"I grew up in a small town in Canada called Port Perry, Ontario. It’s a very cute, sleepy little Victorian town. Like most Canadian towns, it’s a hockey town, and I was not a hockey player. I used to sneak into my mom’s makeup drawer—I was obsessed with watching her put on makeup. Still am. I’ve always been into pretty things. My aunt Patty, who lived next door, sold Mary Kay. [She] would come over with all the new palettes, and they had this system where you could click them in and make your own eye shadow palette. It was kind of revolutionary at the time. My mom always did really pretty glam, but Marilyn Monroe was the first person who I didn’t personally know that I thought was the epitome of being beautiful and glamorous. And then, Madonna. I’ve had a thing for blondes ever since. I went through a phase where I would only dance with blonde women—can you believe?

CAREER
I started as an intern at Vogue in New York, and the next year I interned at W Magazine. [After that], I got a job as the assistant to the West Coast editor of Vogue, and then three months later I got an offer from Rachel Zoe and I worked for her for three years. I was [at Vogue] during the glory days of like, black cars. We took black cars everywhere. I would go downstairs and order a black car, and the car would take me to Harry Winston, and I would pick up a 30-million-dollar emerald necklace. That doesn’t happen anymore. But I was there at such a cool time, because we were given a lot of responsibility. Jessica Diehl, who’s at Vanity Fair but was at Vogue at that time, was one of the first people that ever invited me on a shoot. She was so nice to me and I’ve never forgotten, all these years later, how generous it was to bring me on set. I had amazing opportunities to be on set with Arthur Elgort, Jessica Stam, Grace Coddington, Karen Elson—people I had read about in magazines. And they were all so kind to me. Those years really solidified what I’m doing now. I started my own business seven years ago. You don’t know how to run a business until you’re actually doing it. It probably took me at least a year and a half to two years to really understand.

The best advice I got when I started was that the only way to have a successful business is to learn how to navigate. At that point I was working out of my garage doing everything myself, and that was the most important advice because it’s so important to surround yourself with people who respond and are accountable and respectful. I get to work with incredible women who are not just my clients but I also think of as my friends. Since I started this business, it’s always been my M-O that as soon as I open the door, I am giving my clients an experience that they look forward to. I think that some people dread going to fittings, and that’s not the case here—I don’t do dread. What we do is fun! We get to play with clothes all day. When I played with Barbies as a kid I would set up worlds for them in my basement—I was always dressing them up to go to these big make-believe events, and now I dress real human beings to go to the biggest events in the world. The center of my business is my styling business, but I have a 360 approach. I dress people for the red carpet, I’m on the red carpet, and I talk about the red carpet. It’s a total gift because I used to tape the red carpet when I was a kid and re-watch it. I was just at the royal wedding, which was so awesome, and the Met Gala, and I have the Emmys coming up. Being on the red carpet and discussing it while also dressing people is a weird thing, because sometimes my worlds will really collide and I’ll be on the red carpet interviewing a client of mine that I dressed for the red carpet. It can be a little overwhelming, but it’s also really funny.

SKINCARE
I guess you could call me a beauty junkie—I have a lot of beauty products. People DM me about the best facialist, the best cream I’ve tried, a mask I was wearing. When I wake up, I brush my teeth, have my coffee, and put sunscreen on before I leave. When I turned 40, I became really excessive about putting sunscreen on my face. I think it’s something people don’t really do, but here you have to do it, do it, do it. I think the guys in my gym locker room think I’m a weirdo because I take my Nurse Jamie Uplift Roller with me and do it after I work out. It’s a roller for your face that has tourmaline stones on it, but it looks a little like a purple dildo. I roll out my face, do a serum, a moisturizer, sometimes an under eye cream, and sometimes I’ll wear a tinted moisturizer. I curl my eyelashes almost every single day because it helps open up my eyes a little bit behind my glasses.

I rotate my serums, but I’m really into the Capture Youth Serum from Dior right now. I like the EGF Stem Cell Moisturizer from Nurse Jamie, and I’m also into iS Clinical as well. I have their Moisture Emulsion, but I like to use that at night because it’s really, really hydrating. I also love Dr. Barbara Sturm—I use a lot of her stuff. I use her Hyaluronic Serum, I’ll sometimes put on her Glow Drops depending on what my day is and if I’m seeing anyone, and I like her Sun Drops as well. I’m out of her Blood Cream right now, but I’ll use that during the day. This is going to sound so weird, but she has a stash of my blood somewhere in Dusseldorf! I think she has one of the best new product lines where you actually see results. The Blood Cream is uber expensive but I actually see a massive change in my skin, and it was immediate once I started using it. I do this weird thing, and I do it with clothes too, where I try to parcel out my usage of things. I switch it out a lot. I become married to a program for a little bit, and then I move on to new stuff to sort of trick my skin a little bit. I love the Eden Lift Mask from Joanna Vargas. I love Rodial—Maria [the owner] is a good friend, and she has one of the best overnight masks—the Dragon Blood Hyaluronic Mask. I love it so much. I sometimes use the Rodial Dragon Blood Under Eye when I’m on an airplane. I have a volcanic ash mask that my friend gave me from Korea, and it literally feels like you’re having a face lift. You can feel your face tightening up—it’s unbelievable.

I wash my face at night and I’ve been into Dr. Barbara Sturm’s Foaming Cleanser. I also like the Rodial Vitamin C one. The Tri-Active Exfoliant from iSClinical is really good. I do a skin resurfacing or a mini peel once a week, just to get everything off. Then I’ll do a super hydrating treatment—either the Rodial Dragon Blood mask, which I always do to recharge my skin right when I get home after being on an airplane, or Nurse Jamie’s cream. Right now I’m doing a whole iS Clinical thing—Moisture Emulsion, an active serum with Hydra-Cool, and their cream. I went through a major La Prairie Caviar Luxe phase. The product itself is incredible, but I wish they would change the scent.

I go to Joanna Vargas for facials the day before a red carpet. What she does is magic—total magic. Everyone I’ve sent to her becomes a total die-hard. I could eat her Daily Serum—I love it. She always does microcurrent, which has changed my life, and she does cryo too—so incredible. She has a new stem cell mask she’s been using and I really like it. I want anything that will boost my collagen anywhere, all over my body. I’m also obsessed with Nurse Jamie. My mom had a scar on her face her entire life and I took her to Nurse Jamie and she took it off, and she completely changed my mom’s life at 65. It changed the way she sees herself. She works in an office where she’s dealing with people all the time, and they would ask her what was on her face. I think there’s power in some of the things we can do to ourselves now—not to say that scars are ugly, but seeing the impact Jamie had on my mom and her self-esteem was kind of amazing. She used her talent to change another person's life—it was nice to see.

I just started using this new brand called Niod, in particular the Hydration Vaccine. This stuff is dope. Then there’s the Nurse Jamie TriAngle—what this is supposed to do is stimulate collagen, so it vibrates. You can do it along the jaw, and then you can turn it around to go under your eye. It makes my jaw more defined and tighter, and just gets shit going. I carry these on airplanes, too. It stays kind of cold, so under your eye is just beyond.

MAKEUP
The makeup I have is what I use if I do my own makeup for the red carpet. I actually like doing it, so I do it myself pretty often. I love my Hoola—love some bronzer. Giorgio Armani Maestro Sunscreen Makeup is to die for. I have a backstock of Starlit Liquid 02, which is a glitter pigment. I use IT Cosmetics CC Cream and Bye Bye Pores, which I love, and then I have this Bare Minerals Tinted Moisturizer for day to day. I also love a primer—this is a Korean one called MDoC BB Cream.

HEALTH
I think right now the key is hydration. I drink a lot of water, I don’t drink alcohol, I don’t smoke cigarettes, and I eat a very clean diet—for the most part. Those things really help. And staying out of the sun, or trying to be protected from the sun—even though I die for a good tan—is good. I won’t do a spray tan. Every day I workout, and I spend a good portion of my day in my gym clothes...I’m one of those people. I was doing a mixture of weights and Barry’s Boot Camp, but I’m too tired for Barry’s right now. I have a horrible sweet tooth—like, really bad. I’ve been trying to stop. I’m on day five of no eating after dinner—typically I like to do another lap of gentle grazing. I take Biotin, because I’m obsessed with not losing my hair, and I also take Dr. Barbara Sturm Skin Food. The other thing I take is Ester-C, which is a form of vitamin C.

SCENT
I’ve been using Virtue products for my hair, which I really like. Gary, my husband, hates super fragranced smells, so we don’t really do that. I don’t wear cologne or anything like that. Actually, I do have one that I sneak in every so often that’s called Cloud that I got in Tulum. It’s a little girly and musky. It almost smells kind of too girly, like The Body Shop White Musk—do you remember that scent? It is a tiny bit floral, but it’s pretty unisex. I don’t really have a body wash I need to use—my body tells me right away whether it’s bueno or no bueno. I either get super dry, super reactive, or just normal. Nine times out of 10 my body’s like, ‘Get that off.’"

—as told to ITG

Brad Goreski photographed by David Cortes in Los Angeles on June 8, 2018.