There was no better time to speak to facialist Georgia Louise for this story than the same day she was preparing for her annual pre-Oscars weekend pilgrimage from her uptown digs in New York to Los Angeles. With the biggest night in Hollywood (am I Ryan Seacrest?) looming ahead, she outlined the process of preparing to lug her special array of lotions, potions, and copious equipment through customs to beautify the mugs of, oh, all the fanciest attendees, and it was nothing short of fascinating.
Once we got into it, though, we had to ask: What does the woman behind the glowing complexions of everyone (and we do mean everyone) from Anna Wintour to Jennifer Aniston, Emma Stone, Jennifer Lawrence, and Christy Turlington advise them to do before the freaking Oscars? Lucky for you, we’re sharing what we learned below.
We spent last Oscar weekend with Dr. Lancer (derm to Kim Kardashian, Victoria Beckham, and Oprah)—click here to learn what crazy awards is like for him (and the long-term program he has his clients prep with, too).
What an average day looks like the week before the Oscars:
“I can’t see more than six people, because each facial is an hour and a half. I have three people in and out of the office, so when I’m working with Emma Stone, she has a facial, and afterwards, her makeup artist will start doing her makeup, so I’m treating people on the actual day of the Oscars. Or I’ll have someone coming in at 10 PM the night before because that’s the only time they have, and they want to go to bed and wake up dewy.”
How she preps the skin for makeup:
“I’ve mastered the facial technique where you have a facial and can put your makeup on straight away. It’s good because your skin is clean and smooth, and there’s no risk of contamination or blocked pores because we’re not going so deep within the skin. My facials are sort of designed to be like a ‘gloss and go.’ Have a facial, put on your makeup, and go and paint the red carpet, you know?”
What she brings to Los Angeles with her:
“I’m a steam-and-clean girl. I always have to bring my big ugly steamer. I also bring the LED mask, because that’s easy to transport. I bring the Environ DF machine, which basically has one or two different modes, which really helps to get that dewiness instantly in their skin. I bring my micro-current machine, I bring my oxygen machine, my high-frequency machine if anyone has a zit. I bring products within my line, like my cleansing balm, my finishing serum, Biologique Recherche. I definitely bring my vitamin A, peptides to soften and relax the skin, and of course I have different masks, a collagen mask, the aqua marine mask for hydration. I bring a mixture of machines, different tools, and products.”
The weirdest request celebrities put in:
“Everyone wants placenta in the awards season, because it instantly hydrates skin.”
The 3 (!) facial treatments you should get before a big event:
“I always tell people to do three facials. The first one is all about deep cleansing and making sure the skin is clean, the second one is more about tightening, with lots of micro-current and radio frequency, and then the third facial is more about dewiness and softening and brightening. For all my New Yorkers, I say let’s do one a week.”
What she tells clients to do the night before a big event:
“I always tell people to be in bed by 9 PM the night before, and don’t have any alcohol. Don’t have any sodium, because inflammation can help you look quite puffy in the morning. Absolutely no dairy. Make sure during the day you have at least ten glasses of water. Make sure that you really clean the skin and go to bed with an overnight hydrating mask.
“Sometimes I tell clients to be sure to sleep with [a] silk pillowcase, put your humidifier on, try to sleep on your back, to not sleep on your side, so you don’t get your face creased.
“If the awards are on a Sunday, and they come in on Saturday, I’m like, ‘don’t do anything—let everything that I’ve done sink in. Let everything settle into the skin. Don’t wear any makeup. Go home. Keep your hair off your face and let the skin’—it takes up to eight hours to have everything penetrate properly into the skin after a good facial.”