When Tiffany Haddish graced the stage at the inaugural EMFEST by BTL Aesthetics in Huntington Beach, CA yesterday, I was taken aback by her profound connection with nature and holistic well-being.
The Girls Trip star shared that nurturing her 200 square-foot garden serves as her anchor, and contributes to her youthful radiance. With a playful tone, she shared with the audience, “I’m old and wise and I look young because I eat food from my garden.”
Haddish exuded an aura of elegance with her immaculately styled blonde hair and luminous skin. Her presence prompted an audience member to inquire about her skin-care regimen. To our surprise, the answer was simple.
“I use soap and water,” she says, noting the particular soap she uses is a pure spearmint turpentine soap she orders from Amazon. “It kills bacteria and parasites. It’s really natural and really good for all kinds of skin ailments. I try to remember to wash my face before bed, but sometimes, you know, you’re tired and that face don’t get washed ‘til the morning.”
In a candid conversation with Haddish, we had the privilege of delving deeper into her perspective on in-office treatments, her grounding practices, and her graceful approach to aging while in the spotlight.
When you shaved your head for the first time, you said you felt more alive than ever. What lessons did that teach you? Do you now view beauty differently?
I definitely view beauty differently. Beauty is more so about how you feel. They say beauty is on the inside, and whatever’s going on inside will show on the outside. It’s really about how I feel about myself and how I’m feeling inside.
There are people that are absolutely gorgeous to the naked eye and when we see them, we think they’re absolutely gorgeous. But then you start talking to them and they start turning uglier and uglier. Every word they say, everything they do, makes them more hideous. Right? And then there’s some people to the naked eye that are ugly as f**k. You’re like, “Oh my God, this person is hideous.” And then they started talking. And you’re like, “Oh my god, this is a beautiful human being.” You have no idea until you get to know someone. So for me, it’s about what’s going on inside, what’s going on in my heart, what’s going on with my spirit.
And you have not lived until you experience water falling on your scalp with no hair blocking it. I think every female should take all their hair off at least once in their life and just see what it feels like to have rain dropping on it. It’s so freeing. I think everyone should know what that feels like. Men get to experience it whenever they feel like, and nobody’s looking down on them when they cut their hair off.
Tell me about your relationship with EMSCULPT.
I’m loving all the EM-products. I love the EMSCULPT, I love the EMFACE, I love the EMSELLA. You know what I love most about the EMSELLA machine? It’s supposed to make you tighter, doing all these Kegels and everything. But for me, the long-distance drives I have to do, being on stage for two hours sometimes, I’d be having to pee. And I’d be wearing these panty liners and I’ll just pee on myself just a little bit sometimes. [Laughs.] But now that I’ve been doing [EMSELLA], I have no problem holding it. And not that I should be holding it but I have no problem at all. And my lover that I’m dealing with, he’s really enjoying it too, and so am I. [Laughs.]
But the EMSCULPT, it makes my abs come out. I love everything about it. It’s enhancing the workout that I’ve already been doing.
You mentioned on stage how your body has changed over time. How have you navigated being a woman and getting older in the public eye?
I feel like I came into the public eye older even though I’ve been doing stand-up since 1997. I don’t think anybody noticed until I started gaining weight. [Laughs.] At least it feels like nobody noticed me until I started gaining weight. And I felt very uncomfortable in that because I’ve been so used to being small my whole life. And it wasn’t me worrying about what people were thinking, it was more so me worrying about, “Can I carry this? Am I strong enough to carry this newfound weight?” And not just the weight on my body, but the weight of my mind, the weight of my career, the weight of my family depending on me even more so than ever now. So it’s a lot of different things.
At the end of the day, I’m enjoying every single day. Every day, I get better and better. Even at my worst, I’m on my way to my best. You gotta fall, you gotta make mistakes. I’ve never met a baby that crawled one day and was able to run and walk without falling at least once or twice. They fall all the time. We all fall all the time. It’s a part of being a human.
Every day your body is changing. Every day you are a different person. You just have to realize it and embrace and love that person that is here on that day. So every day I look in the mirror and look a little bit different to myself. So I’m like, “I still love and approve of you Tiffany Haddish. You’re still that little girl. I see that little girl and I love her. And I love your old ass. And I love the middle-aged you, and teenage you, I love all of you that’s living in that little ‘me’ suit.”
How do you stay grounded?
I read comments. I hate them. But I read them. It keeps me entertained. And it does keep me grounded. My family also keeps me grounded. But I think actually grounding, like being in my garden getting dirty, helps. There is dirt under my nails right now. I was in my garden this morning pulling mint, making tea. Just being in nature is really what keeps me based in reality. At the end of the day, the trees ain’t looking at me no different, these birds ain’t looking at me no different. They don’t care if I’m famous. These animals, the grass, the food I grow—none of it is worried about if I’m on TV or not. And I appreciate that. And they’re just as alive as me.
You said that you look young because you eat the food that’s in your garden. Any other secrets that keep you looking so youthful?
I also laugh every day. That helps. But I will tell you, I’ve done the EMFACE treatment about five times and I think that’s helped a lot. But it’s also made me pay attention to my skin. Your skin is your largest organ. Making sure that stays moisturized, protecting it with the right sunscreen—not just any sunscreen, but the right one for me. I’ve realized what you wear is not just for showing your personality. Clothing is also for protecting yourself. We’ve got to protect our skin. It’s important. It’s our biggest organ and it’s the one that absorbs the most and does the most detoxing. You can pee and poop all day long but it is not detoxing like your skin is.
Do you have a favorite sunscreen?
I have two. Tatcha has this sunscreen that I like, it’s very, very good. It’s not heavy and it doesn’t make it look like a ghost. And Black Girl Sunscreen. It lays nice. Nobody wants to feel like an oily ghost.
It’s funny because when you look at sunscreen in a UV light, it’s like you’re putting mud on. You’re actually putting melanin on your skin when you think about it. So if we’re going to be adding that melanin to our skin, let’s make sure we we look our color. Everybody should look their actual color.
