Welcome to Skin Talk With Laura Love, our video series in which stars of fashion, film, television, and beyond share their beauty secrets with the licensed model and esthetician.
The fourth episode of our first season of Skin Talk With Laura Love features the one and only Karen Elson, who brings out her “big, fuzzy, heavy” beauty bag to fully unpack her routine. The iconic model who has graced every major fashion magazine including W discusses how her beauty journey has evolved since the mid ’90s, when she was discovered at 16 years old in Northern England. During her early days on the runways for Chanel (Karl Lagerfeld considered her a muse), McQueen, Marc Jacobs, and many more, she dominated the modeling scene with her offbeat look and flash of bright red hair. But her pale complexion and hollow cheeks certainly weren’t mainstream—she was immediately branded the “weird-looking model,” she says adding that Lagerfeld notably referred to her as “le freak.” “It was a tagline: she’s so different to what was happening at that moment in fashion, that I represented a sea change.”
These days, she’s embracing a natural look (Elson shouts out Pamela Anderon’s bare-face beauty: “I love that she’s not wearing makeup!” the model says). Skincare is the first order of business with SPF at the top of the list. Elson says she wants efficacy from her products, full stop: “I really, at the end of the day, just want it to do something,” she adds. “I want to see a difference.” Luckily, her 19-year-old daughter Scarlett Teresa White has “all the good skincare. I’ve definitely learned a trick or two from her,” Elson tells Love.
Dame Pat McGrath has also been a huge beauty influence for the supermodel, who has worked with the makeup guru on countless photo shoots and runway shows (Pat McGrath’s signature red lipstick, in fact, is named Elson. “We used it on all the Steven [Meisel] shoots,” Elson explains). The NYC-slash-Nashville-based mother of two breaks down her skincare routine and go-to products, including classics like Avène moisturizing cream and Nuxe’s Rêve de Miel honey lip balm. When it comes to more in-depth treatments, Elson says she is not opposed to “a little zhuzh, a little tweak,” which includes visits to the dermatologist for Botox—she typically gets injections twice a year— and PRF injections as a filler alternative every now and then.
But the thing giving Elson the most beauty wisdom is time. Now in her mid forties, Elson says she is “growing into [her] skin.”
“For a few years, I wished I looked different,” she says. “But I think as I’ve gotten older, I’m more in my skin now than I ever was.”
Be sure to tune in every other week as the likes of Carolyn Murphy, Paloma Elsesser, Devon Lee Carlson, Phoebe Tonkin, and more slip into the cozy W robe to chat all things skincare and beauty with Love. Subscribe to W’s YouTube channel to catch every episode.
