Women's Lifestyle May 28, 2026 0 Comments

Why Marilyn Monroe’s Timeless Beauty Secrets Are Shaping Modern Fitness and Wellness Trends—A Century Later

Before TikTok made contouring a household verb and “glazed donut” skin the holy grail of beauty, Marilyn Monroe was already the blueprint. Imagine this: a beauty icon so etched into pop culture that a mole, a dash of red lipstick, and a blonde wig paired with a white halter instantly say “Marilyn”—Halloween costume perfection. From Madonna to Kim Kardashian, her influence runs deep, but it’s not just about the looks. Celebrating her 100th birthday, we see Monroe not just as a face but as a symbol of relentless reinvention—a reminder that beauty isn’t something you stumble upon; it’s something you craft with purpose and power. So, what can we learn from Marilyn’s legacy about creating our own image and fighting through the noise of the beauty world? Let’s dive into how this icon’s glow never really faded… LEARN MORE

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Long before TikTok influencers were using contour as a verb and teaching followers how to create “siren eyes” and achieve “glazed donut” skin, there was Marilyn Monroe. Add a mole, a swipe of red lipstick, and a blond wig to any white halter or strapless pink dress on Halloween and you’re her; Monroe’s beauty has become that signature. You can spot her disciples in pop culture too, from Madonna to Anna Nicole Smith to Lil’ Kim and even Kim Kardashian. But her appeal now, as we commemorate her 100th birthday, has as much to do with the idea she represented as her actual beauty. She is a North Star of reinvention. Monroe’s legacy is the reminder that beauty isn’t just born; it can be made and remade.

“MARILYN showed that you could CONSTRUCT ANYTHING you WANTED. You could BE ANYTHING you wanted,” says makeup artist Lisa Eldridge.

Donaldson Collection

You know the legend: Norma Jeane Mortenson—born in Los Angeles on June 1, 1926—died 36 years later as Marilyn Monroe, a Hollywood icon immortalized as the comedic bombshell in films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Seven Year Itch, and Some Like It Hot. A century after her birth, her beauty continues to inspire. This summer alone, Monroe is the muse for new makeup launches and a new skincare brand, and she’s the subject of a sprawling and comprehensive exhibit at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.

“Norma Jeane created Marilyn,” says Bryan Johns, a Hollywood collector and the cofounder of iS Clinical and the just-launched Icon Skincare, which was directly inspired by Monroe and her facialist, Madame Renna. (More on her later.) Monroe was the careful architect of her own scene-stealing image, and she couldn’t have done it without a team of image makers, most notably her longtime makeup artist, Allan “Whitey” Snyder. Together, they drew from other screen stars—Greta Garbo’s eyes, Rita Hayworth’s lips, Jean Harlow’s hair—quilting together the icy-blond sex symbol we know as “Marilyn Monroe.”

Sunset Boulevard

“What has always interested me is that Marilyn showed that you could construct anything you wanted. You could be anything you wanted, and you could design your own look,” says Lisa Eldridge, a makeup artist, beauty historian, and founder of Lisa Eldridge Beauty, whose YouTube tutorial on Monroe’s makeup sits at nearly six million views. “There was something quite empowering about that.”

Eldridge is paying tribute to Monroe’s milestone birthday with a limited-edition makeup collection, Lisa Eldridge x Marilyn Monroe, featuring new shades of lipsticks, liners, and two skin balms named after lighting techniques used in Monroe’s movies. The collectible exterior packaging includes four images of the star in Amagansett, New York, taken by photographer Sam Shaw in 1957.

Eldridge says the idea for the balm came from Monroe’s reported habit of layering Vaseline on her skin to give it a dewy, camera-ready gleam. “I was so obsessed with this incredible glow that she had on her skin, but I thought, well, I can’t sell Vaseline,” she notes. The resulting versatile balm is a “really clean formula that gives a subtle but beautiful glow.”

Credit: Courtesy of Lisa Eldridge

Vaseline was just one of Monroe’s beauty magic tricks. Another was the inverse of today’s dermaplaning trend. “Marilyn knew the power of her skin,” says Johns. “She had fine hair on her face that she refused to let the studio wax off because she

knew it would give her an ethereal glow on film.” That glow was also a credit to the prowess of her facialist, Madame Renna; through collecting Hollywood memorabilia, Johns discovered that Renna was an early pioneer of fascia massage and developed skincare formulas, such as one simply called “cream,” with honey, royal jelly, and propolis. His Icon Skincare line, which has nine products, includes Icon Cream–Heritage, a nourishing formula that’s true to about 95 percent of Renna’s original idea.

Monroe’s enduring appeal is a testament to the image she and Snyder created, one that was notably forged outside of the machinery of the studio system that typically launched stars in that era. (Monroe was also one of the first actresses of her era to cofound her own production company in order to push for better pay and more creative control.)

Fame and beauty weren’t things that just happened for Monroe; she willed them into being. Erin Parsons, a celebrity makeup artist and another collector of Monroe’s ephemera, says Monroe “showed me that you don’t have to be born beautiful.” As a survivor of childhood trauma, Parsons also connected to Monroe’s difficult childhood spent in foster homes and says, “You are capable of creating your own image and your own future.”

Michael Ochs Archives

To mark Monroe’s centennial birthday, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is debuting “Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon” on May 31. Sophia Serrano, the exhibition’s curator, says the museum wanted to show Monroe as “a creative genius in constructing this persona,” as well as reveal “the village it took” to bring Marilyn Monroe to life—including the costume designers, photographers, choreographers, and acting coaches. The exhibition pays special attention to Monroe’s makeup artist. “We hope to pay a nice tribute to her and Whitey’s relationship,” Serrano says. “They were so close that Marilyn asked Whitey to promise that if she passed before him, he would do her makeup. And he fulfilled that promise.

Exhibit entrance featuring Marilyn Monroe theme.

The entrance to the Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon exhibition.

scenic outdoor landscape with natural elements

The exhibition features a bottle of No. 5 Eau de Cologne from Monroe’s era from the Chanel archives in Paris.

The show, which will run through February of next year, features roughly 230 objects, including the rouge, mascara, false lashes, silver-white eyeshadow, and perfume Monroe frequently wore. You know the one: Chanel No. 5. Monroe is inextricably linked with it in the annals of beauty history. She was photographed in 1955 clutching a bottle of Chanel No. 5 Eau de Cologne (now known as Eau de Toilette), and in 1952, Monroe famously told Life magazine, “Once this fellow says, ‘Marilyn, what do you wear to bed?’ So I said I only wear Chanel No. 5.” Fittingly, Chanel is the sponsor of the museum exhibit.

Part of Monroe’s mystique is that she remains suspended in time. As Parsons puts it, “We didn’t see her grow old.” But in some ways, who she was and the spirit of self-invention she has come to represent resonate differently—and perhaps even

more deeply—now than they did in her lifetime. “When my looks start to go,” Monroe reportedly said, “so will most of my fans.” More than six decades later, she’s still turning heads.