Brooke Shields Says Women 40+ Hold Power in Beauty

Brooke Shields has a pretty light-hearted outlook on aging and experiencing menopause. The actress recently attended WSJ’s Future of Everything event, where she spoke on a panel about building her hair-care brand, Commence, and why she views getting older as “liberating.”

Shields launched Commence in 2024 after realizing there weren’t enough brands catering to the needs of women over 40, a group she told WSJ is the “most powerful demographic in beauty.”

“When you start looking at where the white space was, the questions that they were asking me were, ‘how come there aren’t products just designed and developed for us? And what problems are you feeling and facing?” she said. “And what a lot of them have said—they remember being the hot girl and then all of [a] sudden they’re just menopause and in Depends. You know what I mean? It’s like hot girl or in Depends.”

Shields continued her praise of women over 40, saying all the women she’s met in that age range are “fabulous” and “have so much to offer,” which is why she sees Commence as more of a “care” brand than anything. “I started to say, we believe we are a care brand,” she said. “It’s your turn to really take care of yourself.” 

The actress added that people often describe aging as being empowering, though that doesn’t stop older beauty consumers from being overlooked. “The word empowered has been used a lot, and it’s kind of like a magnet on a refrigerator. But really, when you understand what it feels like to be in this era in your life and be unapologetic,” she said. “You don’t have to make yourself smaller. So the idea was, why are we overlooked when we have the spending power?” 

The actress has always been open about embracing getting older. She told NewBeauty in a previous interview that aging comes with power, and stressed the importance of enjoying “your body as it is.”

“Just when we start coming into our own power as women, we realize we should have really enjoyed what we had when we had it full steam,” she said.