Bobbi Brown Revels Why She Doesn’t Do Botox

Makeup icon and innovator Bobbi Brown’s new memoir, Still Bobbi: A Masterclass in Living an Authentic Life, hits stands September 23, and we’re already obsessing over the details she’s revealed so far. In conversation with The New York Post‘s Kirsten Fleming, Brown reveals the life experiences behind her long-standing belief in the beauty of “real faces” and gets real on the cosmetic treatments she’s avoided, tried and embraced.

From a celebrity-packed career as a makeup artist in the ’80s, to the creation of the Bobbi Brown brand (later acquired by Estée Lauder), to the launch of the mature skin-centered Jones Road Beauty, Brown has been guided by the beauty of “real faces.”

“In the ’80s, real faces meant people without nose jobs, people who let their freckles show, people with gaps in their teeth,” Brown explained to The New York Post. She notes that the phrase has evolved over time, especially in an era of normalized plastic surgery and cosmetic treatments. “It’s not taboo anymore,” Brown says of plastic surgery. “However, I don’t think it’s good, especially [not] when you look in the mirror and think you should look different—and you start doing that in your 20s.”

Instead, her beauty philosophy focuses on complementing the features you have. “Who says you can’t be attractive with small lips? Who says you can’t be attractive in a natural way?” she asks.

In conversation with Fleming, Brown notes that stars like Sarah Jessica Parker and Ali MacGraw helped shape her beliefs about beauty, self-love and aging naturally. But those positive influences were also tempered by the omnipresent pressure to make changes to herself, which even her mother participated in.

“She loved me to pieces, and she came to me one night and said, ‘You’re such a pretty girl. But you’d be gorgeous if you had your nose fixed,’” Brown says. “In the ’60s and the ’70s, that’s what girls in the suburbs did. If they didn’t like their nose, their mothers brought them in for a nose job.”

While Brown has never taken the plunge into surgical procedures, she has given cosmetic treatments like Botox and Sofwave their fair chance. She tells Fleming that her only two Botox treatments weren’t to her liking, with one resulting in a drooping eyelid and the other, extremely pointed brows.

“I said, this is the universe telling me this is not for me, and I’m very grateful,” Brown says of the experience.

Sofwave, on the other hand, she likes for tightening her jaw and neck. “I’m not going to lie,” she says of the treatment. “It hurts, but not as bad as Ulthera, which was worse than childbirth.”