Serena Williams kicks off her daily beauty routine with a wry shout-out to her mother. Removing the undereye patches she’s been prepping her skin with, the Olympic gold medalist quips, “Lord knows I need moisture under my eyes. I hear it’s hereditary, so thank you, Mom.” Then the tennis star shares the rest of her simple skin-care routine and the thick-brow trick she uses to maintain her signature look.
After hydrating her eyes, the 42-year-old lights up her skin-care regimen with CurrentBody’s LED face mask. “It soothes your skin,” she explains. “It calms everything down.” After 10 minutes, she’s ready to unmask and wash her face with Dr. Barbara Sturm cleanser. Serum is the next step, and Williams uses Eadem’s milky formulation, followed by La Roche-Posay eye cream. With every step, she minds her mother’s advice. “My mom told me ages ago, ‘Always go up on your skin,’” Williams says, dutifully applying her products with an upward hand motion. As an act of self-care, she gives herself a face massage using BeautyStat moisturizer. Then it’s time for makeup.
“I am going to be running around—I don’t have time to do this full-on-glam red-carpet look,” she says. Her routine begins with an SPF-enhanced skin tint from her brand, Wyn Beauty. “The shade range goes from darkest to lightest,” she says. “Being a person-of-color founder, it’s so important to do something…to empower so many people that look like you.” Later, she adds: “Growing up, it was hard not to notice that there wasn’t a lot of stuff in my shade.”
After using L.A. Girl color corrector under her eyes, she swipes on Pat McGrath’s creamy concealer—and explains that she’s not the only one in her house “obsessed” with the product. “I think [my daughter] Olympia likes it too,” she says. “She actually plays a lot in my makeup.”
As she darkens her eyebrows using Wyn’s brow pencil, Williams says: “I was a stickler about making sure [the pencil] wasn’t dry. I love my brows. I know a lot of people are like, ‘They’re too thick.’ Well, they’re my brows! I like them thick.” After brushing her brows into the shape she prefers, Williams makes them more pronounced by adding concealer underneath the arches. She moves onto her cheeks next, giving them color with Fenty contour and a creamy blush. “I like to keep my blush high, which makes my face happy,” she says.
Before wrapping up with Wyn’s mascara and lip and cheek color, the California native explains what winning means to her—beyond being the phonic muse for her beauty brand. “Winning isn’t about just winning championships,” she says. “It’s about winning in life. It could be winning and having a kid—that’s a huge victory!” After locking in her look with Charlotte Tilbury’s setting spray, the mother of two is ready to bring her beauty wins out into the world. “I feel good now,” she says. “I’m feeling confident. I feel like winning.” And with that, she’s off to pick up her daughter.
