“Hey, what do you agree on?” Andie MacDowell says with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. The Four Weddings and a Funeral and Maid actress has jumped on our Zoom call early, catching me off guard as I speak to a colleague about how exceptional the beauty and fashion looks at this year's Cannes Film Festival are.
It's immediately clear that, even in the whirlwind of back-to-back press interviews, she thrives in conversations like this and, settling into her chair, she wants to chat about the return of the ‘90s beauty trends we’ve spotted on the red carpet. “I didn't really realise that was happening – is that happening? ” she laughs in disbelief.
Andie and I are speaking ahead of the Lights on Women's Worth Award, a grant for up-and-coming female directors and creatives, which she is clearly passionate about as a L’Oréal Paris ambassador. “We're taking the initiative to recognise that we have been diminished and not given the same opportunities and that we can have a voice for supporting each other and lifting each other up," she says.
Here Andie MacDowell talks to Glamour about her refreshing approach to pro ageing, why skinny brows are a beauty crime and the joy of not sticking to just one lane when it comes to your fashion and beauty looks.
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I think everybody has to make a decision on how they want to age.
I used to colour my hair and I loved going in to get it coloured and I automatically felt refreshed. When I felt like I could go grey, that I could give myself permission to do it, was during COVID because it [the colour] started to grow out. And that's when I decided I needed to do this for myself because it's something I really wanted to do…I wanted to see myself ageing. My mother died when she was 53. I never got to see her go through that process, but I watched my father and he was my inspiration. I always thought he was so beautiful, so handsome. And I loved watching how his hair turned grey and how it got whiter and whiter. And I just wanted to have that opportunity for myself. Even though I'm a woman, I wanted to give myself permission to do the same thing that my father did.
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I was really hard on myself when I was younger...
I'm not like that anymore. I think I love and appreciate myself so much more. You reflect as you age on your life and you go inward and you learn more about who you truly are as a human being and the time that you have here is so precious. I think I'm kinder to myself now. I think you don't really, truly love yourself as deeply as you should [when you're young].
I love a glowy, healthy look. Even if I'm just going to go to dinner with friends, I love to look healthy and feel vital and strong and vibrant.
This product, it's called Lumi Les Glass Stick is my favourite…It [this highlighter] comes in different colours, in lighter versions that you can do just here in the inner corner of your eyes with a little mascara. But this one is a darker colour just because I'm olive. It's nice and I live at the beach. And the Plump Ambition Hyaluron Lip Oil is fantastic as you age with these little lines [she says pointing to the tiny creases that develop above the upper lip] and it feels really good. ‘Worth It’ is a colour that looks very similar to my lip colour but enhances it.
I say, ‘No! No! No! To the skinny brow.’
I fought that in the '90s and then finally I let someone do it and it was just devastating because your eyebrows don't grow back. I didn't realise they were doing that again. I think it's a super bad direction because, as you age, you lose your eyebrows. All those women that I know that plucked their eyebrows are so mad at themselves, they're having tattooed eyebrows because they don't have any eyebrows. So I would cry out to the people not to pluck their eyebrows! I'm not doing it. And I know my girls won't do it because I already told them never to let anybody touch their eyebrows. They won't grow back…They'll be all sparse.
It's so funny because I swing back and forth between the hippie chick and a classic person. I like both parts of myself.
So anything that is in that realm, I did – like the '90s hippie clothes. That mood I did like, I just would do it with a healthy eyebrow and some muted colours. But I also just love classic looks like twin sets. I'm sorry. I remember what I wore to my audition for ‘Sex, Lies, and Videotape’. I wore a twin set with blue jeans and a pair of pearls. Love it. No kidding. And a red lip. I'm sorry. That's fantastic. It's a great look.
It was after my mother died, and I remember thinking if she could see this, it would just blow her mind.
I did some wonderful things in England, with Princess Diana and one of her charities. I was in a fashion show. She was there and all the models were dressed in crimson and I had on the wedding dress and came down and curtsied for her. And then we all lined up and she came and shook each one of our hands. It was [Superman actor] Christopher Reeve who walked me down the aisle. I know. How about that? Well, that was a remarkable experience. My mother died when I was 23…I remember thinking about my mother in that room because I think it was not long after she had died.
I'm big into moisturising and hydration powders,
I used to use Revitalift and, now that my skin has aged, I used Age Perfect. I love under eye creams. I love night creams. I love going heavy on moisturising my hair as well. Because I have curly hair it has a tendency to be dry. I love using conditioner packs on my hair or just leaving conditioner in it and pulling it back if I'm not doing anything. I'm big into hydration powders for when I'm drinking. When my kids come to my house, I'll make everybody a hydration water to take to bed with them.
I love scents, I really do. And I like a lot of aromatherapy.
I think my husband used to give me Chanel No.5. I keep that one, but I also like all-natural scents of rose and orange and citrus. I use a lot of aromatherapy and incense. I burn incense in my house, too. See, I go back and forth between a little bit of chic and a little bit of hippie!
