night, and I take my vitamins and I have my ritual when I get up in the morning before my workout where I drink my water, put my Liquid I.V. in. I do all these things.
You wear so many hats as an actress, TV host, producer, podcaster, and musician, and you balance all of that with raising your son. I know you just touched on it a bit earlier, but what has motherhood taught you about yourself?
Yeah, I mean really taught me to love myself more because I really want to be the best mom I can be, but the only way that you can be the best mom you can be or the best anything you can be in life is if you’re mastering yourself. So for me, it’s all about the mastery of me. Where it pertains to my career, it’s always been there to a certain extent, but even as much as I love my career, I don’t love it as much as my son. So my son opened up a different level of my love towards something that calls me to be my very best self, even in a greater way than my love for my family has, or my love for my career has. My love for my son it is the difference between what I mean by playing football and winning a Super Bowl.
You’ve been cultivating your career since you were a kid and you just won an Emmy, your second. That’s major. Congratulations!
Thank you so much.
What’s been the key to your staying power?
I think patience and persistence, and then just consistency because people aren’t always applauding you. You’re not always getting awards. People aren’t always engaged. That’s just the way it is with life. I think it’s obviously a little bit more necessary or difficult when it’s not there when it comes to a public facing career because you kind of need people to be engaged with it in order to hear what you’re saying or know what you’re saying or for you to get jobs and things. So it can be easy to just give up or not feel like, “Man, I should keep going.” But I think my love for it and the freedom that I get in entertaining, like it would be my hobby if it wasn’t my career, that love has kept me going. That’s what’s helped me to sustain through the different ebbs and flows and evolutions of my career.
