2024 Greetings, my lovely Bitches! My final post of 2023 was about global New Year’s traditions, like wearing yellow underwear or smashing pomegranates on your front door. I was without yellow underwear at my holiday locale, so ended up going with black undies for New Year’s Eve and pink for New Year’s Day. But when my pooch and I were walking the neighborhood yesterday (she’s still hungover) we saw a lot of pomegranate remnants at apartment doors. I hope that good luck extends to the whole block.
I also saw a headline, while eating at a diner on January 1, that read “How to cancel gym memberships.” Not even one full day in and we’re talking about getting out of the most prevalent New Year’s resolution: health/fitness. It made me chuckle (as I dug into my breakfast sampler of bacon, sausage, eggs, french toast, and hash browns). I bet Brooke Shields would’ve chuckled too, as she recently told Today that she never makes resolutions because she thinks it’s setting yourself up for failure. I’m inclined to agree. Brooke has a new podcast called Now What? and is launching a “lifestyle brand” (watch out, Goop!) so she also spoke to Today about her beauty and skincare routines:
Her outlook on aging: It’s one that embraces aging and all that comes with it, and helps to create open and honest conversation around it — which she does, through her podcast “Now What?” and her online platform and lifestyle brand “Beginning Is Now.” That being said, if she did have the chance to go back, she says the one thing she wishes she could tell her younger self about aging would be to, “enjoy what you have now,” she tells Shop TODAY over the phone. “We’re all a product of our upbringing and society but I definitely think I would have been like, really appreciate yourself,” Shields says. “Not because it’s all going to go downhill, but because you deserve to be able to appreciate it. You don’t want to get to an older age and realize you’ve never really celebrated yourself. It’s sad. I think people then start chasing their youth. I’m not chasing my youth. I like to look my best, but it’s a futile thing to want to turn back the clock and make yourself crazy. So why not, as best you can, where you are, appreciate that every wrinkle I have around my eyes is because I smiled a lot?”
Skincare is self-care: “I now look at beauty as self-care, rather than vanity,” Shields says. “Which, I used to associate beauty routines with inaccessible luxury and vanity. My mom would say, ‘soap, water and moisturize. Get it clean, don’t make it complicated for yourself.’ But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve enjoyed the process and the ritual of taking care of my skin. And it’s not now just for aging or wrinkles. I mean, that’s a good byproduct of your skin looking healthier, but now I enjoy the process, it’s sort of time for myself.” … “Sometimes, it’s just about getting enough sleep and drinking enough water — but not too much water — and that ends up making my skin look better … if I’m doing everything that’s unhealthy, not sleeping and drinking too much alcohol, it’s going to show up first in my skin. I think that people don’t think of their skin as the largest organ of their body, but it is. And we have to treat it like that.”
A resolution for no resolutions: “I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, because I think that’s setting me to fail. I don’t say, ‘I’m going to stop doing this, stop doing that.’ I usually say, ‘I promise myself I’m going to, at least once, do something out of my comfort zone or I’m going to try to learn something.’ Because it’s essentially setting yourself up for failure. And the giving up of things just feels like I’m punishing myself and then it just makes me want it more.”
She uses a literal pencil on her eyebrows: Of course, we couldn’t talk to Shields about her beauty routine without asking about how she maintains her famous brows. And her answer was pretty simple. “I actually only use GrandeLashMD, the growth serum … I’m starting to see some positive results. I just have to fill them in now, because the gray is starting to come and they’re thinning.” So what does she use to fill them in? (The answer might surprise you.) “A graphite pencil,” she says. “Because I can make it really sharp, and if it’s the right softness, it will come up on my skin and it looks like the flick of a brush. The times that I’ve tried to dye them or do anything else to bring them back, I end up looking rather freakish… And it’s not lead, so you’re not putting lead on your face.”
Yeah, I’m fully on board with Brooke on not making resolutions, and agree that denial just ends up being self-punishment. I like her framing of trying to do something at least once. That’s a manageable commitment. That being said, I tend to be even more conservative in my wording, and usually say “it would be a nice gesture to myself if I took more care with what I eat. Carving out more/any time for exercise would be an investment in my own happiness.” Similar idea to Brooke, but I’m not even establishing the one-time minimum. So anything that gets done is a win! As for Brooke’s health and beauty commentary, so far she’s given us: eat potato chips to combat hydration and fill in your brows with graphite pencils. I kind of love it, yet at the same time think it sounds like advice from an eight-year-old, no?
Photos credit: Diane Cohen / BACKGRID, Roger Wong/INSTARimages, IMAGO/RW / Avalon
I agree we set ourselves up for failure. A couple of years ago I came up with 2 criteria for resolutions.
1) must be vague.
2) must have a low bar.
So for the last few years, my resolution has bee “take better care of myself.” Instead of learning a language, learn a new skill, that kind of thing.
For someone who’s about to launch a lifestyle brand, her advise on skincare was refreshingly honest and down-to-earth (get your Zzz and H2O.) Hope she keeps it that way.
I 100% agree with Brooke. I’ve never liked the New Year’s resolution mentality. I feel like it lets people both put off starting a healthier habit, and outsource blame when they fall short of their goal by March. Pick whatever time works best for you to implement changes.
Just love how like a normal (though gorgeous) human being she looks! Unlike the plastic, stretched out of shape, abnormal Hollywood face-replacement looks that most celebs have.
I always resolve to watch more cat videos and buy higher quality chocolate and I always manage to do them
I wasn’t going to make any resolutions but now I want to be more like Lisa! 😂
My new year resolution is to calm the tide of new year diet and exercise extremists and talk them out of their self loathing so that they don’t burn out or injure themselves. If you’re going to a gym or exercise studio the first two weeks of January please be cautious of and friendly towards the new people. They need kindness and patience while you exercise situational awareness so you don’t get bonked by a barbell.