Brooke Shields Gets Real About Aging Hair, Empty Nesting & Advice She Gives Her Daughters

Brooke Shields is an icon of screen and runways the world over. You may know her from her modeling days on magazine covers, the controversial movie Pretty Baby, or the less controversial Blue Lagoon, but more likely from the TV show Suddenly Susan and her recent slate of Netflix films.

The 59-year-old mom of two has never shied away from being honest about aging. In an interview last year, she said, “I love food and I love alcohol and I love life and I want to be healthy for my heart. I don’t like going to the gym. I like Pilates. That’s where I am. And I am tired of not feeling skinny enough. It’s boring and it’s a waste of my time.”

Shields is now behind a new(ish) haircare line aimed at women over 40 called Commence. As a — ahem — woman over 40, I got the chance to meet both Brooke and Mark Knitowski, the company’s Head of R&D and a longtime fragrance buff (he developed numerous scents at Victoria’s Secret) about why your hair changes as you age (yes, I can personally attest it’s another thing you have to worry about). I also chatted with Brooke about handling being an empty nester — both of her daughters are off at college in North Carolina.

Scary Mommy: I'm 42. I've noticed that my hair has completely changed in the last three, four years. Can you please tell me why?

Brooke Shields: Hormonal shifts change the quality of your hair. Where the root goes in, the follicle, that actually shrinks. So I love the stuff that shrinks when you age… I guess God was a guy. Seriously? Come on. It's not fair. The hormonal shifts also change your skin. So we notice there's the suppleness, the hydration, all of that gets challenged with hormonal changes.

SM: And everyone’s talking about scalp care.

BS: Nobody really thinks of scalp, now they're starting to, as skin. But that level of attention paid to the beginning, start at the root, start where it all comes from. When you're older, you need to pay attention to creating the environment in your scalp so that it can receive the good ingredients that then we put on. So for instance, if it's shrinking, it's more narrow, so it's not going to be able to accept the nutrients that you would want for healthier hair. Also, it's more impeded because of hair coming out of the root. So if you think of it that way, hyaluronic acid, which is great for your skin is not great for your scalp because it's not able to be absorbed and received because hyaluronic acid as a molecule is too big.

Mark Knitowski: You lose a lot of vitamins and minerals and nutrients that you normally would have as you age. To what Brooke was saying, your root just is smaller and it's not working as well because the nutrients aren't there. That's why we thought scalp health is what you need because you need to build up to make your scalp's microbiome balanced so it's ready to receive these ingredients that you're not able to get anymore.

BS: It's like good soil.

SM: I'd be remiss if I didn't ask about beauty advice as you age, and also what you tell your daughters too.

BS: I start with, this is my experience. So I will always make it about what I've experienced and then say, does anybody else identify with that? So then you have a dialogue rather than me pretending I'm some expert. So that's the first thing.

I say to my girls, mostly, to just try not to fall prey to wanting to look like other people because you inevitably fail. And so you're starting off with, oh, I'm not that, so therefore I am less than. And there's going to be things that you don't love, but don't focus on those. Focus on the other things because then you'd be surprised how much better you feel.

I talk about caring for your health for the right reasons, not just cosmetically. And I am in the beauty industry and have been my whole life. So I would say I'm part of the problem, but it's the idea of comparison. Did you ever see that Dove campaign?

SM: Mm-hmm. It’s all over my Instagram feed again.

BS: It brings tears to my eyes every single time. How we see ourselves versus how people see us. And what one quality that we see as strong in a woman or beautiful or epic or whatever the thing is, turns into a hook nose and a witch when they're describing themselves. And that is in our culture and we do it. And in other cultures, older women are revered for having endured everything in getting here. And they are looked to for being wise.

And I think that that's the stuff that I just tell my daughters. Yeah, they love all the stuff they love. Every time I get a gift bag, they're like puppies at the door and they love it and they enjoy it. But I also try to say, don't cover up, don't cartoon yourself. It's interesting because my kids have been in the public eye. The vitriol and the scrutiny they have seen directed to them on their Instagram is so extreme that they felt it firsthand and understand it with me as their mother. And so they are now more prone to say, ugh, don't read the comments. It's just angry, jealous people. So they had to learn it, I think, a little bit the hard way that I have no control over, but I try to safeguard them emotionally.

SM: I know you're an empty-nester now.

BS: It's so gutting and it makes perfect sense as to why. And there's so much that goes on because you feel like you've lost your value. Because if you're not primarily just mom in the day to day, you don't know what role you're supposed to play. And there's this too much and too little and helicopter, but then don't. So I indulged it. We drove twice, two times [to drop off] and my husband did that by design.. So that I could openly cry. I was doing needlepoint and listening to a book on tape because I couldn't really... I would've just been blubbering. But the first time it was, you cannot experience that when they get smaller in the rear view mirror. That is like a bad movie.

And then they start revealing themselves as independent people and they get to be more fun. And it's an adjustment. And you have to really be patient with yourself.

But my girls were just interviewed with me for a magazine article and it was really interesting what they said. They each said in their own way that they felt that they were becoming more my friend than just I was the keeper of their life and fate. And Greer added — which was good because I was looking at her like really? — you can still discipline me. You still discipline us, mom. And I was like, damn straight.

But there's a new relationship that you get. And then when you see how their friends treat them, react to them or have an inside joke with them, and you're like, oh God, I am not in this clique. I'm not in this group. Oh my God. But then you're like, look at them. They're cool. They're going to be okay in their life.