Actress Jennifer Beals Shares Her Anti-Aging Secrets

by Lexi Novak


Allure Staff
Allure Staff


Nearly 31 years after playing a welder-cum-stripper with an affinity for legwarmers, Jennifer Beals still looks like she could Flashdance her way into the Pittsburgh Conservatory. The ageless beauty and current spokesperson for EverDeep, an algae-based anti-aging skincare line, stopped by Allure to chat about the brand, her beauty regime, and discovering the Fountain of Youth.


What's your skincare routine? "I'm not the most disciplined person in the world, so I'm just going to be really upfront with that. But in terms of keeping my skin healthy, the first thing I really think about is nutrition and sleep and making sure I'm hydrated with water and juice. Then I just wash my face in the morning and put on moisturizer. Sometimes if I go swimming, I'll re-moisturize and then use a night cream, but I'm not really interested in something that's going to take a long time. I'm really impatient that way. Two minutes in the morning, two minutes max in the evening, boom, done."

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What made you decide to represent EverDeep? "They asked me to be a spokesperson, and I said, 'Well I have to try it first to make sure it works,' and the results were pretty amazing. I literally had three people who I don't see very often come up to me and tell me that I looked younger. My favorite thing in the line is the Intensive Anti-Wrinkle Serum. It's like magic. It just smoothed everything out. And I love that it's paraben and phthalate free, and it's not perfumey. We've been so conditioned to think that that a perfumey smell is synonymous with luxury and opulence, but you end up putting all kinds of chemicals in your body that don't need to be there."

Do you like doing juice cleanses and things like that? "I love chlorophyll water. I first discovered it when I was working in New Mexico. I was at a very high altitude, and I would get out of breath easily even though I was in really good shape. The people who lived there said you could take chlorophyll, because it helps oxygenate the blood. So now I'll buy alkaline water that's got chlorophyll in it, and I can immediately feel my brain just kind of wake up."

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How do you stay fit? "I love to run. I don't actually think running is probably the best thing for your skin because of the sun and the pounding and everything, but I think everything in moderation. And I just started ballet. Oh, I'm so bad. My pas de chat looks like I'm doing a hoedown. I want to put on a gingham shirt and cowboy hat when I do my pas de chat across the studio, but I just don't care. I can feel how good it is for me. I injured myself recently snowboarding, but I find that all the core work from ballet has really helped heal me."

You're embraced your curly hair. How do you care for it? "When I was a girl, my hair was really intense, so I would literally sleep with a wool cap on and sponge rollers and stuff. Now I just do a rough dry and then wrap it around a curling iron. And I don't put a lot of product in at all--mostly a light jojoba oil or something on the ends. [Beals's hairstylist Sabrina Sanchez uses Shu Uemura Art of Hair Essence Absolute Nourishing Protective Oil.] When it's air-dried, it's like a frizzy, big, triangular thing that happens, so just a little bit on the ends to protect them from the heat, and that's about it. I think the beauty of getting older is you go, 'I am who I am, and we're just going to roll with that.'"

Do you have a beauty motto? "Kindness to yourself and kindness to others. Kindness to yourself, you're taking care of nutrition; you're taking care of your thoughts. And kindness to others, you're trying to use that for something good rather than me, me, me."

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