Beauty Routine Over 50: The Products and Tricks I Actually Use

[00:00:00] Chalene Johnson : What’s up, buttercup? Hey, my girly girls, today’s episode is for you. I’m gonna go through everything I do to be a high-maintenance hooker, which is … That’s just my tongue-in-cheek way of making fun of the fact that I literally put on a costume. Everything is an aftermarket upgrade, the lashes, the brows, the hair extensions, the self-tanner.

[00:00:24] Chalene Johnson : But today I’m starting, like, right from the beginning. When I wake up, what do I do in the shower? I have a special shower routine that helps with crepey skin. It’s my special recipe. I’m gonna talk about what I do for my skin on my body, my face, my hair, what I’ve been doing to make my hair much healthier, the things that I used to do, and how I do things differently now that I’m, you know, in menopause.

[00:00:48] Chalene Johnson : I’m gonna take you through my full updated skincare routine and updated makeup routine, all those things, and I’m gonna give you all the names of the products, some techniques, some suggestions, and keeping it real. Like, this is not, like, a sponsored podcast where I’m trying to suggest a bunch of products to you.

[00:01:04] Chalene Johnson : Not at all, but I’m gonna still… I am gonna tell you what I’m using and the color because you always ask that, but I’m just sharing exactly what I do, what works, what I think’s a waste of time. And whether you’re a high-maintenance hooker or a low-maintenance Lori, there’s gonna be a few things that you’re gonna take away from this, I promise you that.

[00:01:20] Chalene Johnson : And anyways, I like keeping you company, so thanks for being here. Let’s get to it. Okay, I’m gonna start, I think, right at the beginning with a shower. First of all, I do not wash my hair daily. I wash my hair probably every three days, I would say. When I do wash my hair, I don’t wash my extensions. I wash my extensions once a week, and you might be thinking, “Wait, how is that possible?”

[00:01:45] Chalene Johnson : Here’s how I do it, and this is a major time-saver because my natural hair is as thin as cotton candy, so it’s so easy to wash and blow-dry. It takes, like, literally two seconds. While I’m walking from my shower to the sink to brush my teeth, my hair is dry, okay? So here’s what I do. I take my hair extensions, which are, like, in the middle of my head, around the back of my head, and I section them off.

[00:02:10] Chalene Johnson : I braid them, and I roll them into a tiny little ball, and then I wrap it in a shower cap, and then I put clips around it. So that hair is gonna stay dry ’cause that hair is thick and coarse, and it takes a long time to dry. Then that exposes the top of my head and exposes the nape of my hair, and I lean forward and I wash the top of my head.

[00:02:31] Chalene Johnson : And then I lift up the shower cap, and I wash the underneath bottom part of my hair. I also wash my body. What I’m gonna share with you right now is really kind of important for anyone who has crepey skin The key to reducing your crepey skin is multifaceted. There’s not just one product, it’s a combination of things.

[00:02:54] Chalene Johnson : Because your crepey skin is a result of hormones, dryness, and your skin’s barrier, and your skin’s… Well, it loses its ability to get rid of dead cells. This step in reducing the appearance of crepey skin starts in the shower. You wanna use an exfoliant and really exfoliate your skin well, but not scrubbing hard.

[00:03:18] Chalene Johnson : Listen to me. If you scrub hard, what happens is you remove your skin’s barrier, which is your body’s ability to lock in the moisture, and then your skin, no matter how much lotion you put on, you lose it, and you’re still dry as a bone. So you wanna lightly exfoliate. That gets rid of the dead skin.

[00:03:36] Chalene Johnson : Actually, you know what I’ll do? I’ll just put a link in the show description so that everything I’m talking about, you can find the links to them, okay? So that I don’t have to, like, go through them all. You can usually find them on my Shop My page as well. You just go to chalene.com/beautyroutine whatever that is. I can’t remember all these links.

[00:03:54] Chalene Johnson : Let me just keep going. Okay. So you get out of the shower, towel off, and your skin will still be damp. That’s when I want you to put on the smallest amount of castor oil. I used to bathe in castor oil, and it used to take, like, an hour for my skin to dry. I don’t do that anymore, but putting the castor oil on while your skin is damp is keyage.

[00:04:18] Chalene Johnson : Do you hear me? Keyage. So a very thin layer. It’s almost like rubbing in with the water. Now I’m gonna put my towel back on, and I’m gonna blow-dry my hair while that castor oil is soaking into my skin, but there’s not a lot, and I’ve put it all over. And while I’m blow-drying my hair, et cetera… By the way, if your hair is very thin, you need to make sure you’re using some type of protectant on that thinning hair.

[00:04:43] Chalene Johnson : Maybe I’ll do a whole section on hair, too, but let’s keep going with skin. The skin is drying. The castor oil is soaking in, and I love using a towel that has one of those Velcro wraps. Do you guys use those? Aren’t they the best? And I use a black one, not a white one, because I’m always using self-tanner, and I’m always using Body Blur, and it just gets everything messy, so I just- I use black towels.

[00:05:07] Chalene Johnson : I use black wraparound everything. Everything is black. I don’t have to worry about stains. Okay. Now that I am, 15 minutes has passed, now I put all over my body the lotion, and I’m gonna list the name of it. But if you’re putting a body lotion on that you got at CVS and it’s the same Suave or whatever body lotion you’ve been using and you don’t know much about the ingredients, it’s probably moderately helpful.

[00:05:36] Chalene Johnson : It might be a little bit more helpful because you’ve done the exfoliating and the castor oil. But if you can afford to and it’s important to you, I’m telling you, the only thing I’ve found thus far that makes a huge difference is the OneSkin body lotion Allow me to take just a moment to interrupt myself to talk to you about your skin.

[00:05:56] Chalene Johnson : As we age, one of the things at least that I found most frustrating was just looking down at my skin and going like, “What happened? What is going on?” You know, as we start to lose collagen and estrogen, your skin texture and the way that it holds moisture, it completely changes. I was drenching myself in lotions and just not seeing a difference.

[00:06:17] Chalene Johnson : And then I had a friend recommend a product called OneSkin. You’ve heard me talk about it before. This stuff makes a huge difference, so if that’s something you’re struggling with, just skin that feels really dry or crepey, trust me when I say you wanna try OneSkin. I love their full-body lotion. It just goes on so nicely.

[00:06:35] Chalene Johnson : It’s light. There’s no fragrance. There’s no toxic ingredients. That’s very, very important. It works wonderfully for sensitive skin. It’s been dermatologist tested, and th- this stuff is just amazing. It’s loaded with peptides, so you’re just gonna feel a difference. Trust me when I say this. But here’s the key.

[00:06:52] Chalene Johnson : This is my recommendation. This is girlfriend to girlfriend. Get the SPF tinted moisturizer for your face. It is amazing. I’ve tried a bunch of tinted SPFs, and I didn’t feel like they were tinted. Do you know what I mean? Like, this literally kinda smooths out your complexion. You don’t even need to wear makeup.

[00:07:09] Chalene Johnson : I swear. I’m saying that, then you know it’s really good. I also love their full-body SPF, which is really important if you’re out walking in the sun or even if you’re just exposed in the snow. You’re still getting exposed to sun, and you wanna make sure that your face stays nice and young. You don’t want age spots or sunspots, and OneSkin has amazing products.

[00:07:28] Chalene Johnson : Because they are a show sponsor, you get a nice little discount. Go to chalene.com/spf. It’s also a wonderful way to support the show, and I really appreciate that. Again, it’s chalene.com/spf, but you can find all of their products from that link. Check it out And this is the very first product I ever used of theirs.

[00:07:49] Chalene Johnson : They are a sponsor of this podcast, but they’re a sponsor of this podcast because I had a friend tell me about their stuff for her crepey skin, and the works. It’s expensive. Like I said, it’s not your drugstore lotion. I’m just telling you what I use, okay? Fine. I don’t know why I overexplain this . But anyways, you put that all over your body after the Castor Oil’s kind of had a chance to dry up.

[00:08:12] Chalene Johnson : That stuff is designed, it has ingredients in it, like peptides, that are specifically formulated specifically in this to target senescent cells, AKA old lady cells, that do not turn over. They’re dead, and they just stick around and make your skin look like alligator skin and crepey and dry and gross, and they prevent your skin from absorbing moisture.

[00:08:34] Chalene Johnson : Okay? So that’s why this lotion changes the game. Will it restore your perfectly fluffy, full, vibrant skin from when you were 20? No. But it will be better, significantly. And people always say, “Well, how long until you notice it?” I noticed it right away, but that’s me. You know, I don’t know if you will. The key is, however, you’re not gonna see your skin, like I said, go back to what it once was.

[00:09:02] Chalene Johnson : And the second you stop using this stuff, your skin stops turning over the cells, and it stops holding in the moisture. What’s different about this lotion is it has ingredients that restore your skin’s barrier, and most of the other moisturizers on the market do not. Okay? So that’s the difference. So then I’m doing that.

[00:09:24] Chalene Johnson : Now, I’m gonna go back a couple of days and pretend that what I just did that on top of, like that whole process of preparing my skin for the day, I’m doing that on top of skin that’s already dry and already compromised because I have self-tanner. I do self-tanner probably once a week on average. The day I do my self-tanner, I don’t do this whole oiling down, oiling up, lotions, potions.

[00:09:52] Chalene Johnson : I don’t do any of that on that day. But I definitely do it the day before. So I want my skin prepped, I want my skin moist, and I want my skin well-hydrated and exfoliated. But I do that the day before so that the moisturizers and all that stuff doesn’t interfere with the sunless tanner. Okay? On a day that I do a sunless tanner, I will take a shower and just use soap and dry off completely, and then I apply my selfless tanner, sunless tanner, shortly thereafter.

[00:10:18] Chalene Johnson : Here’s how I do it. I stand in my bathtub or someplace where I can see myself in a mirror, which is just scary, and I use a mitt and I use a brush. At the moment, I don’t have, like, one brand I absolutely love for self-tanner, so I’m, I’m open to your recommendations. But I currently use, I think it’s called Earth Beauty?

[00:10:39] Chalene Johnson : Yeah, Earth Beauty. Which is it doesn’t have any color, so it’s hard to see where you’ve put it on. I’ve talked about that before. That takes some getting used to because if you’re not an experienced self-tanner and you don’t know where to put things on and how heavy, et cetera, you’re kinda working blind.

[00:10:57] Chalene Johnson : Imagine painting a picture, but there’s no pigment to the paint. Everything’s clear. Kinda sketch. I’m just gonna be honest. But the stuff is, has very healthy ingredients. Not healthy, but non-toxic. Okay. And I go head to toe, but I put a very, very light brushing of it on my feet, on my hands, on my neck and chest, very light, and I don’t put any on my face until I contour my face later with the same self-tanner after I’ve done my whole body.

[00:11:28] Chalene Johnson : And people have said, “How come you don’t do your whole face?” First of all, it darkens your pigments. It’s gonna make your freckles and age spots darker, and I don’t wanna do that. So I just put it on as a contour. The other brands that I use for self-tanner, I’ve used Lovingly Tan, their two-hour express.

[00:11:49] Chalene Johnson : I’ve also used their 10-minute self-tanner. And their 10-minute self-tanner, remember, the 10 minutes doesn’t mean you’re gonna be tan in 10 minutes. It means you only have to wear it for 10 minutes, and then you can wash it off, and it’s still gonna continue to process in your skin. The longer you wear it, the darker it will show up.

[00:12:09] Chalene Johnson : But you don’t wanna wear it for, like, a whole day, or it’s gonna be too dark. You’re gonna be embarrassed. Self-tanners, all of them dry your skin, but they make you look tan. And as I say, you can tone it or you can tan it. I prefer to do both. My skin is splotchy and Irish and freckled and veiny and translucent, and so I feel like a human when I have some color.

[00:12:37] Chalene Johnson : God bless those of you with melanin. You are so lucky with your beautiful brown skin, your olive tones. I have skin envy. It’s beautiful. Yeah, so I typically am wearing a self-tanner. Mm, I should say this. Even the next day after self-tanner, I still will use, if I’m going, like, on a date night or something where people might be closely looking at my legs, I’m gonna put Body Blur on top of my self-tanner, which isn’t to make me tan per se, just evens everything out.

[00:13:05] Chalene Johnson : ‘Cause even a self-tanner is still a little splotchy. It’s still a little uneven. It’s still a little, like, not perfect. And the Body Blur that I use, I use Westmore. I can’t tell you what color because everyone’s color is different. I use a dark one ’cause I’m going with my self-tanner. I also have used Tinge.

[00:13:21] Chalene Johnson : I think they’re both great. The difference between Tinge and Westmore, in my opinion, is the Westmore, I can take multiple showers, it does not come off. It doesn’t come off until you use soap and water. It has to be broken down ’cause it doesn’t transfer as much, in my opinion, and it lasts longer. Yeah, I mean, they’re both great, but I, in terms of transferability, I would say the Westmore is…

[00:13:45] Chalene Johnson : it’s not gonna rub off as easily, and it stays on when you shower and when you go in the pool or the ocean, whatever. Or let’s say there’s, like, a week where I’m like, “I just don’t feel like self-tanning,” which happens a lot. Then I’m just gonna rely on Body Blur, and I only put the Body Blur on areas of my skin that are exposed.

[00:14:01] Chalene Johnson : Is this an extra step? Yes, , all of this is extra maintenance. All of this… Like, maybe you’re taking some of these tips and you’re g- just gonna do it for your son’s wedding. Okay, it’s fine. At least now you know how to do it With the Body Blur, the key is you put it on skin that’s hydrated, but not immediately after lotion.

[00:14:23] Chalene Johnson : You want your lotion to absorb into your skin. But the Body Blur looks better on skin that has moisture in it, which is why every day when I wake up, like, I’m gonna shower my body every day, right? But, like, even on the days where, let’s say, before I get in the shower, like, I’m not gonna shower until this- the afternoon or whatever, I still am always putting on my body lotion ’cause you’ve got to lock in moisture.

[00:14:49] Chalene Johnson : It’s just for me, my thing is, like, I never used to put body lotion on, never. My husband has always done that. From the day I met him, he’s a get out of the shower, body lotion kinda guy. I never had that habit. Now, it’s constant, and I spend a small fortune. My only complaint with OneSkin is I’m like, “Can you please make a gallon size container of this?”

[00:15:10] Chalene Johnson : That would make me so happy. I go through so much so fast because I put it on a couple times a day, and that has made a big difference in my skin. Okay, so anyways, put that on every day. Even on the days when I’m going to do Body Blur, you still want your skin hydrated, but let it soak in before you add the Body Blur.

[00:15:26] Chalene Johnson : Moving on to the face. Now, on my skin every morning, I put on my estrogen cream under my eyes, nape of my neck. I’m not saying this is the order you’re supposed to do it in. Maybe I’m doing this in the wrong order, but this is the order that I do it in, okay? So I put on the estrogen cream, then I put on my rich cream.

[00:15:45] Chalene Johnson : You don’t necessarily need both I put on both. I don’t know if I need both. That might be overkill. I’m just telling you what I do right now. In the past, I’d only did one or the other, but because I’ve fallen so in love with this rich cream, I’m doing both. If I had to pick one, I honestly would pick the rich cream because of the ingredients, because of the science, and because of my personal results, okay?

[00:16:07] Chalene Johnson : But my thing is like, I still have estrogen cream. Why not add both? Okay. Then I put on SPF, okay? I use a broad-spectrum 30 SPF tinted every single day. This should be a non-negotiable. If I had to tell you, like, what was the non-negotiable, it is a really good SPF. That’s the non-negotiable, okay? So by the way, the reason why I would use, for me today, the rich cream or the estrogen cream is because of the lack of collagen in your skin as you age.

[00:16:43] Chalene Johnson : It just decreases, decreases, decreases. So you need to be replenishing it with the food that you eat, the supplements you take, and that’s for the inside, and then sleep is for the inside. But what you’re putting on top also helps to generate collagen, scientifically proven, is the rich cream, okay? And there’s some good studies around the estrogen too.

[00:17:02] Chalene Johnson : Okay. So I’m putting those two things on, and then I’m putting on my tinted SPF. Again, all the products I’ll list in my show notes, but just use a quality SPF on your face every single day, even on the days where I’m like, “Oh, it’s kind of overcast here in Miami.” I don’t even think about it. I just put it on.

[00:17:19] Chalene Johnson : It’s like, needs to be a habit, and it never was. These are things, like, I did not do. Like, girls, most of my life, I didn’t even wash off my makeup. That’s embarrassing. I didn’t even wash off my makeup at night. I would just go to bed. Or for probably five years, my only skincare routine was using a makeup wipe, boop, and then makeup back on.

[00:17:40] Chalene Johnson : It’s terrible. I don’t know I- if I just learned more or if I realized I needed more as I aged. Doing that now would not cut it. Okay. So I put the SPF on, and then some new products. Now we’re gonna get into makeup. What I like to put on top of the SPF is little bit of a… It’s new. This is a tinted serum, CC serum, which stands for color correcting, made by Tarte.

[00:18:08] Chalene Johnson : They only have a couple of different shades, and it goes on neutral. I’m putting it on, like, right now. Can you hear that? It goes on neutral, and as you rub it into your skin, your skin kinda, like, warms up, and it changes with your pH balance, and it kind of color corrects your- to your natural tone. I get one that’s tanner than I am tan because I’m not matching my natural skin tone, I’m matching my self-tanned tone.

[00:18:32] Chalene Johnson : Does that make sense? And I need my face to match my body. That’s the other reason why I don’t put self-tanner on my face, is because I’m gonna cover it up with SPF. I’m gonna cover it up with makeup. So I put this color-correcting serum on. The one thing I will say about the serum is if you are an oily person, I don’t know if you’ll love this because it does make you look quite dewy, which is apparently something we’re doing.

[00:18:55] Chalene Johnson : Apparently, we’re not doing the super dry matted powder face anymore. Apparently, that makes us look old. And that is, has taken some getting used to for me. I always was a flat matte makeup kinda girl. So now I’m putting on this. It’s a little bit more dewy. That’s plenty of coverage, just that CC correcting serum, and it’s got skincare ingredients in it, so it’s, it’s good for your skin.

[00:19:17] Chalene Johnson : And you could just be done there, okay? You could just be done. But I’m gonna keep going. So then, and I’m gonna tell you what I use. For my foundation, if you wanna look flawless, like you’re gonna get accused of using a filter, okay? You want perfect skin, Beyond Perfecting by Clinique. I swear by it I remember a makeup artist, like 10 years ago, talked about how it made her have flawless, pore-less, perfect porcelain skin, and I’m like, “Yes, give it to me.”

[00:19:49] Chalene Johnson : Mm-hmm. It’s called Beyond Perfecting, okay? And the tone, I don’t know if you need my shade, but I’ll give it to you anyways. It’s 15 Beige MN CN 74 Beige M AB5. What kind of a name is this? I mean, get it together, Clinique. You know what? I think they probably just changed their name conventioning so many times that they’re like, “Let’s just put every single name that we’ve ever used for this color on this bottle in the smallest font possible,” so that women, when they’re reading it, they can’t.

[00:20:24] Chalene Johnson : They actually have to invest in a microscope to read the font on the bottom. If I were ever to help a beauty brand, I would say, “Can you please stop using print so small that we have to pull out our readers or just take a risk and buy it?” Because if I can’t read the font, if I have to put on my readers, if I have to squint and take a picture of it and then go into my camera roll and then expand the picture to see what it is I’m trying to reorder, you’ve made it difficult for me to give you my money.

[00:20:53] Chalene Johnson : You’ve put me in a bad mood. You’ve got me in a bad way before I’m about to engage in business with you. It’s not a good decision. It’s not a good look, and I think you could really stand out. If you are a brand or if you know someone who works for a brand that claims that they are for women our age… If you are listening, Jones Road, Lora Geller or any members of her team, if you happen to hear this, please, you will endear yourself to this demographic, if you make it easier for us to reorder the color and to just see the color.

[00:21:31] Chalene Johnson : Like, why the font so small and it rubs off? If you find a way to solve that, you will stand out to the women who you’re trying to market to. Am I right, ladies? Drop a comment if you’re like, “Please, yes, by all means, fix this.” Okay. So where was I? Oh, yeah, the foundation. Okay, so I put the foundation on all over.

[00:21:50] Chalene Johnson : I don’t use fancy brushes or anything. I just use my hands. I put a little bit of under-eye concealer on. The one that I use is called Bye Bye Under Eye, and it’s made by IT Cosmetics, and I would tell you the color, but I’m looking at it right now, and it’s rubbed off. Can’t read it. It’s weird because a lot of the other things on this packaging have not rubbed off, but the name has rubbed off.

[00:22:14] Chalene Johnson : We need to fix that, okay? All you have to do is have your customers send you pictures of their products after they’ve used them for six months, and you’re gonna see what parts rub off. You’re gonna see what it is we’re dealing with when it is we want to reorder. Thank you. Okay, so I put a tiny little bit of that.

[00:22:32] Chalene Johnson : I just use my fingers because … Now I’m just kinda, like, barely rubbing it in. I think your hands are warm, so it helps things to kinda melt into your skin By the way, I have not done my lashes, which most makeup artists are gonna tell you to do your eye makeup first before you do your foundation, et cetera, because you don’t want your eye makeup to, like, flake down onto your skin and then ruin your foundation, et cetera.

[00:22:55] Chalene Johnson : But my lashes, I do a DIY lash where you would just put on a little bit of this adhesive that goes on just like mascara. You just put a little thin layer of that on, and then you take the lash clusters. It’s like a cluster of, like, three or four lashes together, very small, and you take this, like, specially designed pair of tweezers, and you go under, not on top of your lash line, under your lash line, which I think if you’ve ever struggled to put on false lashes and you’re like, “I can’t.

[00:23:24] Chalene Johnson : I just can’t,” yeah, putting on false lashes is hard because your eye is closed. You have to close your eye. It’s hard. With these, your eye is open because you put the cluster just above your waterline on the lash line. And so you just… You go in real close to the mirror. You have a 10X mirror. You go in real close.

[00:23:47] Chalene Johnson : You take one hand, and you pull up your eyelid, like as if you’re about to put contacts in, and you just barely tap the lashes onto your lash line, and they stick. Is your first time gonna take a couple of practices to get them just right? Yeah. Your first time, it’s probably gonna take you 20 minutes per eye, and then within no time, you’re gonna be an expert like Shalene Johnson.

[00:24:11] Chalene Johnson : You’re gonna be able to do it in about, mm, I’d say, like, three minutes per eye. But the nice thing about that is I’m done. For the next five days, I don’t have to do my lashes again. I go to bed looking cute. I wake up looking cute. It helps me get out the door so fast. So the makeup process that I’m describing to you right now is 10 minutes, okay?

[00:24:32] Chalene Johnson : So the face is already done. The lashes are already done. On my lids, I always put a primer. I use Urban Decay Primer Potion. Listen to me. Do not buy the one that says it’s for aging skin. It’s like it comes in a purple tube. Don’t buy it. It doesn’t work. I’m like, “What are you doing?” You know, it does not work, and it creases.

[00:24:52] Chalene Johnson : It’s the worst. Yeah. Buy the original Primer Potion, and that brightens your eyelids a lot That’s the other reason why I use it. Like, I don’t just use that to keep my shadow in place. I use it because it brightens and lightens the lids. And then for eyeshadow, I used to go, like, heavy, heavy eyeshadow. Now I just take my blush from Anastasia.

[00:25:14] Chalene Johnson : This is a color that I absolutely love. Oh, you know what? I can actually read the color. It’s called Off to Costa Rica. It’s a face palette by Anastasia of Beverly Hills. I don’t know if they still make it. I’ve had this forever. I know people are like, “You know, you’re supposed to get rid of your makeup every six months or it could get moldy, or you could get an infection.”

[00:25:34] Chalene Johnson : Well, , I’m 58 years old, and that’s never happened, so it’s probably not gonna happen. Okay, so I use that all over my lids Just the where I would normally have put shadow, I just use a little bit of where I would n- I normally now use for blush, which is just like a shade or two darker than my normal skin.

[00:25:54] Chalene Johnson : So it’s light, it looks very natural, it looks like a natural shading. And then I come back in at the very creases and to just highlight, and I use like a light, light, light peachy, almost flesh colored, but with a little bit of pink to it, shadow stick. Couple of different brands that will work for this.

[00:26:13] Chalene Johnson : Hold on, I’m gonna pull them up for you. Well, the first one is by Anastasia, and it’s called the Highlighting Duo Pencil, and I would tell you the color, but guess what? Yep, mm-hmm. Yep, that’s worn off. The logo for Anastasia has not worn off, but the color, can’t see it. It looks like it might say matte caramel.

[00:26:34] Chalene Johnson : I can’t tell though. I really can’t. Okay. Anyways, yeah, so you use that to highlight. But again, if your skin tone is different than mine, you might choose a different color. Brows. First I go in with… This is by e.l.f. I love the brand e.l.f. You can get it at every drugstore. It’s affordable. It’s great. I use their Brow Laminating Gel.

[00:26:56] Chalene Johnson : Okay? It kinda goes on almost like a hair gel, like kinda crunchy, but it holds your brows up and in place, and it just makes them look so much fuller and so much thicker, and I just brush my eyebrows straight up while it’s still in the same moment. Then I come in with my finger, and I just kind of like press them into place, and it’s like you’re laminating your brows.

[00:27:18] Chalene Johnson : You know, people used to do that. Maybe you still do. It’s like you’ve just had your brows laminated. It looks great. They stay in place. The hairs don’t go all over the place. But my brows are very fair, and I’m losing some denseness because that’s what happens as we age. So then I come in with a, this pencil.

[00:27:35] Chalene Johnson : You guys, I’m gonna give you the brand right now. There’s nothing like it. It’s not a well-known brand. Hang on. I found it on the TikTok shop. Sorry, this pen, it’s a marker, right? It’s called Judy… Oh, damn it. Uh, s- all of the writing has rubbed off. I can’t read any of it on this marker, but I know the name of it.

[00:27:53] Chalene Johnson : It’s called Judy Doll, D-O-L-L. Again, I’ll have it all linked. This is the skinniest, finest marker type. You know, you can use it to line your lids. You can use it as eyeliner. I use it to draw individual hairs into my eyebrows. Okay? And I use the brown. Yes, you have to be a little bit of an artist, and I just come in.

[00:28:15] Chalene Johnson : It takes two seconds to go very, very fast and just draw individual hairs at the front of my brow and any place where it’s, like, kind of thin. And then if it looks too dramatic or too intense, I just tap it. Immediately after I put it on, I just tap it with my fingers, which kind of blurs the hair a little bit and lightens it a little bit.

[00:28:36] Chalene Johnson : And I get so many compliments on my eyebrows, and my whole family has eyebrows, so this is what I have to do to look like I, I belong to this tribe. And this brow pencil is the best. I mean, I’ve tried them all. I’ve done Rihanna’s. I’ve done, like, any famous makeup artist who says they have, like, a super-duper thin, mm-mm.

[00:28:54] Chalene Johnson : I don’t know who this Judy is. Jodie, Jodie, Jodie. But this, she has it in black and in dark brown. Trust me, get two. You’re gonna love it. You’ll thank me later I’m putting it on right now as I speak to you. Next and final step is, so if I’ve used self-tanner and I can see my contour, then I’m just done. I don’t have to do anything more.

[00:29:15] Chalene Johnson : If my contour from my self-tanner, I forgot to do it or it didn’t take, and if I have time, then I’m either gonna use a little bit of blush or I’m gonna use a contour stick. And I use it in a cool tone and I put it higher than what you think you should. The older you get, we still kind of like put it below our cheekbones and we shouldn’t.

[00:29:38] Chalene Johnson : It should go higher, almost in the middle of your cheekbone, ’cause that kinda lifts the face. And I do a little bit on my nose. I don’t know why. I don’t even know if it makes a difference. I think it does, but … And I’m just saying that’s what I do on a day if I’m sitting at my desk and I’ve got more time.

[00:29:52] Chalene Johnson : And when I’m putting on my makeup by the way, I’m doing what I’m doing with you right now. I’m usually talking to my AI assistant and kind of getting a sense of like what am I doing today. So I don’t like rush through my makeup. I do it now that my kids are gone and I don’t have to rush to go teach a class.

[00:30:09] Chalene Johnson : It’s a part of my morning routine and I enjoy it. If I have more conversations and more time I need to spend preparing for my day or researching or whatever, I like to be doing something with my hands and I end up putting on more makeup than I need because I’m just sitting at my desk and I’m talking to my AI or I’m reading research.

[00:30:28] Chalene Johnson : And so yeah, there’s a difference between like putting it on quickly and in a rush and how much makeup I’ll put on versus a few extra steps if I have more time. And one of those extra steps is taking that Judy Doll, okay, ’cause it’s a super-duper-duper fine hair of a marker, and I come in at the very inside corner of my eyelid and I connect from the inside corner to my lashes.

[00:30:57] Chalene Johnson : Because one thing that I think looks unnatural is when you like, you have no lashes and all of a sudden lashes. You know what I mean? So I just try to connect them there. And then I do a little bit of a, I tap myself a cat eye at the corner of my eye. What do you mean tap, Chalene? Well, when I’m, was younger and my eyes weren’t crinkly, I could draw a line just like you could when you were in your 20s.

[00:31:22] Chalene Johnson : But now there’s like all these like crinkles and wrinkles and there’s terrain. So what I do n- is I just tap where I want that line and it kind of- goes over the crinkles. And then here’s a trick. Don’t pull your lid to make it smooth, ’cause then it looks weird when you release your finger. Just smush it.

[00:31:43] Chalene Johnson : It’s a technique. Smush in the area that… I’m doing it, like, right now, which is why I sound a little bit distracted. I’m putting on my makeup while I’m talking to you. And I just kinda smush it into that corner, and I have to do that on my eyes if I want my eyes to turn up. My eyes naturally turn down. I will say facelift has made putting on makeup so much easier.

[00:32:03] Chalene Johnson : Dude, I didn’t realize it, but I’d slipped into wearing so much makeup just because I was like, I didn’t realize I was trying to make my eyes look not so tired. But the more makeup you wear, the more tired your eyes look. And your eyes look one way in the mirror Or one where you’re, where you’re putting on your makeup, and then you walk away and you’re like, “Ugh, why does it look like that?”

[00:32:23] Chalene Johnson : I don’t know. So I’m not trying to endorse Faceless, but I’m telling you it’s my favorite part of the results now that I’m a year later, is I just love that I really don’t have to wear much makeup. I do it because it’s a habit, but like when I wake up, I don’t look in the mirror and go like, “Oh, my God. I hope no one comes to the door.”

[00:32:39] Chalene Johnson : No, I’m like, “I don’t care.” It puts me in a good mood. And call me shallow. I, I’ll be the first to call me shallow. I didn’t realize how often I thought about photos or is this good lighting, do I look okay? Oh, God, let’s not do that right now. I haven’t had a chance to get ready or get my face on. I don’t think about that anymore.

[00:32:57] Chalene Johnson : I’m like, “Pfft. Take my picture.” You know what I mean? Like, it’s just nice. The finishing touch for me is then my lips, which have no color. And I did a lip blush, which is like a procedure, maybe, I don’t know, six months ago. And I did a really light color. I don’t know that I would recommend it, to be honest.

[00:33:16] Chalene Johnson : I don’t think I would do it again. I just think it was kinda painful, and I don’t know that the lemon is worth the squeeze, the juice is worth the squeeze. Okay, so here’s what I do for my color. I use Maybelline Super Stay 24 Hour 2-Step Liquid Lipstick in the color, mm, I don’t know, I think Frosted Mauve.

[00:33:35] Chalene Johnson : I’m not sure. It doesn’t seem right, so I’m gonna confirm it. That doesn’t seem right, so don’t trust me on that. I will put it in our list. But it’s kind of like a, a little bit darker blushy pink. Not pink, but it’s, it’s like, I don’t know. It just looks like your natural lip color, but it’s permanent, okay?

[00:33:52] Chalene Johnson : And it’s a little darker than what I might want, but because it’s darker, it stays frigging all day. Then what I do to make it look much more natural is I put a lip color on top of it, which is my lip SPF. My lip SPF has, like, a light blush color to it. It is gorgeous. I use it at night when there’s … I’m not worried about the sun because it is so beautiful.

[00:34:16] Chalene Johnson : This color is e- it looks good on everyone’s skin tone. And this is also made by OneSkin. So they make two of these lip SPFs. Get the one that’s tinted. I’m telling you, it is amaze-balls. And this Maybelline lip stay, I don’t know if the ingredients are gonna make my lips fall off someday, but I’ve been using it for, like, 10 years.

[00:34:33] Chalene Johnson : I swear by it. But it does definitely dry out your lips, which is why it’s kind of nice to put something that’s a quality skincare on top of it with the SPF. And I think the biggest difference of all, if I may, is my eyes. And I didn’t even realize. It wasn’t even on my radar. I thought it was, like, the drooping face.

[00:34:51] Chalene Johnson : If you are n- thinking, “I don’t know if I want a facelift yet, but I would like to look a little bit more awake,” girls, go get yourself an upper bleph. Life-changing. My friend Natalie would always say, like, “How are your upper eyes? Do you have, like, a lot of skin up there? Are you thinking about getting an upper bleph?

[00:35:08] Chalene Johnson : I am.” And she was saying this to me, and she went and got one. And I was like, “Nope. I’m not dealing with that yet.” I didn’t even know it was a thing. It wasn’t bugging me. The surgeon asked if I wanted to have it done. I’m like, “Do I need it?” He’s like, “I think it would make a difference.” Dude, I needed it. I didn’t know.

[00:35:23] Chalene Johnson : Anyways, that’s much less expensive. You’re gonna look much more like yourself. But g- again, go to someone who knows what they’re doing, ’cause if they can’t put the skin back if they remove too much, and then you look weird. You just wanna look like yourself Now I’m gonna switch gears a little bit to hair.

[00:35:39] Chalene Johnson : So with my hair, I have started letting my natural color come in, which is a dark blonde, if you will. I mean, I call it brown, but it’s dark blonde. It lightens up so easily. That has been the biggest game changer of all in the health and thickness of my hair. That and minimizing the damage from hair extensions.

[00:36:02] Chalene Johnson : Now I just do a row, like in the middle of my head, so it gives me thickness and it gives me length, and I do hair extensions that have a wave to them. And I’m not gonna give you the brand because I don’t know that I would recommend… But I, I love doing the curly wavy, but I, I don’t like the way it’s held up.

[00:36:22] Chalene Johnson : I wouldn’t say I’m gonna reuse this hair more than, like, twice, and I think you want to use a hair that you can at least hang on to for a year or six months, and this isn’t good enough quality. So I’ll find a quality brand and recommend it to you. So hair extensions, how you place them, what type you use, hair extensions damage your hair.

[00:36:39] Chalene Johnson : They just do. But if you do it the right way, it can save your hair. Because when I don’t have hair extensions in, I have to over-style and over-prep and over-goop and over-tease and over-everything my hair to give it a little bit of volume. When I’m using hair extensions, I don’t have to do that as much.

[00:37:04] Chalene Johnson : So that saves my hair. What’s also saving my hair is not going as blonde. I think that was aging me. So if you’re, been a super light blonde your whole life, maybe experiment with going darker on top and keeping the frame around your face blonde. ‘Cause I know if you’ve been really light and then you go dark, you’re like, “Who is she, and why is she sick?

[00:37:26] Chalene Johnson : And someone get her medical attention.” So that has really helped my hair to heal. And then on days when I just don’t feel like styling my hair or I don’t have time or we’re going out on a dinner date and, you know, I just don’t have time to, like, start from scratch with my hair, I love using a hair topper that’s already styled.

[00:37:46] Chalene Johnson : It’s already curled. And I just put it back behind my bangs. It kinda like sits on the top of your head. It just makes the top of your hair look perfect. It’s great. When I go to bed at night, I’m protecting my hair with a giant oversized silk scrunchie, and the pillow that I use has a silk cover on it. I don’t know if I’ll have time in this episode, but I, I’ll give you all the things I’m using for…

[00:38:10] Chalene Johnson : Maybe I’ll make that a separate episode, like a whole sleep episode on all the, of the tools, ’cause I have a bunch of them now, even since the last time I talked about this, that you might not want all of them, but a few of them you’re gonna be like, “Oh, wow.” Lights out. Okay, so I’m always protecting my hair.

[00:38:26] Chalene Johnson : If you have thin, fine hair, you have to protect your hair. And also when you get out of the shower, you wanna be very careful in the way you use your towel, because your hair is so fragile in menopause. Just like everything else, it’s losing collagen, it’s losing elasticity, it’s losing all the things your skin is losing.

[00:38:43] Chalene Johnson : And your hair is affected by your estrogen, it’s affected by your testosterone, it’s affected by all of those things, your stress. So in the same way we have to do so much more with our skin, we have to do so much more with our hair to protect it. We just can’t beat it up the way we once did. So you wanna take a collagen product.

[00:39:01] Chalene Johnson : Basically, if you want good skin, you want good hair, you need collagen, okay? So you need it in the products you’re using, and you need it in the things that you’re consuming and the food that you’re consuming. I do take a collagen supplement twice a day in my water. The one I use is Organifi. Ladies, the more research I do on collagen, the more I realize it just needs to be a must.

[00:39:23] Chalene Johnson : We’ve gotta supplement with collagen, well, especially if you care about the texture and the tone of your skin, the way your hair grows, your nails. And all of these things become, like, an issue once we’re over 40, and it just feels like it goes downhill from there, which is why it is so important that you supplement with collagen.

[00:39:40] Chalene Johnson : It’s what the body uses for your joints, your muscles, your organs. It’s how you can support your gut health, your metabolism, your cardiovascular health, your immune system, and so much more. I have been getting mine from Organifi. Obviously, you know I love Organifi. And as a listener of the Chalene Show, you get 20% off when you go to Organifi, O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I, .com/chalene.

[00:40:04] Chalene Johnson : Use code Chalene. That’s gives you another 20% off at checkout. That is O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I .com/chalene. Use code Chalene for 20% off. Listen, get yourself some collagen. Make that a regular thing. I just mix in my water bottle every single morning and a few other supplements as well. And we love that Organifi is 100% certified organic.

[00:40:25] Chalene Johnson : It’s a great company with great products. Check ’em out. Again, organifi.com/chalene. I will link it, but the easiest way to do this, you guys, is just mix it in with your coffee. It has zero flavor, zero taste. It mixes beautifully. I mix it with my water and my other supplements. You cannot taste it. And you truly need to think of that collagen supplement as part of your beauty routine Having nice skin and nice hair is not one product.

[00:40:55] Chalene Johnson : It’s not just consuming something. It’s not just giving yourself a shot of whatever peptide people are taking for beauty nowadays. It isn’t a lotion or a potion. It’s all of these things. It’s also how you take care of your skin at night. Oh, wait a second, hair. So what do I use to curl my hair? Like I said, the extensions that I’m using right now have this, like, beach wave to them, and then my own hair is naturally wavy, so I, I will scrunch it.

[00:41:21] Chalene Johnson : When I get out of the shower, that’s helping my hair to improve its health because now I’m not spending so much time blow-drying it. When I do wanna put a little bit of curl around my face or I wanna put, like, more of a bend in my natural hair, I use a curling iron, and sometimes I’ll use a Dyson Airwrap, but I’m not necessarily gonna recommend the Dyson Airwrap.

[00:41:39] Chalene Johnson : I can’t decide if I think it’s overhyped, and I haven’t tried any of the dupes. It’s expensive, and there’s definitely a learning curve to using it, but I do love it for fine hair. But I think for people who have, like, thick, heavy hair, I don’t think it holds very well. So I’ll put my curling irons in the same links as well, okay?

[00:41:55] Chalene Johnson : It’s just a barrel. It’s the size. But my hair is so fine, it curls so easily. Okay, let’s go to the end of the day now. What you do at night really matters too Girls, I never washed my face until I was, like, in my 50s. Embarrassing. So now I use a gentle cleanser. Obviously, I love OneSkin, so, like, it just makes sense.

[00:42:17] Chalene Johnson : I use a OneSkin cleanser, and I found these… Oh my God, you guys. Oh my God. I’m obsessed with these things. They’re little, teeny, tiny washcloths that I found on the TikTok shop. I will link them. They’re tiny, like the size of a mint, and you open up the package, and when you put it, water on it, they expand to a full-size washcloth.

[00:42:38] Chalene Johnson : Because I was using those, like… I forget what they’re called. I think it’s called Skin Club or s- or Face Club or something like that. I was u- using these, like, disposable washcloths, but they’re super expensive, and they took up a ton of space and eh. Anyways, these things are the cutest things I’ve ever seen in my whole life, and I love the way they feel on my skin.

[00:42:56] Chalene Johnson : It gives it, like, a light exfoliation. I don’t have to constantly be washing washcloths. I am obsessed. Obsessed. I love them. I love them. I love them. And there’s something so fun about… Remember when your kids would have those little dinosaur eggs and you’d crack ’em open, you’d put ’em under the water, and then the dinosaur would expand?

[00:43:12] Chalene Johnson : It’s like that except it’s a washcloth. Okay, so I wash my face completely, okay? Really good. Really good. Without scrubbing too hard ’cause I don’t wanna remove my skin’s barrier. Now, I’m gonna tell you what I’m using right now. So for two years, I really just used estrogen cream at night. After my facelift, which was a year ago, I started using just estrogen cream and a barrier cream from the drugstore that I can’t think the name of it right now.

[00:43:39] Chalene Johnson : It’s for super-duper sensitive skin. Dang it. Whatever. It’ll all be in my list. Don’t shoot me. I should’ve had notes. I’m sorry. Okay. But now I do the same thing. Wash my face. Then I put on my estrogen cream around my eyes, et cetera. Then I put on my rich cream, and lately I have b- just started experimenting with GHK-Cu in lotion form.

[00:44:05] Chalene Johnson : I know a lot of you are doing that as a peptide. I just… Having to get out a needle and pull a syringe and shoot, like, ugh. Maybe it is giving people remarkable results doing the GHK-Cu peptide injection. I just… I don’t know. I would rather just put it on my face. So I put on the GHK-Cu at night after I’ve put on my estrogen, and then I, like, brush my teeth and use my Waterpik.

[00:44:29] Chalene Johnson : Highly recommend a Waterpik. And then I put the rich cream on top of that, and lately, ’cause I’m doing a 30-day experiment, I’ve been putting the rich cream on my hands. Because these hands are giving away this girl’s secrets. You can ask me for my ID because I look young, and I hand you my ID, and y- ooh, you see my hands, and you’re gonna have a jump scare ’cause they are crypt keeper hands.

[00:44:52] Chalene Johnson : And so I’m like, “I wonder if this rich cream can help my hands.” So I’m doing a 30-day experiment with that. I will report back. I have a lot of lotions, like thick. It’s all on my skin. I just let it soak in and absorb, and I love the way I wake up in the morning, my skin look. I mean, it’s just, it’s different skin.

[00:45:09] Chalene Johnson : This is not the skin I had 10 years ago, where I would never leave the house without makeup. I really think my skin is better today, on my face anyways. The rest of my body, yeah, you know, listen, it is what it is. But things droop, things hang, things sag. Do I wish that there was like a machine? Maybe someone could invent this for us.

[00:45:29] Chalene Johnson : I bet it’ll be here before we know it, like a machine you could just step into, like the old stand-up tanning booths, and you just go in this machine and it z-z- like, it kinda like zaps you, and all of your skin tightens up a little bit. Wouldn’t that be so nice? ‘Cause don’t you wish there was like a big crank in the middle of your back that you could just you could just like turn it every couple of months and your skin would be like, from your toes, it would just like kind of all pull up and back, and your butt, and your thighs, and your knees, and your stomach, like all of that skin would just be like, oh, look at that, just tightening up.

[00:46:07] Chalene Johnson : Wouldn’t that be amazing if there was like a machine you could just go into every once in a while and just, eh, just a little tiny bit of a tightening, but you didn’t change your face or something? I don’t know. Listen, we have self-driving cars. Why don’t we use AI for good? Instead of hacking into Hugging Face, how about these agents all get together and figure out how to solve some of our beauty concerns?

[00:46:29] Chalene Johnson : That would be amazing Anywho, I hope that was helpful. If you have any additional questions, drop them in the comments. I’m gonna do my best to get you all of these links. I’ll do my best to get you discounts on everything that I mentioned. I’ll do my best to list… I’ll find out the colors because I’ll use my AI assistant to go in and find the confirmation for the orders that I place, and then I’ll have the colors for you, and I’ll put it all in one nice little easy-to-find list for you.

[00:46:55] Chalene Johnson : Thank you so much for being a girl’s girl, and even if you don’t wanna do all of these high-maintenance hooker hacks, I hope some of them have served you today. By the way, many of you w- have asked about going in deep on what my day looks like, how I create content, what goes into that, how do you get paid for content, what goes into, like, getting a brand deal, how do you get paid on those, how much time goes into the stuff that I post on my feed, how much intention is behind my stories, how much of it’s, like, just impromptu, all of that.

[00:47:29] Chalene Johnson : I’m gonna answer all of those on Patreon, so if that’s of interest to you, right now Patreon is 50% off. And you’ll… Actually, in this episode, you’ll hear how I make money, exactly how I get paid on Patreon as well, which is… It’s like a paid podcast, if you guys don’t know. Right now we’re running a special where it’s 50% off to join Patreon for the first month.

[00:47:50] Chalene Johnson : You can listen and get a little sample yourself right now by going to chalene.com/more. There’s just tons of content there to keep you company. Every topic you can imagine has been covered. Lots of behind-the-scenes stuff that I don’t normally talk about here on the show. So check that out, chalene.com/more.

[00:48:09] Chalene Johnson : In the meantime, I just wanna say thank you for spending time with me. I love you. I mean it. I’ll talk to you soon.