NINE WAYS KATE WINSLET LOOKS SO GOOD AT 50
In over three decades as an award-winning British actress with superstar status, Kate Winslet – who celebrates her 50th birthday on Sunday – is nothing short of a household name. It’s no mean feat to star in a film at 22 (you know the one) that would go on to become one of the highest-grossing films of all time. At 34 she was the youngest person ever to receive six Oscar nominations and win a “best actress” gong for another stellar performance in The Reader.
Sparkling CV aside, in recent years Winslet has become somewhat of an accidental beauty icon, too. A midlife woman who hasn’t buckled under the pressure to age a certain way in the spotlight, Kate’s back-to-basics, common-sense approach to beauty is a breath of fresh air. Here’s how she looks so good at 50.
Less is more on the red carpet
While red carpet events and TV appearances often call for more-is-more styling and make-up, Winslet decided early on to stick with her own sense of fashion. “I remember going to the Venice Film Festival a couple of years after Titanic,” she told me in an interview in 2021. “I decided I was going to cut my hair really short. I’m sure it was rebelling against that expected Hollywood glam thing. Ugh. Why did I do that? I hated my short hair! And I had this impossibly black smoky eye, and it just looked awful. It was such a pain because the make-up kept running down my face. I looked like I had swept someone’s chimney and been electrocuted in the process. That’s when I realised the importance of less is more.”
…but great eyebrows help
When Winslet was filming the gripping drama miniseries Mare Of Easttown in 2020, her character Mare didn’t wear much make-up, had grown-out roots and Winslet would draw in extra hairs to the outer corners of her eyebrows to make them look scruffier, too. “My own eyebrow shape is ridiculously perfect,” she told me at the time. “I’m not even just saying it as a compliment, I’m saying it as an observation. I got it from my mother, my daughter has them, my sister has them. I don’t pluck them, none of us do. That wasn’t going to work for Mare. It’s ridiculous. It’s too much of a ‘fashion’ shape.” Perhaps they aren’t the right brows for every occasion, but sticking with your natural brow shape when not in character is always a good idea.
Enjoy the ‘getting ready’ process
“Kate has certain styles in make-up that she likes and over the years we’ve gotten to try out different things,” explains Winslet’s long-time make-up artist and friend Lisa Eldridge, “but I know the true essence of what Kate is and she trusts me 100 percent. I know her face so well, I can literally do her make-up with my eyes closed. I could do it in my sleep!” While they sometimes only have a short amount of time to get ready for a red carpet event – particularly if they’ve got press junkets throughout the day – they do occasionally have longer in the make-up chair. “Sometimes we find ourselves with two hours to get ready for a premiere, and then we like nothing more than just taking our time and having fun. I’ll apply some eye pads on Kate and do some facial massage before we start on make-up.”
Wash your face with cold water
While Winslet isn’t “one for huge rituals or multiple products”, she always washes her face with lots of cold water in the morning. “I find that it takes any puffiness down, keeps the pores nice and tight; it also just wakes me up,” she has said in the past. “I have gone through times of my life where my skin has been bad, that happened to me when I was 30. I suddenly had this hormonal shift and for about a year my skin was really not good at all. That was quite depressing. I had to really focus on my health because it was obviously something internal that was going on.” Kate now sees facialist Joanna Czech when her skin needs an expert touch.
Don’t be afraid of a DIY haircut
“Kate is very low maintenance with her hair and she will often cut it herself,” her hairstylist of 25 years, Nicola Clarke, shares. While Clarke will only cut her hair once a year, Kate will do touch-ups throughout the year. “A lot of it is self-taught; she has picked up tips from me over the past two decades and is very good at styling her own hair, too. If she’s in my chair in the salon she will take the tongs off me and say, ‘You don’t mind if I do this bit, do you?’ She’s very self-sufficient and is like one of those old-fashioned professional actresses from the Sixties or Seventies who just knows how to get themselves ready.” As recommended by Nicola, Kate uses the Full Shampoo and Conditioner by Virtue Labs (£82 for both, Look Fantastic) and the Cool Girl Texturising Spray by Hair By Sam McKnight (£28, Sephora).
Stick to low-maintenance hair colour
“Kate has quite a typical mousy European base hair colour, so over the years we just gently highlight it to make it look more beachy,” says Clarke. “In the past we have also bleached the ends of her hair slightly to give a more sun-kissed look; she likes her hair to be quite cool without it being too obvious. She’s a real outdoorsy person, too, so we just emphasise how her hair would naturally look in the sun with some hair colour.”
When I interviewed Kate four years ago, she told me: “I don’t have grey hair yet, but I definitely suffer from browns! When my hair goes just a little too dark at the roots, it just brings my mood down. I love feeling that sort of brightness around my face.” Indeed, confirms Clarke, some carefully placed face-framing highlights “add a touch of sunshine to Kate’s overall look”.
Take a collagen supplement
“I’d always been fairly sceptical about the effectiveness and science behind powdered collagen, but I have been truly blown away by the results I am seeing (and comments I’m getting) since I started taking The Solution from Oslo Skin Lab,” Winslet told Harper’s Bazaar earlier this year. “People say things like, ‘You’re looking rested and your skin is glowing’, when in fact I’m exhausted and have been working three jobs at once. But through it all, my skin has become increasingly firmer and brighter, and way less crinkly in appearance, particularly on my legs.”
Have a sensible approach to fitness
Kate has previously shared that she has a Peloton exercise bike “which the whole family shares at home”. She also has shifted her perspective with exercise, with less of a focus on “looking good” and rather “about maintaining my bones and my strength just so I don’t get injured”.
“I like to be active and I like to be outside – we’re in the sea a lot. I no longer try to achieve unstable physical ideals that I perhaps had in my 20s, when I was much more vulnerable and naive,” she said. Kate has also spoken out about how she feels the mental health impact of working out and being outdoors. “I know if I don’t exercise, I just feel crap. I feel lethargic and less motivated in general.”
Be kind to yourself
It’s no secret that Winslet was the subject of tabloid scrutiny in the late Nineties, when – as a young 21-year-old – she suffered through cruel speculation about her weight and looks. In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar earlier this year she said, “I don’t criticise myself – that’s very much a thing of my past. Today, I do my best to look after myself from the inside out and not the other way round. And I go easy on myself; I truly believe that negativity makes for ugly hearts and minds. Kind, compassionate, curious people are amongst the most beautiful people I know.”
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2025-10-05T05:01:11Z