The #1 Beauty Habit Michelle Pfeiffer Swears By at 66
Michelle Pfeiffer has conquered Hollywood, motherhood, and now she has her eyes set on the beauty industry. However, she’s doing it on her own terms. In 2019, Pfeiffer visited Capitol Hill to advocate for cosmetics-safety laws.
The actress, known for her roles in Hairspray and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, has been very outspoken about her stance on the beauty industry—even going so far as to purge her personal makeup drawer of toxic ingredients. At the age of 66, Pfeiffer only swears by clean-beauty products.
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Her path to self-confidence has been flanked by Hollywood’s outdated beauty standards, particularly when it comes to women of a certain age. For Pfeiffer, adjusting her mindset around what it means to feel beautiful was a major turning point.
“The older I’ve gotten, the easier it’s become,” she told Oprah Daily in 2019. “You reach a threshold where you’re fine with looking good for your age instead of looking young for your age, and I’ve crossed it. Would I like to look the way I did in my early 30s? You bet, but that’s not going to happen, and I don’t feel the same pressure I once did to do so. It’s quite a relief, honestly.”
Although Pfeiffer has earned herself the title of “clean beauty queen,” she’s learned when not to push the envelope. As a working actress, Pfeiffer understands that she needs “the best-performing products,” albeit those might not always be the most environmentally-friendly.
“When I’m in the makeup chair, I just let the artist have her way with me. I’ve tried asking a few to use clean or organic makeup, and they look at me like I have three heads. I have to have different standards,” she stated.
When she isn’t in front of the camera, she’s more of a stickler. “There are products that I know to be supersafe, and if I’m not working and won’t be photographed, I’ll use those,” she said.
In fact, the Scarface actress hasn’t made any changes to her skincare routine in over a decade. “My routine is simple: I cleanse, I moisturize—that’s it,” she revealed.
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The discrepancy between toxic and non-toxic beauty products, especially in the perfume industry, inspired Pfeiffer to establish her own fragrance brand. Henry Rose launched in 2019 and is now sold in Nordstrom.
“When I founded Henry Rose, the only thing I truly cared about was creating a quality fragrance that met the strict safety and sustainability standards of the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and Cradle to Cradle (C2C),” she explained in an interview with New Beauty magazine.
The journey was met with “a lot of rejection and dead ends,” she recalled. Pfeiffer eventually struck a partnership with International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF). But the obstacles didn’t stop there.
Because Henry Rose is a clean-beauty brand, the team ruled out any ingredients that didn’t meet EWG or C2C’s standards. Pfeiffer said this immediately narrowed down the formula palette from about 3,000 ingredients to less than 400.
“Just last year, we launched our first true floral scent, Flora Carnivora, which was incredibly challenging to formulate with the ingredient restrictions. It took more than two years! So, every new scent we bring to market feels like a huge accomplishment,” she said in 2021.
Other environmentally-conscious beauty brands that Pfeiffer approves of include Beauty Counter, Stella McCartney, W3II People, Jones Road, and Guide Beauty.