on her new gig with Caress, beauty and wellness tips, and advice to young women

We had a chance to sit down with Kat Graham, known for her badass role as "Bonnie Bennett" on the Vampire Diaries, for her debut album Roxbury drive, and now as the new face of Caress.

If you were to start every day with an intention, what would it be?

To elevate the consciousness of the world so we're more aware of how we treat each other, how we treat ourselves, and how we treat our world.

Congrats on becoming a brand ambassador for Caress! Can you tell us more about your partnership?

For the online, empowerment campaign, the hashtags are 'Forever Queen' and 'Yas Queen.' It's also a launch of a new technology in body wash that is super sophisticated. It's touch activated, where these microscopic pearls still exist on you after the shower and all you have to do is rub them and they burst and all these amazing smells of the body wash come right back like they never left. It's all about releasing your power into the world throughout the day and still feeling like you can take on the world and your inner queen. Read more here.

What makes you feel empowered?

Remembering who I am.

What's your fitness and health regimen like?

I try to run every day. I don't believe in eating animals. My regimen with food is I try and keep it balanced. I try and have something with a lot of protein and try to make sure that I match that with my greens. I love, love food and I believe in having a healthy appetite.

How do you maintain flawless skin?

I drink a good amount of water. I also take off my makeup before I go to sleep, which is really, really important. It doesn't matter if you don't think you're wearing makeup. I also have naturally pretty good genetics, but I take advantage of that by making sure I'm using products that promote moisture in the skin throughout the day. I moisturize before I even put my makeup on and make sure that I have set that set into my skin so throughout the day, when my makeup is being set it, it creates an even more natural face beat so it doesn't look like my face is caked on. I'm really not into that look and I want to be relatable to my girls.

What are some of your favorite beauty must-haves?

I have to have a lot of color, so it makes sense that I've been working with Wet & Wild. I need to have color options constantly. I need to know that I have every single lip color I want or every single eye color I want.

How is your style different from Bonnie's on the Vampire Diaries?

It's completely different. It's interesting being an actor because you need to lose the self-ego about "Well, I would never wear that," because I know a lot of actors that won't wear it so they won't have their character wear it. At one point, wardrobe pulled out some patent boots or something like that because they know I'm really into fashion and I'm a bit flamboyant and eccentric with what I wear. And I said, "You know, that's just not Bonnie." I want to always maintain the character's integrity. Her style is very specific to her. Go-to Bonnie is embroiled shirts and kind of free-people wardrobe. I wear bustiers and high-waisted pants. I just can't compare the two. It's not fair to Bonnie.

What advice do you have for young women?

We have to stop caring what people think and stop giving our power away. We don't need to be quiet and you can still be loud and a force - powerful and fierce - and still be a sweet person. You can be that without losing your intention of what you are trying to get across to the world. Don't be afraid of your own power because we are women. If we didn't exist, neither would the rest of the world. I have this song that I wrote called "women," and I actually haven't recorded it yet but its really cool. It's "conditions outdated by men we created," and the reality is we are beyond powerful and I hope that I am giving that out with all of this Caress messaging about Inner Queen and True Power. It's so much deeper than just shower gel. It's about how it makes you feel and about what it represents and just being a fighter - a fighter for yourself.