Dolly Parton Lets Us in on Her Best Beauty Secrets

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My look was always kind of trashy. It was a country girl's idea of glam — the backwoods (1) Barbie. And I'd kinda overdone it, I guess, but I was always comfortable. So I remember Chet Atkins, one of the world's most famous guitar players and a friend of mine, who was born and raised in East Tennessee like I was, and was the head of RCA Records for many years, he pulled me off to the side in my early days. He said, "Dolly, I don't think you're ever going to do everything that you want to do by looking like that. You're a right pretty girl, you don't need all that." And I thought, Well, I wish you hadn't said that. I hate to not take the advice of someone I love and respect. I just kept doing that look more and more. And then after I became so famous, I was on RCA and he was one of my bosses, and he came up and said, "Now ain't you glad you took my advice?" And I said, "Yeah, right."

Do what makes you happy, because if you're happy and you're comfortable, people are going to be happy around you. They're going to be comfortable with you — even if you might look ridiculous to them. Because there's something about you that makes them feel content. I'm not preaching [that] somebody should look like me. Most people don't want to wear that much makeup or hair, but at least I have one thing that I know for a fact is real: I am comfortable with who I am. And I dress for me. I do what makes me happy. So I would just say to anybody: "If you're comfortable wearing no makeup, be that. If you wanna wear too much, do that." 

I don't know that there's a nice thing about aging. We do it. But for me, I've always looked the same way, and I think I'll look this way pretty much if I live to be 100. I'm like the Gabor sisters — Zsa Zsa and Eva — you never knew how old they were. When you're a cartoon kind of character like me you never really know if that person's old or young. I'm not going to be like Judge Judy, who I love to death. She wore her hair and her makeup so great, but now she's gone to just wearing her hair pulled back in a bun and — well, she's comfortable and that's all good. She didn't want to have to work so hard, being at the age she is. And I respect that and I love that. But for me, I'll just do what I've always done. I'll do what's best for me, as everybody should.

I never go out with a bare face. Not even when I go out. Somebody, please open my coffin to put some makeup on me. At night, I leave my makeup on. I don't want to go to bed in curlers and Clearasil and patches all over me for my husband (2). A lot of people say, "Oh, you should never go to bed with your makeup on." And I say, "You should never be telling me what to do." I don't know what's going to happen in the middle of the night. My husband is not in great health, and I have to be ambulance-ready at all times — an ambulance for him, or for me. I have to be earthquake-ready, I have to be tornado-ready (3). You're not gonna catch me out in the streets bare-faced unless you've caught me in the morning when I'm cleaning my face and getting ready to put it on again. If I had to hit the streets then… I probably would just die in the tornado. I can do my makeup in 15 or 20 minutes, though, and I wear a wig almost every day.

I have a few houses scattered here and there. I spend time in L.A., and we have a place on the lake, and I have a little apartment in my office downtown [in Nashville], and then my big house where I live with my husband. So I have little wig cabinets that Cheryl [Riddle, my hairdresser,] sets up everywhere, and I can always say, "Okay, yup, I feel like that today." Wigs are just so handy. I would love to do a wig line next. And I'm going to be doing makeup. 

But I'm doing fragrance first. People will always run me down the street or even backstage, they'll come up behind me and say, "Oh, my Lord, I love that smell! What is that?" And I'd have to say, "I just call it 'Dolly' because it's not just one smell. It's a combination of things I love." The two main ones were Tova's musk bath oil and Mary Kay Intrigue (4). When they said they weren't going to make that perfume anymore, I went on eBay and bought every bottle. I was paying a huge amount of money buying Intrigue. I've got hundreds of bottles even still, that's how serious I was about the smell. 

So when I got ready to do my own fragrance, I took those two things, along with all my lotions and stuff, and said to [the company], "Help me find the closest thing we can. But legal." It took us two years to get this to where it was really right. I said, "No, I'm not putting something out that don't smell like me. I don't want to have my own perfume and then still wear something else." I think it turned out even better than what I was wearing. It smells like angels.

I go where my heart leads me 'cause I pray every day that God will lead me in the choices that I make. When I made the donation for the vaccine (5), I just felt led to do that. If we don't have our health, we have nothing. I try to be as cautious and as conscious as I can be with my own health, though I don't always take as good care of myself as I should, I guess. But I'm developing my own line of exercises for people that are older or not well, or lazy, like me. If you tell me I've got to do an exercise routine, that I've got to do this and do that, I dread it so bad. So I just put on music or sing gospel songs and do my own kind of workout — shouting and stretching and praising. I do more "rejoicing" than I do "working out." I do a few little floor exercises now and then, a few little squats. Especially diddly-squats. I'm big on those. — As told to Jenny Bailly

1. Parton was raised in a two-room cabin in Sevierville, Tennessee, the fourth of 12 children. 2. Parton married Carl Dean on May 30, 1966. They met two years earlier outside the Wishy Washy laundromat in Nashville. 3. Mid-Tennessee has seen several significant tornado events in 2021. Tennessee also has a high earthquake risk as it is located in two seismic zones. 4. Mary Kay Intrigue, launched in 1971, is a warm and spicy mix with amber and musk. It was eventually discontinued. 5. After hearing of Vanderbilt University Medical Center's coronavirus research efforts, Parton donated $1 million. She later found out that her donation helped fund testing of the Moderna vaccine.

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