One of the best things about Angelina Jolie’s Guerlain contract is that she’s now contractually obligated to give interviews to promote a beauty/fragrance brand, and that means Angelina has to sit there and answer questions about beauty, makeup, perfume and such. She’s historically avoided being that kind of celebrity woman, the kind who loves talking about those kinds of things. Angelina’s brand as a celebrity has been “mother of six/humanitarian” for years and years. Her idea of being a girly-girl was having someone else do her makeup and then throwing on a sack dress. So it’s fascinating to me that now, at long last, we are hearing her thoughts about all of this stuff. Angelina sat down with InStyle to discuss Guerlain and beauty and more. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:
She wasn’t into makeup as a kid: “I’m sure I had my moments when I was little where I would put makeup all over my face, but I was a bit of a tomboy. And then I was a bit of a punk. Nowadays it’s very popular to dye your hair blue, for example. In my day you bleached it and used a Sharpie [for color].”
Zahara loves makeup: “I’ve never gone to a girlfriend’s house and played makeup. I’m not one of those women who say, “Hey, let’s have a night and do each other’s hair.” I’ve never been that, but I find that really sweet. I buy a lot, especially for Z [Zahara]. She went through a period of trying different things, but she’s pretty natural. I remember she had a girlfriend over one night, and they said they were going to do dress-up and did I have any makeup? I gave them my makeup, but I wear one color red, and I have black eyeliner and mascara—I have the most boring makeup kit. And my daughter and I are different shades of brown. I now have a backup kit in case anybody wants to play
Whether she likes to play up one of her features: “It really depends. I do either dark eyes or red lips. I have very full, big features, so if I did everything, I’d look a bit like a clown. It’d be just… a lot.
How she first discovered Guerlain: “My mother [Marcheline Bertrand] wore very little makeup. But she had a few items for a special event or holiday, and they were always Guerlain. There were little scents and powders, and I would occasionally mess with them. I remember thinking, “That’s not the everyday stuff. That’s from Paris!”
Whether she wears perfume: “[When I’ve tried] on a perfume just for fun, my children have gotten upset. [They’d say,] “It doesn’t smell like you.” I wear Mon Guerlain. Before that I wore a different scent that was very random, but it had similar notes. As I was making this decision [to be the face of Mon Guerlain], I tested it with the kids. They recognized enough of it, and they liked it. I wear it, and Zahara wears it. I’m a terrible liar, so I couldn’t promote something I didn’t actually like.
Finding the time to pamper herself: “[That’s] pretty funny. I’m that person saying “Can you not all be talking to me while I’m in the shower? Can you just not open the door at least? Let me finish and then I’ll get out. Give me a second.” “Give me a second” is the thing. I think most mothers say that all the time. Which now I can’t because my kids kind of go, “One. I gave you a second.”
On social media: “It’s funny—I feel like decades ago, to be different was actually the thing you wanted. Now I think it seems to be more desired to be with the masses, to blend, or be as good as or be similar to. My children don’t really do a lot of social media. I’m hoping they’ll have room to figure out what they like before they’re told by a bunch of other people what they should like or how they’re being perceived….Beauty—everybody has a different opinion about what that is. Intellect is the most beautiful. When you see somebody who has a mind on fire, that’s sexy. A person who is empathetic and thoughtful and passionate—there’s nothing more attractive than that. There’s nothing you could wear or put on your face to cover up if your mind is blank and your heart is dark.
Being known as one of the most beautiful women in the world: “Thank you. I look in the mirror and I see that I look like my mother, and that warms me. I also see myself aging, and I love it because it means I’m alive—I’m living and getting older. Don’t love having a random dark spot from a pregnancy, sure. I see my flaws. But what I see that I like isn’t about a structure or an appearance. It’s more that I see my family in my face. I see my age.
“There’s nothing you could wear or put on your face to cover up if your mind is blank and your heart is dark…” Well, lots of dumb people coast by on their good looks, and lot of dark-hearted people are pretty too, but I know what she’s saying – if you’re dumb or mean, that sh-t will catch up to you and there will always be something ugly about you, inside and out. I also love that Angelina is In-My-Daying about hair dye. IN MY DAY really hardcore people had to bleach their hair and use Sharpies, peeps. As for the rest of it… I’ll admit, I was in heaven with this interview. I love it.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
I’m pretty sure Manic Panic and Koolaid existed in Angie’s day.
Considering it was founded in 1977, I’d say so haha.
It probably wasn’t WIDELY available for a while, but still. I like the visual of someone REALLY committing to color by sitting down and taking a marker to their bleached hair, because honestly it’s hilarious.
I remember Rave hair spray and that nauseating exclamation point perfume in middle school when your bangs had to reach the ceiling. Angie is actually only a year older than me and I kinda get the brief punk phase.
I like her message and she makes sense to me. I see my age, too, and I’m trying to appreciate it. I will ALWAYS believe that sex appeal and that certain attractiveness comes from within. I’ve seen “beautuful” people who somehow seemed off to me. I can sometimes see that glow that a confident, decent human being exudes and I find them so lovely and sexy. It’s not even about someone necessarily not being particularly intelligent that bothers me, it’s willful ignorance and superficiality in general. It vibes through and is off putting to me.
think Angie is more of the black hair type not the bold colors.
I’m older than her and we had Manic Panic even in the suburbs of Michigan back in the day.
I was going to say the exact same thing!!! Suburbs of Seattle here.
Manic panic was not permanent so resorting to bleach /marker / food coloring stuck a bit better. I learned the hard way after a surprise rain during an open stadium concert and turned entirely purple!!! Lol
right? lol maybe in her neighborhood they didn’t carry the option of color, but it was out there. She grew up in the late 80s early 90s…so ya colored hair was totally a thing lmao.
I guess she might have been sheltered to the point that it was out of her hands???
I don’t think a girl who was allowed to have her boyfriend live in her bedroom was overly sheltered.
Yeah, I had my brief punk moment and I used manic panic. I am quite a bit older than Angelina.
I was a punk in the 70’s and 80’s in southern California
We did use bleach and sharpies, also Kool aid, food and cake dye.
Manic panic wasn’t around, not even in the beauty supply stores.
Which I practically lived in.
Currently my hair is a bright Manic Panic Voodoo Blue
If I could have gotten a hold of a dye like manic panic I would have been all over it back then.
Yep I remember using food dye for some of those really out there colours. Red and blue, and therefore purple, were easy, there were hair dyes for that. But trying to go for green, yellow etc was sooo hard.
Is this bitch serious? We are the EXACT same age and pretty sure I was using Manic Pan C in high school in my hair. Sure, Ang, I guess they had that in suburban Missouri back then but not LA. She will get on a cross for anything
I’m a few years older and I certainly coloured my hair with textas. We used laundry bleach too (which did not work). I remember getting sent home from school because my hair had red streaks from textas.
She’s a badass. I’d listen to her read the phone book.
Me too! Sigh such a gorgeous woman damn!
“There’s nothing you could wear or put on your face to cover up if your mind is blank and your heart is dark.”
I love that!
Me too.
I recently re-read, The Picture of Dorian Gray, eventually it does all catch up with you. Karma is real.
My Mama used to have 2 Lipsticks by Guerlain one everyday and one for special occasions. I was fascinated by the gold packaging and red lipstick. And loved watching Mama apply it.
The movie is really good and really dark!
She is such a deep woman. I love her for it.
What a treat. Angelina talking about makeup and “Just give me a second!” What mother hasn’t said that? I’m a diehard Angie stan.
The first photo in that article of just her face took my breath away. She has one of the most beautiful faces.
I love everything about how she looked at this event. Love that she chose a pale lip, the focus is on her beautiful eyes.
I completely agree! This is my favorite makeup on her because the light lip accentuates her eyes so much. I get that she likes to play up her lips sometimes, but her eyes are her best feature, IMO.
She is damn to gorgeous.
She does and she really does love like her mother and very little like her father. As we say in the South “a spitting image”.
She is a mix of her parents. Her father was much prettier than her mother.
Nice interview!
Great interview, I like that she seems to be okay with aging.
She’s much more beautiful in her 40s than she was in her 20s.
Oh, yes!
I think she was always gorgeous. I had a major girl crush on her before Pitt era. She was so powerful. She’s more feminine now. But she’s just beautiful cos she isn’t trying to be sexy kitten. She knows that beauty comes from within.
Also, love her take on social media. I don’t wanna blend. I wanna have an opinion. I wanna learn. I don’t want us to become zombies
She was very pretty in her 20s to mid-30s. But true beauty comes with inner assurance and confidence, and that is only reached through maturity, IMO. She was pretty then, she is beautiful now.
I think she is beautiful in a different way now in her 40s than her 20s and 30s. Her face is gorgeous and she holds herself with a calm poise, but she often looks a bit frail and tired. Would love to see her looking stronger and healthier after getting more fresh air and exercise, and eating nourishing food.
I mean, I think she was a knockout in her 20s, but I think she’s really aged into her features beautifully.
Uhhhh wasn’t her day also Manic Panic’s heyday?
I thought so too – she and I are close in age, and I don’t remember anyone ever using a Sharpie. There were lots of other options.
I’m not that into makeup either, I usually throw on a little mascara and call it a day unless I’m going out somewhere. I think her best look though is the darker eye makeup and pale lip color, I don’t like it as much when she wears the red lipstick.
I’m so used to the serious Angelina who talks about her humanitarian work all the time that it’s actually refreshing to hear her talk about beauty stuff. I love how she talks about aging and getting older and embracing it instead of trying to look younger like a lot of celebrity women are doing nowadays. That’s how i see her too every time i see a photo of her, you can tell she’s aging but beautifully and gracefully!
And that one second counting makes me laugh because my niece whom i babysit sometimes does the exact same thing, when i tell her to give me a minute, she will literally time me and let me know it’s been a minute! I really like this interview of her. So cute!
Hallelujah – we finally get to hear about Angelina’s secret to that flawless glowing skin.
And I soo love the dig to other actresses/actors who promotes everything for money, with her sentence about how she is a bad liar so she can only promote products she will actually wear.
I think it’s a nice interview and all but I chuckled at that quote because I don’t think actors can be bad liars.
It’s almost a pre-requisite to acting : Lying and convince everyone that you’re telling the truth.
So i took that with a grain of salt because I might be petty. But I enjoyed the interview, nonetheless 😋
My God, that face.
I’d so appreciate it if she talked about her skin routine. I know though that I wouldn’t be able to afford the stuff she uses. x)
She says she’s been going to the same dermatologisr since she was 11. Rhonda Rand
11!?
I imagine it was for pre teen acne
It was for a scar. Her mom brought her…
“And my daughter and I are different shades of brown”
I love that she said that instead of “I’m white and she’s black.”
But she’s pale white and certainly not brown?
Maybe she means she’s café au lait with a small shot of café and a whole lot of lait. Whatever. I loved her description.
No skin is truly white. Using the expression “different shades of brown” is meant to not distance her daughter from her. My daughter inherited her father’s pale skin and my son inherited my olive skin and he’s much darker than I am owing to sun exposure and I do the same thing when discussing their skin tones.
Everyone is descended from the Middle East and Africa as humans. So we sort of all are brown. We didn’t evolve from so called white people.
I’m with you @Carmen
I love how she put it too. We take things so literal in race conscious America, terms like black and white and brown and red, etc, get tossed around. The reality is race is just a social construct. It’s not real. There’s one race. It’s homosapiens. If the Neanderthal had survived and not been absorbed into homosapiens there’d be two. But alas they’ve gone the way of the dinosaur. We are all on the beige to deep brown spectrum. Beige is a shade of brown.
To me, Angelina’s comment about makeup, and her stuff being boring and being conscious of having all different shades for her daughters when they started to play, was the most important.
Once I went on a cruise with a group from my company and I was only one of like 3 people of color there, amd the only African American- we took a group photo – about 25 people and the photog stood way back to get us all. I get the pic a month later in email and I’m looking at all these tiny dots of beige, light brown and tan and I literally couldn’t find ME. I tried to recall where I was standing, and zoomed in and there I was. It was true everyone was/is just shades of brown.
Accepting that reality doesn’t mean you’re ignorant to racism and the history of it, I’m sure the Jolie Pitt kids know all about that -as well as being respectful and proud of their own backgrounds and cultures.
Africa, Isabelle, not the Middle East. Africa.
yeah…. different shades would have been sufficient, shes not brown at all unless i’m missing something here.
I’m white (Canadian with German and French ancestry) and guess what? When I hold my arm next to my white shirt – It becomes obvious that I am a very pale brown, rather than white. I love this statement, and hope it becomes more popular – it might be sort of healing or at least maybe change the conversation on race?
What do you think you’re missing?
…also, it might ‘have been sufficient,’ for you – but these are her words and it’s how she sees it, not you.
If you go into the makeup aisle in any store, whether Walgreens or Nordstrom or Saks, the makeup bases are indeed all shades of brown. Cream and beige are the palest shades of off white with brown in it.
So ease up. It’s cool that’s how she sees it.
You want to see it differently, have at.
Everyone didn’t make this statement so if it applies to you and yours then great. I don’t think that this statement applies to her, that all I’m saying. I know brown when I see it, and I’m not insinuating that none African descendant can be brownish. Lol
Good Lord give it a rest, anything to attack her.
They are her words, her children, in her family those are the words they say. Therefore they are the correct words for her to say
We used kool aid to dye our hair.
“I look in the mirror and I see that I look like my mother, and that warms me. I also see myself aging, and I love it because it means I’m alive—I’m living and getting older.” Both of these statements resonate with me. I lost my mother 7 years ago and I see more and more of her in my face as I age and it’s so bittersweet. I’ve also lost friends when they were in their 20s and 30s so I see aging as such a privilege. Love her.
She does resemble her Mother a lot. Her Mum was also beautiful.
I do like AJ when she talks about accepting aging. Her Mum passed very young.
AJ seems to be a full grown Adult. Which is pretty rare in Hollywood.
And, I think Jon Voight was a complete failure as a Father. Her Mum did the heavy lifting in raising their kids.
Team AJ.
She is so beautiful, until you see her back. She has otherwise flawless skin and those tattoos are really so ugly.
Remember when it was edgy to get tattoos? Then suddenly sorority girls and older moms had them. I am hoping the edgy look will soon be NO TATOOS.
I believe her tattoos have personal significance for her so I assume she’s ok with how they look too, otherwise she could easily have lasered them off and hidden under sack dresses for the rest of her life. Anyway, her ink habit started when she was very young, I doubt she cares whether they’re trendy, ever.
She’s recently added to those tats that, I think, are Cambodian (I might be mistaken, but they are from one of the Far East countries she loves and has a relationship with). So she started a few years ago and keeps on adding to them. I believe some of all of them are prayers.
@ThenThereIsThat
I love her tats and I am an older mum (42) with tats. Sorry to offend your sense of style 😎
Afterthought: you do sound like my own 76 year old mum.
I agree with you that I find tattoos mostly unattractive, but then I’m 61 years old and tats were JUST beginning to creep into culture when I was young. I also know that many young people at least in the US find them attractive and after all, that’s the main goal, right?
I’m normally not a big fan of tattoos, but I think AJ’s are more artistic and better done than most. Aesthetically I do think it would have been preferable to have them on her back only, which could then be covered or uncovered depending on the event. With very thin limbs and no muscle tone, the ones on her arms are not aging well, and look a bit jarring in ball gowns imo. And while I appreciated her speaking philosophically about aging, she does a whole lot of botox for one who talks a good talk on the subject. Which just means she’s human, of course.
@tracking
Have you read some place where Angelina says she “does a whole lot of botox?” I’ve seen her in person, and she has a beautiful clear complexion and a very expressive face, with smile lines and crinkles by her eyes when she laughs.
So what are you referring to?
Last time I checked, botox was known for immobilizing and freezing the face. Though there are actresses whose botox faces have been called out, and even interfered with their performances (we all know their names, Sandra as recently as the Oscars, Nicole Kidman, Courtney Cox, Olivia Munn, Megan Fox a few yrs ago) ….Angelina has never been.
In fact me and gifs are made of her expressions in her action films, one of which is Wanted when she’s firing in that drugstore her frown is so deep she looks demonic and totally bad azz. Then there’s Mal and her lively eyebrow trolling and twinkles.
So yea, let’s not use cosmetic procedures we don’t know about, as a weapon against women we personally irrationally dislike. 1) it’s unbecoming and says more about us, and 2) it’s impossible to know unless you’re Joan Rivers or Kidman circa 2013. If it’s impossible to tell, how would know and more importantly what’s the use of even mentioning it if the person looks no different and their face is just as expressive.
That means it’s either great work or no work. Either way the person tagging this kind of woman as a botox OD’er just looks FOS ans snipey.
Let’s stop the bitter.
I feel the opposite. I love her tattoos because they have meaning, especially the ones on her back, they’re prayers. This from someone who has no tattoos.
I don’t agree at all. I think her back tattoos are really beautiful, and I don’t think they make her look anything like a sorority girl.
Considering that some of her tattoos were done without a modern tattoo gun – which takes more time and is more painful – she is far, far away from being a ‘sorority cool girl’. Angelina’s tats are serious and meaningful to her.
“And my daughter and I are different shades of brown.” She just could have said my daughter and I have different complexions and I want her to feel included and thought of in her makeup hobby so I bought a makeup kit to suit her beautiful complexion….
Nah angelina you’re not brown and that type of color blindness is detrimental for adopted kids and or biracial kids…. lets not UNSEE our difference but try to be accommodating and seen. It seems like she never wants to get any sun or tan and adores that stark white pale Victorian look…. BUT I know she meant well tho….lol
Whether she likes to play up one of her features: “It really depends. I do either dark eyes or red lips. I have very full, big features, so if I did everything, I’d look a bit like a clown. It’d be just… a lot. —- THIS i totally got what she meant by this like she has high full cheekbones and lips (i have the same) and a full face of intense lip color and eyes and blush is a hot damn mess of a clown…lol
I doubt that she adores the “victorian stark white look”. More that she doesn’t sit in the sun & tan, because she is very aware of skin cancer, given she has BRACA gene & heightens her risk for all cancers. Her Grandfather died of skin cancer & she’s lost all her mother’s side of the family to cancer sans herself, brother & two cousins.
Ash-
Me too. High cheekbones, big eyes, full lips. I have to pick a feature and go with it or I start to look like I should be working at a makeup counter in the 80s.
I usually go with a rich lip and a simple eye-mostly because eyeliner never feels that flattering on me.
Yeah riiiiiight @ash I’m sure Angelina tries to “unsee difference.” (Eyeroll) come. On. This is Angelina Jolie we’re talking about.
This is the woman who talks non stop about her kids background, culture and instilling pride, and language and love of home in them all.
She literally is quoted as saying she and her daughter are ‘different shades,’ yet you seem to have not comprehended those words on the page.
If she’s telling you they’re different shades of brown, that is BOTH:
*SEEING COLOR*
and *SEEING DIFFERENCE.* Hello.
Plus, not to belabor the main point but she’s referring to makeup and the correct shades she needs to have so all of her children and their friends can play. She’s doing the opposite of what you claim in her post. She’s seeing difference, and then literally buying different colors. You suggest somethng else.
I don’t have super strong features, but I don’t really like the Kardashian/Instagram look (where everything is contoured and overdone) on myself. I usually pick one or two features – either eyes or lips or strong brows with fresh/rosy cheeks.
I also have similar feelings about ‘special’ make up. I mean, drugstore products are fine… but my HOURGLASS face thingies are special! Using them makes me so happy.
I love this interview, and that she’s been visiting the same Dermatologist since she was 11. The pics taken by Mathieu Cesar for the Guerlain promo have been amazing, the one of her in the pink Giambattista Valli pink dress for Vogue Russia is so cute.
I saw that photo! She look so young and fresh and very pretty in pink! I can’t wait to see the enitre photoshoot outcome and the commercial ad for this perfume.
We used to punk our hair into spikes with egg whites. Is that how they still do it?
Probably organic eggs now 🙂
In my days we used sugar water or soap bars for punk hair. I don’t know what the cool kids are doing now, probably something more professional they learn from YouTube.
For the really big spikes we used wire from hangers as the frame work then clear gelatin to stiffen. This was for the stuff we’d want to last for days or weeks.
But yeah egg whites worked for little spikes
A guy I went to school with used toothpaste. He had a large spiky Mohawk.
“When you see somebody who has a mind on fire, that’s sexy. A person who is empathetic and thoughtful and passionate—there’s nothing more attractive than that. ”
I would add one more thing to put the “cherry on the top”: a great sense of humor.
Yes! Funny people are so attractive. It shows quick wit and a lack of ego. I love self deprecating humor and sarcasm.
In my day Sharpies only came in black.
Manic Panic washed out too fast or else it ran whenever you got sweaty or more than a bit moist. I mostly used Sharpies and yes it took for goddamned ever, which is why I made my friends help me and why I managed to have “color- melt” or “oilslick” or “mermaid” hair (or whatever else you want to call it) 25 years before you could just go somewhere and PAY someone to do it to you. There was also a brand of highlighter that grabbed pretty well, too. I could never get Kool-Aid to stay, except for the red kind.
Now I want to yell at a kid to get off my lawn. Also, I still think it’s weird that AJ and BP split up. I mean, I get it…. but…. I dunno.
Guerlain tests on animals.
Not entirely correct. It is true that Guerlain products are not cruelty free. However, they do not test on animals themselves, they employ independent labratories for testing for the Asian market.
So they employ animal torturers? Same difference.
Then they’re dead to me.
That’s fair.
I love the interview. She really comes across as grounded and wise. Substance and beauty.
effing love her!
Nice read but but seeing a whole picture of things is important Angie you may lack a bit of that many of us do…
“I see my family in my face.”
I adore this. She will be quoted ad infinitum.
I LOVE that she said different shades of brown.
That is EXACTLY what I say to my bi-racial adopted daughter. She loves to compare our skin tones. No one is white. No one is black. We all have myriads of colors mixed together and the colors darken and lighten throughout the year no matter what tone you begin with!
I was quite a punk in the mid-late 80’s in Dallas, Tx and the only hair dyes were make your own like koolaid and sharpies. Don’t ask me why a major city didn’t have it, but trust- we didn’t. So I believe her.
I am SO in love with Angelina ❤ She inspires me to do what I can – however simple or small – to help others. She reminds that its okay that I don’t look like or act like everyone else around me. She exemplifies the truth that women can be happy with or without a man/partner. And, let’s face it, she is an incredibly beautiful woman 😍 I will admit that I am not a huge fan of her films but I am a fan of her as an individual.
My daughter does that one second thing. That made me chuckle.
after all the crap headlines about crap people doing crap things and ugly snarky gossip and everything…. any new ad or movie or promotion that brings new AJ interviews and pics is nice. i’m a total Stan for her, fine, but her face, freshness, poise is like an antidepressant to me.