At 52 years old, Gwen Stefani is just as much a beauty inspiration now as she was when I was a kid. And while she practically made thin brows and bright, glossy lips the trend in the 90’s, she still manages to create and set new trends three decades later. Not just any celebrity has this much power over our beauty decisions, and that’s because not every celebrity is as knowledgeable in the beauty space as Stefani.
In a recent interview with Glamour, the star and beauty brand founder—her line, called GXVE by Gwen Stefani, is sold exclusively at Sephora—dishes on her beauty-filled past, a beauty trick she recently learned, the one product she can’t live without and everything in-between.
Before Stefani was a pop star, she actually started her career in the beauty biz as a makeup artist. “I was a fake makeup artist in the sense that they never trained me and I didn’t ever report to anybody,” she tells Glamour. “I found magic in the makeup. It’s not even about how people look; it’s how they feel. Once that makeup goes on, the confidence that comes with it is what stayed with me.” And, Stefani still knows how to work a makeup brush. “I got in a situation at the Met Ball where I did a trial with a new person because the makeup artist I wanted to use wasn’t available. We did a makeup playdate with this new girl. It was so fun and they’re both super talented and I learned so much. But when it came to the Met Ball, she had an emergency and couldn’t do my makeup. And I brought my kit, thank God. I had to do my makeup.”
Arguably, Stefani is an even better makeup artist now than she was in her starting years, thanks to all the beauty lessons she’s learned along the way from other industry professionals. “I just started doing this thanks to a makeup artist, which is sometimes doing your eyebrows first before you put foundation on. It’s a really great way to start because your eyebrows frame your face. So depending on if you want to highlight them or not, that’s something that has helped me a lot.” The eyebrow pencil she can’t live without? GXVE BY GWEN STEFANI Hella On Point Clean Ultra-Fine Brow Pencil ($24).
In terms of the beauty trick she swears by, the Rich Girl singer says overdrawing the lips is something that actually works. “It’s real,” she says. “I did it one time when I first learned it, and my kids were calling me out, like, ‘What did you do to your lips?’ They’re teenagers, so they know what’s going on. I was like, ‘No, I swear. Let me take it off and I’ll show you. This is overdrawn right here.'”
