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Welcome to Shelf Life, where celebrities break down every last detail of their beauty routines from the highest hair on their heads to the tips of their toes. Today, model and actor Brooke Shields reveals the multi-use makeup stick she swears by, her struggles with nail growth, and her secret weapon against breakouts.
Brooke Shields and beauty have a very weird relationship. They’re kind of like ex-spouses who are hesitantly learning to be friends again years after a tumultuous divorce. If you’ve followed her decades-long modeling and acting career — which began before she was even a year old — or watched her 2023 docuseries, Pretty Baby, I don’t really need to explain it to you.
As Shields puts it, “Beauty… it's always been a job.” And it’s a job that’s placed her in uncomfortably bright spotlights and under microscopes for public consumption and scrutiny throughout her entire life. Because of this, she’s tried not to dedicate much of her off-duty time to beauty, but watching her two daughters become interested in it is starting to change things.
“It's now become more enjoyable to me from living through it with girls, young women — their appreciation of it and their techniques. I'm starting to enjoy it through them,” she tells Allure. “As I've gotten older, I'm starting to enjoy skin care and makeup more because it's a form of self-care, and the ritual of it is calming. It's nice to come back into it at this stage of life.”
Basically, Shields is in her reclamation era, catalyzed in part by her partnership with True Botanicals, which began in 2021. “It's nice because it's on my terms,” she says. “I'm not following the fad.” As part of that partnership, Shields broke down her entire beauty routine for us, including her hyper-hydrating skin-care habits, the manicure and pedicure she can’t go without, and her favorite pared-down makeup products.
Hair
Hairstylists never want me to show up [to shoots] with really clean hair because it's valuable for them. They always end up dirtying it up as much as they can with root spray or something so that my hair doesn't go flat. So I try to keep it trim, to keep it healthy, but not wash it so often.
[When I’m not working,] I try to keep it moisturized and not brush it too much so that the natural waves in my hair won't fuzz out. I like to leave it wet. If I need to style it, I'll use hot rollers.
Tim Nolan is my stylist [and colorist]. I could probably see him [for root touch-ups] every three weeks. I try to extend it if I'm not working because it's crazy expensive and it takes, like, four hours; it's a real pain.
Makeup
I try to use as few products as possible [when off-duty]. I don't put a whole face on. I use Jones Road The Face Pencil to cover dark spots or underneath my eyes a little bit, and then I use the Vapour Beauty Aura Multi-Stick. I put it on my lips, put it on my cheeks, put it on my eyes. Mascara is my main thing. I've been using Thrive Causemetics. They sent me a tube of Liquid Lash Volumizer Mascara, and it makes my eyelashes look so thick.
I need Lumify eye drops all the time because my eyes are always bloodshot, whether I've slept or not. A makeup artist taught me decades ago to put an eye drop in and immediately breathe in through your nose so the eye drop won't drip and ruin your makeup.
Skin
My main focus is hydrating because I fly a lot. I'm very active. I live in a city. The moisture is the most important part of my routine. My routine in the morning and night, usually, is pretty much the same. Sometimes the cleansing at night is more intensified because I've had makeup on in the day.
I use the True Botanicals Ginger Turmeric Cleansing Balm, which I take off with warm water and a washcloth. At night I use the Resurrection Radiance Eye Cream and the Chebula Extreme Cream. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I'll always dab a little bit more on. Every now and then, though, I'll use Moisture Lock Barrier Cream as an overnight mask.
I'll still break out every now and then. Usually, it's hormonal. I mean, at 58, you wouldn't think that, but it's true. I have combination skin, so I don't really have oily skin. It's just that my skin has been exposed to the elements and has so much makeup on and off, and it takes a toll. [When I break out,] I try my hardest not to pick. I say to my daughters, too, "Don't pick; you're going to get scars." I use tea tree oil. It's an astringent but it doesn't really strip.
I don't have a go-to place or person [for skin treatments]. I love the at-home stuff. Every now and then, I have a gift certificate to [skin-care brand] Orveda. I had one of their facials [at an event the brand hosted] this summer and I loved that facial. It was so moisturizing and calming and zen.
Nails
I have to [get a manicure] every two weeks. I was doing hard gel, but I took the hard gel off and the nightmare began with paper-thin nails. I'm trying to let them grow out. Every time I think I'm going to be able to do it, I fail miserably.
I go to a place called Rescue Spa [in New York City]. Everybody there is helping me get my nails back to a healthy place because I had the hard gel on them for so long, which looked great, but was just destroying my nails. They say the same thing. They're like, "You really have to let your nails grow out… from the end of your cuticle all the way to the top tip," because I'll start [growing them out] and then I'll get impatient and go back to get hard gel to make them longer. And I love the way they look with hard gel, I’ve got to be honest.
There was a period of time where I liked square nails with round edges. I'm trying to get more oval because I think it might make my hands look better. I can't do the coffin or the pointy [tips]. I have sort of big hands. I joke that they're masculine, but they're big.
I like Essie Ballet Slippers. And I'll use a dark burgundy for winter.
I always have more fun with my pedicure, but I recently took all the nail polish off my toes and vowed all winter not to have nail polish on them. I went to a foot doctor and got a medical pedicure, which was a revelation to me because it's very hygienic, obviously, and they address everything. There's something so satisfying about it.
[The foot doctor] was like, “Please, just give it the winter. Give your nails a break.” Once you take the nail polish off after having nail polish on for years at a time, you'd be surprised what a toll it takes on your nails. So they're growing out; they're getting healthier. I'll go back to color in the summer.
Body
[In the shower], I usually wash my hair first, put the conditioner in, and then do everything else. When I'm done with everything else, then I will then wash the conditioner out. I use Doctor Rogers Restore Body Wash, and I'll use Weleda Shaving Cream to shave my legs.
In the winter I dry out very easily, so I like [body products] that are thick. I just like moisture, moisture, moisture. The way I grew up, that was what it was. Right now, I'm going to True Botanicals Everything Rescue Balm because it's super thick.
More celebrity beauty:
- Scarlett Johansson’s Entire Beauty Routine, From Head to Toe
- The Women of The Golden Bachelor Told Us All Their Beauty Secrets
- Courteney Cox Says She Had the Best Skin of Her Life in Her 40s
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