Here is Natalie Portman’s September cover of Elle South Africa. It’s a beautiful cover, right? It’s soft, but I like Portman’s expression here especially. Natalie is currently promoting various things, like her modeling contract with Dior Beauty, and she’s the current face of Miss Dior Eau de Parfum. To promote the contract, Natalie chatted about beauty, makeup, perfume and more with The Cut. I enjoyed this piece! You can read it here. Some highlights:
She never thinks that much about external beauty: “I was lucky enough to have my mom never really talk to me about external beauty in any way. She was always focused on being a good person and kindness. It was really how you behaved and feel about yourself and not to try to look a certain way for other people. It’s nice because it made me never care that much. Maybe I should have. I always have makeup artists being like, “You’re so easy.” I don’t say anything, I just let them do their thing. You’re a professional. Thanks. I look better than I did before. I don’t intervene as much because I don’t have a specific thing I am trying to achieve. I’m just happy to have great artist do their art.
The time spent on getting beautiful: “I do get upset by the disparity between actresses and actors. When I go to a question-and-answer session, I have to go through two hours of makeup. The actor gets to roll out of bed. That really bums me out. I’ve spent a lot of time getting hair and makeup done in my life. I could have written five books in that time — not that I would have. But it does feel like a lot of that time could be spent doing other positive things.
When she sees celebrities deliberately not wearing makeup: “I love it. I think it’s great. It’s nice to see what people are like naturally. I have done no makeup for professional events, and it’s great. I do it often for life. But it’s fun and artistic to get to play with makeup, it’s another way of express yourself. It’s like the way I feel about feminism — women should be however they want to be. If you don’t want to wear makeup, no one should make you feel like you’re less than. If you want to wear a lot, they also shouldn’t make you feel less than. I don’t feel like we should judge anyone for doing what they think feels good. A woman should follow her own desire.”
Veganism & skincare: “I’m vegan and I found my skin is much, much better than when I was a vegetarian. I cut out dairy and eggs, and I never had a breakout after. That was definitely a discovery. It’s personal; everyone has different sensitivity. I also did it when I was 30, so it might have been an age thing.
I like what she says about no-judgment for women who don’t wear makeup and for women wear a lot. I’ll admit it – I don’t wear makeup and I judge women who need hours to make themselves “beautiful.” When I hear about women who spend an hour or longer just to “get ready” for their day, I always feel like… couldn’t that time be better spent? It’s part of the pink tax, the tax we pay as women in society, that our time and productivity is being eaten up by “beauty.” That being said, I do think women should be free to do whatever – it is a choice, and if you choose to spend hours on your beauty routine, so be it, and you should have that right.
Update: I bungled the quote about vegan skincare, my bad, I fixed it.
Photos courtesy of WENN, cover courtesy of Elle South Africa.
The orange peasant outfit is terrible!
I agree, but I think some different shoes and hair would improve it. Maybe some strappy wedges and half-up, messy curly do and some hoop earrings?
Color and style look like mid-1970s.
Natalie’s skin did not look good at Telluride. Maybe because she was standing beside Angelina Jolie who has exquisite skin for woman of 42.
The boho look Natalie is rocking does not work for her.
I’m confused. So she was vegetarian and became vegan and her skin improved? Or did her skin get worse after she became vegan. Help. I’ve read it 3 times.
It’s a mistake, I looked up the article and this makes way more sense:
“I’m vegan and I found my skin is much, much better than when I was a vegetarian. [I] cut out dairy and eggs, and I never had a breakout after.”
So she credits the vegan diet over the vegetarian one.
Thank you – I can’t figure it out either!
To each their own, but I side eye people who are vegan in France, a country that really respects animals and its farmers. Isn’t it more important to support sustainable agriculture and artisans than an arbitrary ideal where animals roam free? Ok, seeing myself to the door because I know all the vegans hate me.
Well… there are people on both sides who are ALWAYS gunning for a fight. And the whole “here’s my unpopular opinion and I know people will hate it” doesn’t really work for me but…
There is a worthwhile debate in the question of whether it’s more responsible to eat locally and ethically raised meat, than to eat a piece of fruit that was grown thousands of miles away and shipped to where you are from a farm that more or less employs slave labour.
BUT there is also the fact that lecturing, bullying, and trying to start fights changes almost no one’s mind (not that you’re doing that, Ellis). I think if people set reasonable goals that try to help, that’s much better than doing nothing. I support people who are vegan for whatever reasons they want, I support people who try to shop at farmer’s markets, I support people who seek out free-range eggs or organic meat.
I try to do my best. I certainly know the kind of vegans who unhelpfully lecture, just as I know omnivores who unhelpfully lecture. I think both sides can find some common ground.
Literally lol about the lecturers on any side finding common ground. Although I certainly love to throw down on the internet (relative to IRL), I would never ever lecture anyone IRL.
Really respects animals? Where do you think pate comes from?
Also, not everyone is vegetarian for environmental or heath reasons, but simply because they don’t agree with killing animals for food.
I assume you mean foie gras, and not just pate.
Yep. Also, there’s no humane way to kill someone who doesn’t want to die. No one would find the “humane farmers'” methods humane if I chose to kill my dog this way then she was dying of cancer….and by this way, I mean being hung from the ceiling and having her throat slit after standing in line and watching other animals die. No, she died peacefully at home, in my arms, after having a big last meal of her favorite foods.
Not everybody can handle dairy and eggs., and her skin is telling her loud and clear that she’s one of them. There are French vegans…. it’s not impossible and you don’t get thrown in the Seine for it.
Actually, people have been experimenting for a while with vegan cheese made the old-fashioned way, with cultures like dairy cheese but just starting with a different base. There are even books about it. Hey, if Ben&Jerry can make wonderfully junky nondairy ice cream based on almond milk – anything is possible.
As far as ethics are concerned – I don’t think the French approach to how milk is produced would persuade a vegan who objects to that. They’re still depriving the calf of the milk and I doubt they keep too many of the male calves.
. Kindly farmers who treat the animals well until they kill them are better than vicious ones, of course, in any country. There are carnivores who are careful to know who actually raises the animals they eat and how they are treated in life and how they are killed. Likewise for egg production. They look for happy free-ranging chickens instead of ones stuck warehoused in some factory farm. But there are other reasons not to eat dairy or egg, it’s not all about how the animals are treated although that’s part of it for many people who eat vegan.
Another fun fact: one of the most creative producers of really good gluten-free pasta for many years has been Italy. Seems they have a growing celiac population but are driven to provide pasta for everybody. So they do. They use really interesting and tasty combinations.
Interestingly a blended omnivorous diet has a lower environmental impact than a solely vegetarian or even more impactful vegan.
This is because a lot of plant foods that are nutritionally dense are expensive to grow – almonds and avocados for example.
The benefit goes down as you increase from something like 20-30% animal products to a higher lever though.
“France, a country that really respects animals and its farmers. Isn’t it more important to support sustainable agriculture”
Sorry to break your dreams, but something like 90% of agriculture in France is industrial, with 1000-something cows, chicken, pigs etc in tiny cages, with absolutely zero respect for animals or sustainable spirit. There is plenty of scandals about animals tortured in french exploitations.
(I don’t even speak about corrida or foie gras)
I’ve heard people say that their skin improved when they became vegan or vegetarian, but for me it was the other way around. I was a vegetarian for a long time and when I started eating meat again my skin really improved.
For me, cutting out dairy makes such a big difference. It’s amazing. I cannot get away with eating the tiniest amount. Butter makes me cough for days, milk / cheese give me pimples the next day. In severe cases I will even scratch my skin bloody, mostly around my throat. Crazy. Similar rules apply to sugar intake.
I’m not sure about eggs but I have quite a bunch of vegan friends and they tell me the most amazing stories of how they got rid of health issues when quitting eggs. One sweet lady even was able to stop taking her thyroid pills because of her dietary change.
On the other hand, I have friends who simply can not go without cheese and meat. They really get sick without. It is most interesting how different bodies are.
Tried Veganism and looked like crap on it, hair & skin dried out, pimples, had little energy on top its dang expensive.
Isabelle – you might have been low on fat. I think that happens a lot when people go off meat. I always tell people not to be stingy with the oils and fats when eating vegan.
Also anybody can have a hidden allergy or intolerance to anything. I always suspect that when people have nearly miraculous results when they make some major change in their diet in any direction – they might just accidentally have stopped eating something that was a cause of a problem. Many allergies and intolerances are hard to track down because the effects can be so delayed and very few people keel over instantly in anaphylactic shock. We just get chronic non-fatal problems that stay with us until we stop eating the stuff that is the cause of the trouble.
And if you stay away from the offender for a while, you may find you can eat it again in moderation. Just not every meal or every day.
You’re throwing veganism and vegetarianism in the same pot. They’re two very different diets, and vegeterianism has in fact more in common with a meat-eater’s diet than with veganism. My skin was awful when I was a vegetarian, I went vegan and my acne is completely gone.
@tty I’ve been both vegan and vegetarian and my skin looked like crap with both diets, it only improved when I went back to eating meat. Everyone is different, when it comes to diets it’s definitely not ‘one size fits all’ .
I’ve experimented with veganism, mainly as part of ST ‘detoxing,’ and my skin was noticeably brighter and clearer each time. I actually notice a tingling sensation in my skin (face), as if blood flow is better or something. My regular diet entails little, hormone-free local meat and organic dairy and I still notice a real difference when I switch to a vegan diet. I wish I could stick with it, but the lack of variety in protein sources gets me every time. I have one close vegan friend with the most beautiful skin I’ve ever seen, in her 50s.
I was most successful and happy as a vegan in summertime, when I could happily live off enormous salads with some protein added – between lentils, chickpeas, tofu, tempeh in various styles I never got bored.
Tracking- You might try experimenting with spacing out the egg and dairy to see what you can tolerate while maintaining the skin advantages of a vegan diet. Maybe you just need to find the right scheduling. I’m like that with tomato and wheat. Every meal or every day- no no no. And I’m a tomato sandwich lover….. Seedless cukes are almost as good, though.
I tend to admire women who know how to use makeup to maximize their features, because I certainly don’t know how to. (The ones who know how to use make-up probably don’t need to spend as much time was we think). If I knew how to, I’d probably use more of it. I’d rather have people think I am plain than assume I’m trying to look like a clown (that’s how bad I am at applying make-up).
I don’t judge women either negatively or positively for how much time they spend on their make-up. It’s none of my business. I mean, I sleep in on my days off. That time could be used doing something more worthwhile too.
I do think it’s a little easier for someone like Natalie to claim she never cared that much about her external beauty if a Hollywood production company was paying for her make-up to be done. She doesn’t have to do any of the work to make her face look a certain way. I think it’s harder not to care if your face isn’t, er, already done up for you.
It’s also easy for her to not care or think about external beauty when she’s naturally really beautiful. Shut up, Natalie.
LOL
Yeah, you got a point there. She has a really amazing face.
Any diet that requires injections (which she says in an article; this one? I forget where I read it) is probably not terribly healthy.
the injections are vitamin B12, which you don’t need to get injected, there’re a lot of other options (most vegan milks/joghurts/patties are “spiked” with it). actually it would naturally occur in plant food as well, but because of how our agriculture is today, it doesn’t. oh and by the way, it is recommended for everyone to take B12 supplements as there’s a general deficiency.
I side-eye any “vegans” in Hollywood, because vegan is a well-known excuse/cover for eating disorders. Pro-ana groups will even encourage telling people you are “vegan” as an excuse for not eating.
Additional comment: Portman is a Polanski supporter. I can never forget that when I see her face or hear her name.
People like Kaiser who judge women for wearing lots of makeup should understand that sometimes it’s not about being “beautiful.” I have alopecia so barely have eyebrows, very dark circles under my eyes (heridetary, no matter how much sleep I get) and rosacea. Put that all together and I look very unhealthy without a full face of makeup. I can’t look like an alcoholic who doesn’t sleep at work so it’s seriously not a choice even though I would love to not wear makeup and it just makes me feel crappier about my appearance when other women are judgey about makeup and act like it’s just vanity.
I lived in an ecovillage and went vegan for four months, and I can absolutely confirm what she says: your skin is amazing when you eat a vegan diet. But when I was back in the land of sushi and burgers and beer I decided that it’s just not worth it if your skin’s not that bad to begin with.
Some women really love makeup and aren’t doing it for others. However, if they can’t leave the house without a facefull of makeup, then I do a side eye…ha!