Lily James shares the ‘horrific beauty mistake’ she won’t ever make again

Sometimes you have to learn the hard way

Editor / March 31 2023

We’ve all made some pretty sizable beauty blunders in our time. Did anyone else have a ‘Wite Out painted on as French tips’ phase? No, just us? Okay, cool…

But hey, even the A-list have had their fair share of iffy incidents in the beauty department – and now Lily James is even opening up about her personal beauty regrets in a bid to make us all feel a little less embarrassed.

“In my teenage years, I think I only embraced horrific beauty mistakes,” James admitted in a Harper’s BAZAAR video. “I concealed my lips; you know where you painted out your lips with really white concealer?” Boy, do we.

"[Putting] concealer on my lips [was] almost like taking nude to like a whole other level,” she elaborated in a conversation with Allure. “You'd basically be blocking out your lips. I don't know what that was about, that was 2000 or something. I won't ever conceal my lips again.”

“I wore too much fake tan,” she also added, noting that if she could give her younger self a piece of beauty advice, it’d be to appreciate what she had, natural skin and all. “[I’d tell myself] just don’t give yourself a hard time – you’re way better than you think you are,” she laughed.

@lilyjamesofficial

Another area she thinks she overdid it back in the day? Brow shaping. “I plucked my eyebrows within an inch of their life. I’m so grateful that they grew back. Yeah, I really feel like I made all the mistakes,” she confessed. “Now, I basically pluck them as little as possible,” she noted.

And as it turns out, brows and lips (the very features she made her worst beauty blunders with) are the things she relies on to feel immediately polished these days. “[Two] things beauty wise that make me feel instantly made up [are brows and lips],” James explained.

“I just brush my eyebrows and then put lipstick on. I just think it’s nice to feel accentuated but natural – just a little tiny boost of something.”  FYI, her signature shade is Charlotte Tilbury’s Matte Revolution Lipstick in ‘Pillow Talk’ ($49 at Charlotte Tilbury). “I wear it almost every day,” she noted.

Nothing wrong with a bit of humiliating hindsight, but it’s nice to see that she’s since found a lip shade that isn’t concealer, and that her brows (thank god) have returned to their former glory.

Charlotte Tilbury Matte Revolution in 'Pillow Talk'


Main image credit: @lilyjamesofficial


Love learning celeb beauty mistakes? Here’s Kim Kardashian’s major regret…

Delaney began her career in the Australian beauty media industry in 2015, landing amidst the glossy world of women’s lifestyle magazines (or more literally, in their beauty cupboards). Since then, she has gone on to write across a multitude of beloved Australian media brands, including OK!, NW, InStyle, and Harper’s BAZAAR. She’s covered every side of beauty content, from directing beauty editorial shoots to rounding up the best glossy serums for golden hour skin. Having spent nearly a decade immersed in the beauty realm, Delaney’s knowledge of beauty is as extensive as her collection of tinted lip oils (read: extremely extensive). Delaney is currently the Digital Managing Editor of BEAUTYcrew, and her beauty wisdom also appears across beautyheaven, ELLE and Marie Claire. She enjoys channelling her personal hobby (testing beauty products) into her professional work (talking about testing beauty products), and considers perfecting the art of a cat eye in a moving car her life’s greatest accomplishment.

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