It’s not every day one of the world’s most famous celebrities gets your phone number and calls you at 9:08am on a Thursday morning.
And it’s not every day/year/err, ever that said-cool-calm-and-collected celebrity lets you in on her age-embracing beauty hacks that are a) actually doable and b) surprisingly affordable, but also manages to complement you within the first 8 seconds of your conversation.
“The Australian accent is an accent I have always wanted to but I can’t do it,” Jennifer Aniston tells us, laughing into the other end of the phone. “It’s a tough one – it’s a really hard accent!”
^^ We know, we know… #Straya.
Although, you know what’s not tough for Jen? Being her happiest, healthiest self – because taking care of herself is far from a laborious chore for this 48-year-old.
Put simply, it’s her way of life.
Jen’s red-carpet game is as strong now as it was in the ’90s – something she attributes to the occasional spray tan and “taking really good care” of her skin.
Here, Jen, who’s been a long-time Aveeno skincare spokesperson, exclusively lets Now To Love in on her best-kept secrets for that year-round Californian glow, reveals her biggest beauty regret and reminds us why it’s so important to love, celebrate and take care of the skin we’re in.
Get over the fact you’re getting older – we all are
PSA, everyone: Ageing is inevitable, and as Jen explains, there’s nothing to not love about it.
“I really wish we could shift our perspective on it as a negative because it’s happening to every single one of us,” she says, adding that the key to ageing gracefully comes down to nurturing your skin.
“We just need to be very good to our skin – just take very good care of it.”
“Keep it healthy, and keep it tended to – as we tend to our cars, as we tend to our appliances, as we tend to everything else we tend to.”
And that goes from the inside, out too…
“Don’t eat processed foods, sugars or high-saturated foods,” she continues.
“Like, all those fried yummy foods we love to have (and that we should definitely indulge in once in a while, of course) – it’s pretty basic!”
Apply moisturiser in the steam of a hot shower for ultra-hydrated skin
Aside from being devoted to her own mix of “lotions and potions”, post-morning meditation and “a cup of coffee” Jen hits the shower. And her beauty routine begins as soon as she turns those taps off.
“I keep my Aveeno moisturising lotion in the shower so that I put it on before I towel off,” she explains.
“This is an extra trick for extra hydration as your body is still warm. So, especially in the winter months, it’s really nice to get that extra bit of hydration. That’s it in a nutshell.”
Learn from your (beauty) mistakes
Hands up if you’ve laid on the beach a little longer than you know you should in pursuit of that Aussie-summer glow?
Jen feels you.
“I love the sun – I love it a lot!” she says, adding, “from the time of a babe – I mean, I was a brown berry! I loved being brown – I loved it, I loved it, I loved it.”
But as she has learnt since then is that screening your skin from the sun, not scorching it, will pay dividends for your health in the years that follow.
“My biggest beauty regret is the amount of sun-bathing I used to do without sunscreen,” she confesses.
“I mean, baby oil! What was I thinking?! It’s certainly a cautionary tale: just wear sunscreen!”
Jen says: “Of course, I still go out in the sun; I just don’t do it as religiously as I used to.”
Nourish and protect your skin. Every. Single. Day
Sure, Jen has ditched the baby oil, though she can’t stress the importance that sunscreen, and moisturiser, plays in keeping her skin feeling fresh, supple and, ultimately, safe from the sun’s dangerous rays enough.
“Still today, when I’m with my girlfriends and they’re trying to get sunscreen on their kids and the kids are screaming: ‘No, I don’t want to wear sunscreen!’ What do they say… ‘Ignorance is bliss’? ‘Youth is wasted on the young’?” she says.
“You know, they’re going to have to learn this, one way or the other…”
“For me, I’m all about Aveeno Protect + Hydrate Lotion Sunscreen Broad Spectrum SPF 50 or SPF70 and the Aveeno Daily Moisturising Sheer Hydration Lotion – they are actually in my car, in my bag, in the pool, in the kitchen, in the bedroom, in the bathroom – they’re everywhere. As well as my hand lotion. Lotions and sunscreens all the time.
^^ Sunscreen + lotion = this.
Ditch your phone and just… BE
While celebrities like Kim Kardashian West count as many as 102million fans following them on Instagram, Jen chooses not to doesn’t have a social media account and limits her tech time in a bid to find, and maintain, her inner-chill.
“This business is stressful – and the world, in general, can be stressful!” she says.
“Not only that, but we’re staring at all these different screens that used to just be a television screen.
“Now it’s a computer screen and a phone and God knows what else! These things are like barnacles to us; technology just wraps itself around us.”
“It’s important to just have that time to be with yourself. Be in your home with your feet on the ground, taking in the earth we have – however long we may have it [laughs] – and appreciate it and take care of it. And get outta your damn phone. My god!”
So, basically, by committing to Jen’s five beauty commandments, this is what may or may not happen…
SOLD.
