Martha Stewart likes LeClerc, a posh French makeup brand, so far so normal. But Martha Stewart being so enamored with a discontinued liquid eyeliner of theirs that she’s been using her final five tubes for 15-20 years by periodically adding water? Now that seems quite out of character for the perfectionist home & lifestyle queen. Experts advise that eye products like mascara and liner should not be used for longer than three months. So if Martha’s been applying her prized eyeliner for 15 years, she’s 57 months late in tossing the expired product. This all came to light in a video Martha filmed for Allure where she takes us through her daily makeup routine. Allure made the caption about her love of bronzer, but it’s the unhygienic eyeliner practice that has fans worried. Unsanitary makeup habits: it’s not a good thing!
“This is my secret for every day,” Stewart says in the clip, shared on Nov. 2, while holding up a tube of LeClerc liquid liner. “It’s not made anymore. It’s probably 15 or 20 years old. I have five of these, which I cherish.”
“I just keep adding water to it,” she explains. “It has not dried out, incredibly.”
Stewart applies the “silvery, gray-brown” liner to her top and bottom lash lines, “just to make my eyes look a little bit wider.”
Of her makeup routine, the author says, “My makeup artist Daisy’s watching and she’s probably cringing at what I do.”
For the record, eyeliners are generally not recommended to be used for more than a few months, as eye makeup can become contaminated with germs very quickly, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Stewart shares another beauty secret to keeping up her youthful glow — bronzer.
“I usually just bronze myself a lot and that gets me out the door,” she says, calling out the Westman Atelier Butter Powder Bronzer as her go-to.
“My granddaughter Jude says, ‘Martha, you use too much bronzer,’” Stewart adds. “But I like bronzer. I’ve always used too much bronzer. It just makes me feel healthy, which I am.”
The star has been promoting her new Netflix documentary Martha, which chronicles Stewart’s life and career as America’s first self-made female billionaire.
During a Tuesday, Nov. 12, appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show, the chef said her grandkids — granddaughter Jude, 13, and grandson Truman, 12 — had already seen her doc.
“They watched my documentary,” Stewart shared, referring to Truman and Jude.
“What did they think?” asked Drew Barrymore, 49.
“Well Jude, who’s 13, said, ‘It was very good. I think I’ll watch it again,’” Stewart recalled.
She also spoke about her thoughts on the documentary overall, saying: “Oh, well, I thought it was a good representation of a 20th and 21st century woman and giving hope and caring to the female gender in America. Really.”
What gets me about Martha Stewart using the same eyeliner for roughly 60 times past the recommended usage, is that it absolutely seems like the kind of thing she would judge someone else for, if the brush were on the other eyelid. I mean, I guess we can count it as further proof of how indestructible she is, that gross old makeup can’t take her down. Although we are missing critical commentary from her dermatologist and ophthalmologist in this conversation. But seriously kids, do not try this at home! As for Martha being bronzer-happy, apologies to her granddaughter, but I don’t think it’s too much! Of course it may be more striking in person. But speaking as a pale person myself, who is often advised to use bronzer to add a note of “this is the face of someone who is actually alive” to my appearance, I get it.
Last thought: “I thought it was a good representation of a 20th and 21st century woman and giving hope and caring to the female gender in America,” is quite the lofty statement for a documentary she keeps saying she doesn’t like.
Photos credit: Arlene Richie/JPI Studios/Avalon, Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Netflix, IMAGO/mpi099/MediaPunch/Avalon