Cate Blanchett’s Refreshingly Real Beauty Mantra: ‘Work With What You’ve Got’
There’s age-denying. There’s age-defying. And then there’s Cate Blanchett, the two-time Oscar winner who defines what it means to own your beauty.
“You’re going to get wrinkles. You’re going to get older. I’m married to a man who’s attracted to me — and has been attracted to me over the years,” Blanchett, 47, tells Yahoo Beauty. “I’m fortunate that I’m around people who feel similarly.”
The mother of Ignatius, Dashiell, Roman, and Edith Upton doesn’t sweat all the bells and whistles that come with being famous. When she was eight months pregnant, she was fitted for her Dries van Noten Oscars dress in 2008 in just one quick session — and killed it on the red carpet.
During a BAFTA pre-Oscars event years ago in Hollywood, Blanchett laughingly showed off one of her tattoos — located in a hidden spot. Workwise, she vacillates between stage (co-starring in The Present, written by her husband, Andrew Upton) and screen, where she just wrapped the lady-heavy Ocean’s Eight, co-starring Mindy Kaling and Sandra Bullock.
“I got to work with those fabulous ladies. I was so excited to be working with them. I wasn’t prepared for how much I would be madly in love with them all. It was an amazing experience,” she says.
Her work speaks volumes, but her face tells a whole other story. Blanchett is the spokeswoman for the luxe brand SK-II, a skin care partnership that happened organically more than 15 years ago. Mary Greenwell, Blanchett’s longtime makeup artist, introduced her to the Facial Treatment Essence, which cleared up her skin when Blanchett was going through a rough spell. She’s been swearing by the brand ever since, and is currently promoting the SK-II Mother’s Day Limited Edition Facial Treatment Essence.
“That’s the cornerstone of the whole brand. I started using the product when I was pregnant with my first son, who’s now 15 going on 16. I started to notice changes in my skin. I was getting a bit of melasma,” she says.
She’s referring to patchy skin discoloration that can occur on the face, often during pregnancy. Today, says Blanchett, “My skin is in better condition than when I was in my early 30s. I have a clear, simple morning and evening ritual. I use the essence, and I generally use the LXP Ultimate Revival Serum and LXP Ultimate Revival Cream. I’ve been working with [the brand] officially for about 13 years. I wish I’d discovered it in my 20s.”
Blanchett embodies inner beauty, focusing on the interior, as opposed to the exterior. Aging, she sums up, is going to happen anyway, so why shun it? “You can’t run from it. There’s a level of scrutiny around the way women look, and it’s really unhelpful. Everyone will have a different relationship to their looks.”
She obliquely refers to plastic surgery and her aversion to it: “I didn’t grow up in an environment where the older women did that stuff. It doesn’t sit comfortably with me. Work with what you’ve got. Otherwise, no matter how much you try and change yourself, if you feel panicked, it will radiate through. I wear less makeup now than I did in my 20s. I stay out of the sun.”
Yes, but she’s also down for a libation when life calls for it. “One always looks better when you don’t drink coffee or when you’ve done a detox. Life is stressful, and sometimes it’s easier to have one glass of wine than do eight yoga classes. Life is never perfect. You have to do the best you can,” says Blanchett.
She’s passing the same lesson along to her daughter, Edith. “Maybe it’s because I’ve had three boys. I wasn’t done having children. I kept all the boys’ clothes. So she’s wearing the boys’ clothes. Once again, that’s how I grew up. I grew up just being. It doesn’t matter what she wears. It’s about who she is, not what she looks like.”
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