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I’ll never forget the first time I saw Marilyn Monroe, although really, it feels like she’s been part of my life forever. I was a snoopy little girl browsing my mom’s bookshelf when I opened up the pages of a Hollywood-themed coffee table book to the most enchanting woman I had ever seen. The obsession started there and has not gone away, more than 30 years later. I even have a tattoo of her face on the inside of my right arm.
There are many reasons to love Marilyn Monroe, and the fact that we’re still fascinated with this ultra-sparkly movie star more than 60 years after her death at age 36 is both surprising and not surprising at all. Marilyn had the it factor so many stars seek and cannot cultivate or purchase. She was beautiful, funny, smart, and misunderstood. She was vulnerable and strong, joyful and complex. And, of course, she’s an undisputed beauty icon—the signature elements of her look, like the soft, platinum blonde curls, downturned bedroom eyes, and red lips, are often replicated, never duplicated.
But there’s more to Marilyn Monroe’s beauty routine than the costumey elements people paint on at Halloween. Her routine has been examined and dissected from almost every angle, copied in magazine editorials and TikTok tutorials, documented in biographies, and recreated on film, but there are still a few unexpected elements that serve as a reminder of how unique and unforgettable Monroe truly was.
In celebration of her 100th birthday on June 1, we revisited Monroe’s beauty routine in all its forms—the hush-hush secrets, the well-known beauty hacks, the surprising misconceptions, and even her go-to workout.
Chanel No. 5 wasn’t the only perfume she wore.
Monroe is forever associated with the equally iconic Chanel No. 5, given her quip that it was all she wore to bed. But that wasn’t the only perfume in her rotation. The actor was also a fan of Floris’s Rose Geranium perfume, which she discovered on a trip to London in 1959. As the legend goes, she ordered six bottles under the name “Miss Dorothy Blass” and requested they be sent from London to the Beverly Hills Hotel. Monroe also reportedly wore Lanvin’s Arpege.
In addition, Lewis Gosset Jr., a fellow actor at Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio, which Monroe attended in the late 1950s, said that she smelled like Lifebuoy soap. (Unfortunately, Lifebuoy is no longer in production.) However, makeup artist and beauty historian Erin Parsons—who is also a major Monroe fan—investigated this claim with another carbolic soap, which she said is “so potent, the entire apartment smells like this.” Apparently, the soap smells medicinal and musky, almost like the oral anaesthetic Anbesol. “Marilyn Monroe smelled like my grandparents’ house,” she says.
She also liked orange and coral lipstick.
When you hear the words “Marilyn Monroe,” you can’t help but picture red-painted lips. The actor certainly wore her fair share of red lipstick and made the shade part of her “Marilyn” persona, but the red was just one element of her signature layered lip look; she even moved away from the shade in the '60s.
Once again, Parsons did some digging and noted that when some of Monroe’s makeup went up for auction, all of the bullet lipsticks were shades of orange and coral. That being said, there was also a small lip pomade from Westmore Beauty—a legacy Hollywood makeup brand still around today—in that true ruby red hue. In the early', 60s, she started wearing more coral lipstick shades in place of red, reportedly relying on a Max Factor lip pomade to get that more mod, less “bombshell” look.
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She had a few small cosmetic procedures.
During the Hollywood studio system of the ’40s and ’50s, when Monroe became famous, it wasn’t uncommon for stars to change their names—and basically everything else about themselves—for fame. For example, the brunette Norma Jeane Mortenson became platinum blonde Marilyn Monroe, and in the process, the young model very likely had a chin implant done in the early days of her career to help strengthen her facial structure and silhouette.
This procedure was long whispered and speculated about, but appeared to have been confirmed by X-rays and records from a plastic surgeon named Michael Gurdin. She may have had a revision some years later, as Gurdin said the original implant was dissolving. (Eek!) In addition, it’s likely Monroe had electrolysis on her hairline, which was common in those days; Rita Hayworth also had it done. As for a potential subtle rhinoplasty on the tip of her nose and other procedures, well, those are still part of the eternal mystery of Marilyn Monroe.
She liked to feel “blonde all over.”
There are many, many, many quotes misattributed to Monroe (she never said anything about giving a girl the right shoes…). She did say she wasn’t a fan of tanning, telling a magazine called Pageant that she liked to feel blonde all over” instead of soaking up the sun. (Monroe was born blonde, though her hair gradually darkened to a dirty or “mousy” blonde color as she aged. She often called her preferred platinum blonde shade “pillowcase white.”)
You can still buy some of her favorite skin-care products.
Though many of the products Monroe used in her day-to-day routine aren’t currently available (it has been literal decades since her death), you can still buy some of her favorite items—notably skin care from Erno Laszlo. Monroe worked closely with Dr. Laszlo himself, which you can see in a personalized routine from 1958. The Marilyn Monroe Collection owns the doctor's memo, as well as some of her actual products, like the Active Phelityl Cream, now sold as Phelityl Reviving Cream. The star also used the brand’s bar soap, which is noted in her custom prescription. According to the brand, Dr. Laszlo even created the Phormula 3-8 Balm just for Monroe, in hopes of healing her appendectomy scar.
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She was Tracy Anderson before Tracy Anderson.
Well, sort of. Workout culture wasn’t a thing for movie stars like Monroe in the ’50s, but the actor always followed her own path. Every morning, she told Pageant, she did a “bust-firming” routine with light, five-pound hand weights. “[It] consists of lifting five-pound weights from a spread-eagle arm position to a point directly above my head. I do this 15 times, slowly,” Monroe said. “I repeat the exercise another 15 times from a position with my arms above my head. Then, with my arms at a 45-degree angle from the floor, I move my weights in circles until I'm tired. I don't count rhythmically like the exercise people on the radio; I couldn't stand exercise if I had to feel regimented about it.”
Vaseline was an integral part of her onscreen glow.
Old-school Hollywood cameras and lighting get some of the credit here, as they made some stars look absolutely incandescent onscreen. But Monroe had a little trick of her own, and it has become famous in its own right, in part because it sounds very intense today. Monroe’s makeup artist, Allan “Whitey” Snyder, never shared a full breakdown of her makeup—YouTube didn’t exist back then—but one thing we do know about her skin prep was that she’d use Vaseline as a base to moisturize her skin and give it a radiance under heavy studio lighting. Monroe also reportedly kept the peach fuzz on her cheeks because she felt like it gave her a soft-focus appearance onscreen.
Monroe with her makeup artist and friend, Allan Snyder (in vest and white short sleeves).
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She and her makeup artist were very close.
Snyder was as instrumental to creating that iconic “Marilyn” look as the actor herself, given he did her makeup from her first big studio test until she died. Monroe and Snyder had a very close relationship, so much so that she made him promise to do her makeup at her funeral should she die before him. He jokingly agreed, saying, “Bring the body back while it’s still warm and I’ll do it.” As a token of her appreciation, Monroe presented him a gift of a gold money clip engraved with, “Whitey dear- While I’m still warm. Marilyn.” Snyder fulfilled his promise in 1962. The clip was auctioned off with his estate in 2012 and sold for over $20,000.
