Stacy London (01:29)

Can we talk about — I'm actually just a little bit curious about your lifestyle. Let's start there. First of all, Bobbi, welcome to Hello Menopause. I'm so happy to speak with you today about all things beauty, midlife, all the things you're an expert on. But tell me a little bit about your lifestyle. How do you take care of yourself? Like you were just saying, you do drink, but you know to have one drink. And you do a Bobbi Rocks. You know exactly how to manage it. How do you come to those conclusions?

Bobbi Brown (01:58)

Because I've tried everything. I've tried, "I have to cleanse." No, I can't cleanse, because I'm so aggravated and I'm hungry and I'm tired, and that didn't work. Then, "All right, how about I go paleo?" No, I want toast. "You can't eat bread." So I've learned over the years that none of that works. What works is making the right choices.

I just had a piece of sourdough toast with some chicken I took off a roast chicken, a touch of mayonnaise, and two tomatoes. Everyone else in my office, by the way, had takeout food. If I eat takeout food, I get a stomachache. So I've learned what works for me, and I do more of what works for me, and what doesn't work, I don't do. Having two cocktails and French fries and dessert doesn't work for me. I wake up feeling like shit. I can't mix sugar and alcohol, and I would rather have alcohol.

Stacy London (03:00)

Well, I actually think that's really true. Sorry about my dog barking in the background; we had a leak here this morning, it's lots of fun. But I feel like there are a lot of people who don't take the time, and maybe this is just how you've always been. I met you in the 1990s, when I was Debbie Mason's assistant, and you were a makeup artist on the scene. We all knew you. You were this incredible makeup artist, and then you became a titan.

What I've recognized about you from the minute I met you, thirty-something years ago, is that you are the most down-to-earth person who's ever been in fashion. You've been on huge campaigns and sets, with every famous model in the world, and you are the most down-to-earth person. I'm curious how that happens, how your head doesn't get huge with all of the accolades and accomplishments. And how, by being grounded, you show by example how we can live well as we age.

Bobbi Brown (04:07)

Well, I appreciate that. And by the way, I've been around enough people to see what I don't want to be. I don't want to be a dick. I don't want to be an asshole. I don't want to be a bitch. I want to be the opposite. Coming from the suburbs of Chicago probably has something to do with it. Marrying this really great, brilliant, handsome guy who's also very grounded was amazing. He used to come pick me up at shoots, and I'd be like, "Oh my God, here's Steven Meisel and Christy Turlington," and he wouldn't care. He's just like, "Hey, Steven."

So what matters, and what always mattered, was our relationship, me and him, and then our kids, and then our brothers and sisters and our families, and now our friends, and now our grandchildren. And yes, I get to meet some of the most incredible, wonderful people, and I have this text chain with people where you'd be like, "Who are you?" Sometimes I ask myself, "Who are you?"

Just this morning — I'm going to sound like a terrible name-dropper, but it just happened today — I got a text from my friend Charlamagne tha God. He said, "Hey, I'm with Shaggy. Do you want me to connect you?" And I said yes, because I'd said to him, "You must know Shaggy. I saw him perform a couple weeks ago. I loved his suit. Who's his stylist?" So Charlamagne texted me and said, "Here's Shaggy's number. He wants you to give him a call." I took a screenshot of it just so I could put it in maybe my new memoir when I'm a hundred.

Stacy London (05:44)

Exactly. Bragging rights. You must.

Bobbi Brown (05:47)

Well, I have certain friends where I take these screenshots, because I can't believe I have this cool, interesting life.

Stacy London (05:54)

So you still have those pinch-me moments.

Bobbi Brown (05:56)

I constantly do. And by the way, I'm smart enough to know people have that about me. I understand. I grew up as a makeup artist. I was Susan Sarandon's makeup artist. I was friends with Yogi Berra, friends with Neil Armstrong, Gloria Steinem. These are people I'm just gobsmacked that I know. And I know people feel that about me, and I take that with pride and with an understanding that I'm still a person. My memoir is called Still Bobbi, but I could have called it Everyone Poops.

Stacy London (06:39)

Children's book.

Bobbi Brown (06:40)

It might be. Because guess what? We are all the same. I don't care who you are or how successful you are. If you're working in a gas station to feed your family, or you're Charlamagne: your wife, your kids, the things that matter really matter.

Stacy London (06:59)

But again, as you said, you grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and I'm assuming you had a close family unit, because family values have always been important to you, with your partner and your children. I'm curious: how did you decide you wanted to be a makeup artist? And how did you keep your feet on the ground, even with a husband who was like, "I don't care who you're working with, I love you"? Because you do get more success, you do get more money, you do get more fame, and people do tend to treat successful people differently.

Bobbi Brown (07:35)

Right, for sure. There are a lot of people who were not very nice to me until they found out who I am. I've been at many of those parties where the man sitting next to me could care less about the woman sitting next to him until he finds out who I am, and all of a sudden — and I'm just like, "Sorry, dude. I don't want to talk to you now. I don't care who you are."

But I don't know. Yes, I get high up in the clouds. Like, "Oh my God, I got a TIME100," which was so cool, and I sat at this incredible table. But what I remember from that night: I got a shout-out from Snoop Dogg.

Stacy London (08:14)

I'm so jealous.

Bobbi Brown (08:15)

Snoop Dogg talked about me. I was like, "Holy fuck." I was sitting next to Dax Shepard, and it was just one of those moments. But then I came down to reality the next day, when my brother-in-law called me. He's a video editor. He said, "How'd it go?" I told him, "And I got a shout-out from Snoop Dogg." He says, "Yeah, you want to know why? Because his best friend wrote the script." So I was like, okay. It's not like Snoop Dogg just pulled me out of the universe. But it was still totally cool. So I texted his friend and said, "That was the coolest thing. Thank you so much."

Stacy London (09:00)

But that also makes it feel much more real to me. Rather than just, "Snoop Dogg called me out and it was this big thing," it's actually interconnected to the people you love and care about.

Bobbi Brown (09:13)

Right. But I always tell the truth, and I tell the real thing. I look at so many people in the public eye, and everything just looks so perfect. I know we're all human, and there are times when someone's sick, or your gut is off, or you're exhausted, or you're fighting. There's always something. And I'm resilient, number one. So it's like, okay, that happened. What am I going to do?

Stacy London (09:44)

I feel like there's a real parallel, a kind of connection, between fame and success and beauty, in the idea that it's all artifice. And here you are, the opposite of all of that. You're real, you're down to earth, you want women to look like themselves. Tell me a little bit about that. When you started Bobbi Brown, before we get to Jones Road, what was the ethos behind it? Has it changed over time? What did you start with, and where are you now?

Bobbi Brown (10:16)

It's funny. When I started Bobbi Brown, it was not that different from when I started Jones Road, which is so interesting. But because Bobbi Brown became this big giant company in the middle of a corporation, I did things I didn't necessarily want to do, because I thought it was the right thing.

When I started Bobbi Brown, I was a freelance makeup artist. I'd had covers of Vogue, I'd been written about in magazines. You and I came up together. Then I met my husband, we got married, and we moved to New Jersey. Who the hell moves to New Jersey from New York City? We did. You know why? Because it was a nicer life. I could literally go through the Lincoln Tunnel, take my uncomfortable jacket off, take my uncomfortable shoes off, put my sneakers on, put my hair in a ponytail, put a fanny pack on. And now everything's popular: clogs and fanny packs and scrunchies.

Stacy London (11:18)

Exactly. Now you're chic.

Bobbi Brown (11:20)

Right. But I've been wearing them ever since. I think the pandemic made me realize that what I wasn't sharing with people is actually okay. Messy hair. My hair is a disaster. I have eyeshadow in my part, because unlike you, I get my hair colored, and I'm going tomorrow. And you know what? So what? I'm going to look fabulous tomorrow. If we had done this tomorrow, I would look a little more put together, but guess what? It was on my calendar for today.

Stacy London (11:55)

Exactly, it was on your calendar for today. And I do think you're right that COVID changed, or at least relaxed, beauty standards a little bit, in that we were willing to be more of ourselves. And I think that's continued. We certainly see it in our generation. You've got all these women yelling about menopause now. We're in our fifties and sixties, and we're doing this for younger generations because we were fed up with it.

But I'm curious: where do you see beauty going? Certainly in the last five years, my friend Michelle, who started Iris & Romeo, said to me, "We're all sort of quietly quitting makeup." And I thought, what a weird thing.

Bobbi Brown (12:40)

We are not quietly quitting makeup, because a little bit of the right makeup just makes you look better and makes you feel better. For you, you've got the red lipstick and the big glasses. That makes you feel better when you put those things on, and that's your thing. I don't look good in a red lipstick. It's a joke how bad I look. But I wear red nails. That's my red lipstick, and I always feel put together. And by the way, I have a manicurist who comes to my office once a week.

Stacy London (13:10)

See, that's brilliant.

Bobbi Brown (13:11)

Everybody who gets there first, first come, first served, gets a manicure. It makes me feel and look put together, and that always works for me. But we're not quitting makeup. As a matter of fact, I think makeup is getting better and better, but there are also more choices.

Stacy London (13:31)

And when you say better and better, what does that mean for women, particularly over forty? We know: loss of estrogen, loss of collagen. I'm like, okay, when do I get my lower third?

Bobbi Brown (13:47)

Why? Have you had an upper third?

Stacy London (13:48)

No, I haven't had any thirds.

Bobbi Brown (13:50)

I haven't had anything, and I'm not doing it. I have lines in my forehead, and it's okay.

Stacy London (13:56)

But you look exactly the same. You never aged.

Bobbi Brown (13:58)

I think I'm turning into my mother, because I buy this stuff on Instagram where they're like, "All right, stop scrolling," and I'm like, "Oh my God." So I buy these things thinking they're going to get rid of my lines. And guess what? The more moisture I put on my face, the better my lines look.

Stacy London (14:16)

Really?

Bobbi Brown (14:17)

Yeah, they look better. A lot of times what happens when we're going through this is we lose the collagen, we lose the estrogen, and we're dried and sunken. And by the way, a lot of people are not drinking enough water. How much water have you had?

Stacy London (14:35)

I'm drinking coffee. I've had zero water today.

Bobbi Brown (14:43)

All right. So on top of all the other things I do in my life, I'm an IIN graduate health coach.

Stacy London (14:51)

Oh my God, you started to tell me about this in Florida. I'm so excited to hear.

Bobbi Brown (14:55)

And I learned so much there. I learned that it's not all or nothing. It's all about habit. I don't set an alarm unless I have something I have to be at, but I wake up in the sixes, sometimes before that, and I go downstairs and immediately have as much water as my stomach can handle. Two glasses. It's a lot of water at once, but I try to drink it down. Some days I put Athletic Greens in it, which I think is great because it alkalizes my system. Because I do drink coffee: I have an espresso where I put a scoop of creatine in it, and half-and-half.

I go back upstairs. I shouldn't do this, but I do: I get in bed with my iPad and read the New York Times. I was going to say the New York Times to sound smart. I read the New York Post. And then I sometimes start answering emails, because I'm at my most focused in the morning, before my day. So I do probably a half hour, forty minutes of work. Three days a week I have an appointment with a trainer at 9 a.m., so I have to leave my house at 8:30. That gets me going. Otherwise I could literally sit there for two hours. For me it's work: scrolling on Instagram, connecting with people, answering emails.

And I'm sure you're the same way. Besides Instagram, I have a Substack, and we have the Jones Roadies. We have ninety thousand women on the Roadies. God forbid I ever go in there and say, "Good morning, everyone."

Stacy London (16:46)

Oh my God. There must be a riot.

Bobbi Brown (16:47)

You really should go in there. These women all post pictures of themselves. They have parties, they swap makeup. "I have this thing, I never used it. Who has that? Has anyone tried it? What do you think?" It's pretty amazing.

Stacy London (17:03)

See, that's really interesting, because so many brands are trying to focus on this idea of community, and most of the time I'm like, well, what does that mean? You're getting all the same people together who are essentially customers. But the idea that these women would start talking to each other, that they'd start having makeup swaps, that's the type of thing I believe is how you form community, because it's based on joy.

Bobbi Brown (17:29)

It's joy, and it's also organic. It's not like we tried. And that's only one part of our community, because a lot of those women are forty-plus. We also have a lot of people in their thirties falling in love with Jones Road, but they're in the core busy part of their life. They're not sitting on the Roadies. The Roadies are forty and above. And I have women in their sixties and seventies and eighties posting, "I've never done this, I'm eighty-four, but look at my skin, how good it looks," and people are like, "Yeah, Dolores, you look fantastic."

Stacy London (18:14)

Which is what you want. You want a cheering section. For all the people who are going to tear you down on social media for no reason, you want strangers doing random, beautiful, kind things.

Bobbi Brown (18:23)

You do. Whatever works. And it's, "Hey, I have a question. I'm struggling with this product. I can't get this to work." "Well, have you tried layering it over this, or have you tried that?" It's like a resource for people, which is really nice.

Stacy London (18:39)

So you talk about this in your memoir, about leaving Bobbi Brown, or sort of getting pushed out of Bobbi Brown, and that you had a non-compete for, was it twenty years?

Bobbi Brown (18:51)

Twenty-five years, from when we sold the company. I was about thirty-four years old.

Stacy London (18:57)

Wow, I didn't realize you were so young when you sold it.

Bobbi Brown (19:00)

Yeah. And it was only after four and a half years. We were not for sale. We didn't know what any of those terms meant. I didn't know what a brand was. I certainly didn't know what a "Series" anything was. I knew what a profit was; that I knew. So it just kind of happened, and Leonard Lauder was the one who saw what he knew the company and I could become.

Stacy London (19:34)

And did become.

Bobbi Brown (19:37)

And did, with his guidance and support over all the years. Then eventually he was not as involved anymore, and other people were, and it was not what it was. I stayed and fought and struggled. And then, luckily, I got pushed out, because I don't think I would have had the confidence to leave.

Stacy London (20:00)

And what did it feel like right after that? I'm just so curious, because that's such a huge life event.

Bobbi Brown (20:11)

I'll tell you the weirdest thing. I was in there maybe seven minutes. After she basically said it, she said, "Sit down and read this." I stood up and said, "I don't have to." She goes, "No, you do." I said, "You just fired me. I don't have to." And I got up and walked out. I got in the elevator and pressed the button. It was forty-one floors, or forty-five. On the way down, I had this elation, because all the stress left my body. All I did was worry and angst about all the things that were going wrong that were out of my control, for a year or so. And finally: not my problem anymore.

Then I got in the car with my driver, and I was like, "My driver's not going to have work, because I don't need a driver now." And, "Halloween, I always gave makeup away. I'm not going to have makeup to give away." Those were my first two thoughts.

Stacy London (21:12)

Oh my God. Those are the first two thoughts?

Bobbi Brown (21:13)

Those were my first two thoughts, a hundred percent.

Stacy London (21:19)

Where is that driver now? And do you give makeup away on Halloween?

Bobbi Brown (21:21)

Unfortunately, when I was able to hire him again, because Jones Road was doing well, he passed during COVID. I think about him all the time. Fred. He was the nicest guy, from Israel. The best guy.

Stacy London (21:37)

Oh, that's so sweet, Bobbi. It's so sweet that that's the first thing you would think of. But when you say you had that elation, I'm just so curious: how old were you? You were fifty-nine.

Bobbi Brown (21:46)

I was fifty-nine years old. My kids were out of the house. We'd had foreign exchange students; they were gone. So here I was with nothing except my thoughts. Honestly, the first two days, I just couldn't believe it. I was in shock. But I didn't stay in bed, I didn't lie around. And I wasn't at liberty to talk about it, because when I left, there was a lot of negotiation: how are we going to say it, what are we going to say. It's all in the book, but it was intense.

So for two days my friends came over, we drank a lot, I cried, they listened. And by the third day, I had met someone for breakfast. I didn't have Fred, so I had to take the goddamn train, because I was always too cheap to pay for the car. I loved having my cars paid for. My cars, my hotels. So then I just had to rebuild myself.

Stacy London (22:48)

There is no one in the world who would disagree with that. No one. And at fifty-nine, were you afraid? Were you like, "I don't know what I'm going to do now"? I just turned fifty-seven, and I'm like —

Bobbi Brown (23:01)

I was afraid. Yeah.

Stacy London (23:03)

It's interesting. I really do feel like, wow, fifty-seven is not even remotely —

Bobbi Brown (23:10)

[unclear] I'm sixty-nine, lady.

Stacy London (23:15)

I just can't get over it. You look younger than me.

Bobbi Brown (23:18)

You know what, it's a combination of your mindset and physically how you walk, how you move. For years I've been with trainers in the gym, not just trying to build muscle, but, I think they call it strength and conditioning. I have grandkids, so I have to sit on the floor and get up. I can get up without my hands. I'm very proud of that.

Stacy London (23:44)

Well, that's it. We're a very action-item-oriented show, and those are the things that are really important. It's not about going to the gym anymore to be skinny, or because you ate a cupcake, or any of the stuff we grew up with in the seventies, eighties, nineties. It's that you want to be strong enough to walk at eighty-five, that you can pick up your grandkids.

Bobbi Brown (24:10)

Right. And enjoy your life and have fun and pick up your suitcase. It's amazing how many times I've asked one of my sons or my husband to do something, and they're like, "Okay, we will," and I finally just say, "Fuck it," and I do it myself. And then I realize that's what keeps me strong. If I bring the garbage cans out and in, I get the extra steps. If I'm putting boxes in the car to bring to the dump, guess what? I don't want you putting them in the car for me. I'm doing it. I realize it's a benefit.

Stacy London (24:46)

Were you always a very independent person?

Bobbi Brown (24:50)

I don't think so. I think I got less dependent, because I like things done when I want them done, and not everyone snaps to it in my house. So I get very impatient, and I just do it myself.

Stacy London (25:10)

And what is your life like now? You were saying you have grandkids. Bobbi Brown was your first baby, aside from your children, and this is your second baby. What's the difference now in being the boss?

Bobbi Brown (25:27)

It's not that different, except I don't have the full-on infrastructure I used to have at, I call it the old country. In the old country. When I first started, I started out of my house. And that's how I started this company, not out of my house, but with one employee. Now it's been five and a half years, and we've got forty to fifty people in corporate. We don't use that term here, but in the office. Plus we have fourteen stores right now, and soon we'll have twenty, with all those employees.

Stacy London (26:09)

I love the one in Williamsburg. I live right by it.

Bobbi Brown (26:11)

So it's cool. Honestly, I'm not going to lie, it's a lot, and we're all working really hard to keep getting better.

Stacy London (26:21)

And what does that look like for you, when you say keep getting better? I know your family works with you in the company.

Bobbi Brown (26:25)

Not the whole family, but my son's the CEO and my daughter-in-law is the head of brand. He's got a lot on his plate, I've got a lot on my plate, and we could talk about work all the time. Luckily his wife will say, "Enough." And I can see my other sons' eyes kind of go into their heads. So we really try not to. But every once in a while, it's just the two of us somewhere, and there's always so much to talk about.

Stacy London (26:58)

Right. And I'm curious if this was part of the motivation for writing the book, because you really are this incredible example for women, especially women of a certain age. We were taught to talk a certain way, act a certain way, be a certain way, and to think we had to compete against each other rather than support each other. A lot of those cultural norms have really changed.

Bobbi Brown (27:28)

Was I just not paying attention? I never saw that. I also never saw a glass ceiling. I remember I walked into some women's event, and one of the journalists put a microphone on my mouth: "So what do you think of the glass ceiling?" And I looked up and said, "I don't see a glass ceiling." Stacy, I had no idea what the hell they were talking about. I didn't know the glass ceiling. And my PR person was like, "Oh, shoot."

Stacy London (27:57)

But what a great answer.

Bobbi Brown (27:59)

I didn't know it was a great answer. I just got lucky.

Stacy London (28:01)

But it is a great answer. And there's a parallel between you and the philosophy of Jones Road: this idea of less is more, of things being uncomplicated. That seems to be part of your ethos.

Bobbi Brown (28:16)

Definitely uncomplicated. I don't like things that are complicated. I like things that are simple. I look at everything as simple. I used to sit in these big board meetings and listen to all the Harvard-educated, long-term employees talk about all this stuff, and I'd be bored. I'm like, "What are you talking about?" Finally I'd say, "What you mean is this," and they're like, "Yes." But that was an hour after listening to these bubbleheads, because everyone tried to sound smarter than the last person.

So I just like simplifying things. I know women like to look good. I know the important thing is to even out your skin and make it look smooth, hydrate your skin, add some color. We need definition, we need less tiredness under the eyes, fill in your brows. "Wow, I look so much better." Things like that.

Stacy London (29:12)

And it's tweaking. It's not even painting. I feel like we always think makeup has to be so dramatic, instead of this lift, which is really what I find Jones Road to be. Miracle Balm is just the lift your skin needs. And it's not that these products didn't exist. There was the old school: there was Clinique, there was Borghese. I remember Stagelight makeup, or Baroni, and it was all mica sparkles. You couldn't get more color-saturated. This idea of natural didn't come in until so much later, but you've always built on that. Do you think the message is for women to really be who they are?

Bobbi Brown (30:06)

It's a hundred percent about being who you are. That's the campaign I started at Bobbi Brown. I don't think they still use it. At Jones Road, I didn't want to call it "Be Who You Are," so we have one called "I Am Me." And that's the good thing about getting older. I know this is for women of a certain age, but when you get to fifty, you're like, "All right, I could either be depressed 'cause I'm fifty, or I could just say, okay, watch me." Watch me. And I'm looking at seventy. When you hear seventy, you think of this little old person. I'm like, that's not me.

Stacy London (30:51)

That was our grandparents. That's the interesting thing about our generation. Our seventies, our eighties, if we retire, even the way we think about dying, I feel like that's going to be revolutionized by us, and you're the perfect example. I remember my grandmother at seventy. She went to the beautician once a week to get her hair put in a bun, and it was blue. A very typical old lady with her purse. We don't think about seventy that way anymore.

Bobbi Brown (31:25)

By the way, we don't dress that way. Are you wearing jeans? Do they have holes in them? Are you wearing sweatpants?

Stacy London (31:27)

I'm wearing sweatpants. I'm wearing barrel-leg sweatpants.

Bobbi Brown (31:31)

Okay. I'm wearing jeans. And by the way, if I were going on stage, I would still wear jeans. I'm going on stage this week, and the following week I have something at a bank. The last time I spoke at a bank, it was JPMorgan, and I remember thinking, "I'd better put a suit on." So I put on a suit, I don't remember if it was navy or black, with a T-shirt. I don't wear high heels anymore, so I wore these Gucci clogs I wear almost every day, because they give me a little bit of height. And the head of the bank, Jamie Dimon, was there. Guess what? He was wearing blue jeans with a blue blazer. And I'm like, you know what? I'm only dressing for myself. So I'll be wearing my blue jeans, but I'll put a nice jacket or blazer on.

Stacy London (32:26)

Of course. Forget about makeup; I think that's also true of dressing differently. I've become a lot more casual as I've gotten older. I'm not doing public appearances or television every day, but there's this real desire for us to dress in a way that feels much more comfortable. And since COVID, corporate culture means something very different. We want to look good, but we want to be comfortable. Nobody's willing to let go of that anymore.

Bobbi Brown (33:00)

That word "comfortable" means so much to me. I want to be comfortable in what I'm wearing. I want to be comfortable in my skin. I want to be comfortable in my shoes, for sure. With that comfort, I can be the best version of myself. If I walk in and I'm like, "Ooh, I hate it" — and blazers aren't even very comfortable.

Stacy London (33:24)

No, I completely agree. The funny thing is, back in the days of What Not to Wear, I'd say comfort is so much an attitude. If something's tight and you're pulling at it, you look uncomfortable. You don't look like the confident person you actually are. I keep drawing parallels between you and your company, but I really do feel like Jones Road is the epitome of you in makeup form. It's all the easy things. It makes you look good, it makes you feel good, and you don't have to try hard. That's what we want beauty to be.

Bobbi Brown (34:01)

That's what life is, right? Yes, I try hard at everything, but when things don't make sense and they're not comfortable, it's not working for me. It's got to be easy. Things have to be easy.

Stacy London (34:15)

I think there's never been a more interesting time. We want convenience. I think about food: in the seventies, convenience was essentially pre-packaged poison, and now we know better. It's also the way we talk about skincare and makeup. We don't want PFAS, we don't want all these things we didn't know were bad for us. We want simple, clean ingredients. We want transparency from our companies.

Bobbi Brown (34:41)

You want real food, right? You just need real food.

Stacy London (34:46)

I'm so curious, as a health coach: what are three things you think are essential for us to start paying attention to when we notice our skin getting less tight? Not necessarily water.

Bobbi Brown (35:01)

Well, I mean, water. It's honestly hydration. Eight to ten glasses is what's recommended, but if you get four or five — and by the way, if you can't get it all in, have some broth. I love Brodo broth. To me, sipping that is a glass of water. And some people don't realize they don't absorb water, so you've got to put an electrolyte in it. I just make my own: I go to the kitchen, squeeze lemon, and put sea salt in it. It's delicious, it's easy to drink, and it gets in your cells. So water, first of all.

The second thing is moisture. This is an oil stick. A moisturizer is basically oil and water; this is just oil. Honestly, I don't know what I'd do without it. I have it in my purse. As boring as the name is, it's called Oil Stick.

Stacy London (36:04)

Okay, that's very helpful.

Bobbi Brown (36:07)

I use it on my cuticles, wherever, and my hair when I need it. Because that's the one thing when you get older: you just become this dried, sucked-out whatever.

Stacy London (36:18)

It's like the Sahara Desert.

Bobbi Brown (36:19)

And when you put moisture on, you come to life again. Sometimes you'll put blush on and think, "I don't look better." But then you put the oil over it, and you're like, "All right." That's why Miracle Balm was such a big hit. It's moisture and it's color.

So: hydration, moisture, and I think the third thing, if I had to pick one more, is movement. We're talking about beauty, but movement. I don't care if you're walking, I don't care if you're lying on the floor stretching. Movement is so important. I put music on, I dance, I stretch. You've got to move. You get stuck otherwise.

Stacy London (36:56)

Our bodies were definitely meant to move. But there's also a mind-body connection I find fascinating. When you're moving, there's a sense of inherent accomplishment that bleeds over into the rest of your life. If you're diligent about strength training, you're more likely to be diligent about something else. It's a domino effect.

Bobbi Brown (37:21)

Right. It doesn't matter if you like to play pickleball, or whatever, or you just walk. Sometimes I park far and I walk. You do what you can, you do the best you can, and if it's a day where you don't do enough of something, just tell yourself you'll do better tomorrow.

Stacy London (37:43)

What do you do if you get in a bad mood, or into some sort of dark place? How do you pull up on the stick?

Bobbi Brown (37:55)

For me, often when I'm in a bad mood, I realize: what did I eat yesterday? Sometimes I realize I didn't have enough water, and I had frozen yogurt and a bagel during the day. Those are not a recipe for success. I know which foods I can eat a little bit of, and when I eat too much of them, it physically and mentally affects me. I know it's weird, but it's there. So again, movement, but also talking. I have people I can call and just say, "I can't take it anymore. This one's bothering me, that's bothering me." And by the time I'm done, I feel better. There's no problem you can't tackle.

Stacy London (38:48)

That is so nice to hear. We all struggle in our own ways, but there's an awareness you have because you've had so much experience. You know what works for you. And I think it's really important that women over forty start to come to some of those conclusions on their own: to see what works for them and what doesn't, and get rid of all the rest.

Bobbi Brown (39:17)

Right. "All right, that didn't work, then don't do it." Even with my husband. We've been married thirty-eight years, and there are things I know are not going to work. "Okay, you can't act like that. It's not going to work." I know how to get him to do something, or answer me, or say yes. "All right, that will work. Let me do that." And if something doesn't work, just think for a second: what could you have done differently?

Stacy London (39:49)

I'm curious: when something doesn't work for you business-wise, or you're disappointed with how something sells, how do you redirect that energy?

Bobbi Brown (39:59)

First of all, I like to talk to my posse, my team: "Okay, what happened? Why did this happen? What is going on?" Communication and transparency are really important to me. You feel bad, but you realize, "Shit, that was a mistake. I'm responsible too. I let it happen." And just like when things are so good and you're like, "Oh my God, that's been such a big success," guess what? It's not because of me. It's because of us. We all had different pieces in it.

Stacy London (40:35)

That's a lot, to be able to break things apart and take responsibility where you need to. We get hung up on blame in a way that stops us from moving forward. You strike me as somebody who's very confident. Are there trigger points for you where insecurities take hold?

Bobbi Brown (41:01)

Oh my God, walk into the Met Gala. Luckily I haven't been there in fifteen or twenty years. Do you know what that feels like? Have you ever been?

Stacy London (41:08)

I can't. I really can't imagine.

Bobbi Brown (41:10)

You and I have been to so many places and done so much, but you walk in there and every celebrity you've ever admired or thought was attractive is there. And by the way, they've had full-on fittings and glam squads. Me, I just get in my outfit and I go. I'm five feet tall, so I just feel like this shrunken little thing. And then I say to myself, "Fuck it. You can either have a good time or you can be insecure." And I go up to someone and start talking. All right, I have a cocktail; that helps. But I make a choice. I'm not going to let my neuroses bother me.

Stacy London (41:51)

It's interesting, because my friend Netika says that being happy or content in your life is really just choosing your happiness over your suffering on any given day, so that you're going to align more with happiness. And like you're saying, there's the potential to make that choice every day.

Bobbi Brown (42:11)

Right. I'm also very action-oriented. "Okay, so that didn't work. What am I going to do now?" And if I don't know what to do, I will figure it out, or I will research it. And I've, fortunately or unfortunately, discovered Claude.

Stacy London (42:29)

Right, right.

Bobbi Brown (42:30)

I have someone in my office who is teaching Claude to people, so I signed up, and before I did, I went through and deleted all the things I didn't want him to see.

Stacy London (42:44)

That's hilarious. You're the second person today to talk to me about AI.

Bobbi Brown (42:49)

First of all, there's no escaping it. And it's such a gift. I can't even tell you. I was looking for someone to help me pro bono create a press release for an organization I adopted, and I just didn't know anyone. Everyone I asked was like, "I don't know anyone." So I was like, "Well, fuck it," and I just went on Claude and did it. I had it use their website, and I did as much as I could until I got to work the next day. I said to my young assistant, "Help," and she put all the pieces together. She needed help with some of the images, but in less than twenty-four hours I had a full press release to show them.

Stacy London (43:38)

Wow, that's amazing. A friend of mine thought she needed an assistant. She wants to start a company, a writing class. She's been a novelist for many, many years, and she was like, "I'm sort of done writing, I just want to teach it." She put all of the things she needed into Claude, and Claude gave her back the exact type of person to hire. After she had decided what the actual position was going to look like, Claude went through all of the resumes and chose the top three. She chose the person based on personality, and she said it's been the best hire of her entire life. There's never been somebody more spot-on for this job. So you see how this could be so helpful to humanity. Not that it's totally going to destroy us, at least for now.

Bobbi Brown (44:38)

No, and it's not going to. There are still going to be people who have needs, maybe different needs. Whatever you're doing, whether it's graphic design or writing, there are always going to be needs.

Stacy London (44:54)

I love that you signed up for Claude. It sounds to me like you are kind of a lifelong —

Bobbi Brown (45:00)

And Chat. I do Chat too. I'm very, very curious. I'm just technically challenged. I'm lucky I have two assistants. One just got out of college, and I just hand her things: "I need this." With my other assistant, it's, "I can't get this, I got locked out of this." So I'm lucky I have a team of people, because if I were by myself, it would be a little bit more difficult.

Stacy London (45:28)

I think so too. This is where I think intergenerational mentorship is so helpful. Those young women don't know how to build a multimillion-dollar company like you do, but they can help you. Sometimes I feel like, that's it, I'm too old, technology has passed me by, I've learned as much as I can learn.

Bobbi Brown (45:46)

It has not. No matter how much you learn, there are always new things you're going to have to learn. So you can never stop.

Stacy London (45:54)

Exactly. And now things happen so much faster that we really have to stay engaged.

Bobbi Brown (46:00)

Well, not that we have to stay engaged. I want to stay engaged.

Stacy London (46:07)

Yes, that's a healthy, happy life, for somebody who's sixty-nine years old to be as curious as you, to continue to work and create new things. I know family is super important to you. Do you like working with your son?

Bobbi Brown (46:22)

I do. He happens to be the smartest person I know for what he's bringing to this company. He's so curious, and he questions everything, which, I'm not going to lie, is annoying a lot. But there's a reason for his questioning: "Why are we doing it this way? Why do you have to —" Sometimes the things that are annoying are actually what's going to help you move forward.

Stacy London (46:57)

I'm sure. And I wonder if he gets that kind of curiosity from you.

Bobbi Brown (47:02)

And my husband too. All the boys, we have three of them, are incredibly smart and very curious, and they're not afraid to learn things and do things differently.

Stacy London (47:16)

Well, they have you as a role model.

Bobbi Brown (47:20)

I'm sure their upbringing, watching two entrepreneurial parents, didn't hurt them.

Stacy London (47:28)

And what do the other kids do, the ones who aren't involved in the company?

Bobbi Brown (47:34)

Our oldest son is really a brainiac. He went to Stanford. I don't even know if I can say he works in tech, but he's always worked at startups, and he worked for a high-end concierge service out of the UK that sold to a bank. So now he's working for a bank, but he's on the entrepreneurial project. Our youngest son, who went to art school, I was sure was going to be a creative director. He manages the family office, the investments. It's shocking when you see what your kids become. My CEO was a strength and conditioning coach. He went to school for golf, and he's the best person for this job right now. It's weird.

Stacy London (48:22)

Isn't that amazing? I think that's so fantastic. But that also comes from experience, knowing that somebody who doesn't necessarily have the traditional resume is going to be good for the job.

Bobbi Brown (48:32)

Right. And it's frustrating, because they don't have the traditional background, but then you hire the traditional and you're like, "Oh my God, what did I do?" That's not the way the world is anymore. You see these resumes, and they worked at Lauder, L'Oréal, Lancôme, Revlon, and you're like, no, no. That's just not our brand.

Stacy London (48:59)

It's too much of the old way of thinking. The world is changing so quickly, and I think a lot of people our age are unwilling to change. We're not even in the industrial revolution or the technological revolution anymore. The AI revolution is going to be like nothing we've ever seen, and none of the qualifications you had are necessarily going to apply. I don't think people realize how different the world is going to be. And I think it's very exciting, especially when women in midlife are embracing this as a new opportunity to reinvent.

Bobbi Brown (49:41)

You know what I tell everyone? No matter how old you are, it's not too late. There's no such thing.

Stacy London (49:47)

There's no such thing. As long as you stay healthy and you've got a good support system.

Bobbi Brown (49:52)

Yes, and have a good attitude.

Stacy London (49:54)

The attitude thing is also, is there something in particular? Are you a meditator? I'm not a meditator either.

Bobbi Brown (50:07)

I don't meditate. It's weird. I'm such a visual person. At the end of a long day, when my head is about to blow up, I open my iPad and scroll on Instagram, and it calms me down. Or I go on Pinterest. For some reason it's like my knitting. It just calms me down and puts me into a happy state. It's very strange.

Stacy London (50:35)

That's wonderful to hear, because I hear too many people on Instagram comparing and despairing, or somehow envious of some other life. I'm like, it's all fake.

Bobbi Brown (50:47)

It is all fake.

Stacy London (50:49)

Exactly. Be you and enjoy it. I really believe in the "I Am Me" message. I don't think it's ever been more important, certainly for our listeners. I think we forget how much power we actually have, and all the things we are still capable of doing.

Bobbi Brown (51:07)

And modern science, right? There are so many things you can do, whether it's peptides, a minoxidil prescription for your hair, bioidentical hormones. Everyone is different. So I'm not saying, "Guys, here's what I do, go do it." Talk to your doctor, be open. Talk to functional doctors, not just regular doctors. A lot of those things just help you feel good. I'm not saying they're going to make you younger. They just help you feel good for where you are, and that's really important.

Stacy London (51:42)

Yeah, I think that's the ideal. This whole idea of applauding someone for being older but looking young, I just cannot get behind. Let's just be our age, however we look. Let's look good for our age, as opposed to, "You're fifty-five, but you look thirty." What are we actually applauding? But this idea of being yourself and having lines and knowing who you are — again, I'm not saying anything against plastic surgery if you want it — if we could be more comfortable with aging, I think we could be more confident about aging.

Bobbi Brown (52:20)

Do what works for you and feel good about it.

Stacy London (52:23)

Yeah. What else can we do? Bobbi, you're always so wonderful to talk to. I just worry about boring you, because you get asked the same questions over and over again.

Bobbi Brown (52:51)

I don't really do many menopause or aging things unless they're my friends, because there are so many. And I don't even want to talk about how old I am. I want to go change the date of my birthday.

Stacy London (53:08)

I hear you. It's why I didn't really go into any menopause stuff, because I know that's not your jam.

Bobbi Brown (53:11)

And I've also been out of menopause since I was forty-eight years old. No one talked about it back then.

Stacy London (53:20)

Of course. But forty-eight and you were done? That's amazing.

Bobbi Brown (53:23)

Well, I don't know if I was done. I was done in my early fifties. But I had a baby at forty-one, and then at forty-eight I started feeling like, "What's going on?" So I went on bioidentical hormones, and then I was fine.

Stacy London (53:36)

Which is great. But you're one of those people who's very even-keeled. For me, it's more that I don't want women to give up. It's that same thing of knowing better because you have experience, and then also looking in the mirror and thinking, "I don't know what to do with this."

Bobbi Brown (54:00)

I don't look in the mirror very often. I do once, and then I'm like, "Yeah." I had no makeup on until five minutes before this, when my artist came over and put a few things on.

Stacy London (54:12)

You always look beautiful.

Bobbi Brown (54:13)

Thank you. And so do you.

Stacy London (54:17)

You really are such a beacon of inspiration for women, because of what you do and because of who you are. So I really appreciate you doing this.

Bobbi Brown (54:27)

Oh, that's so nice. It's really great to see you.

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[End of interview]

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