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.
