How Giada De Laurentiis Mastered a Flawless Zoom Makeup Look—Minus a Glam Squad

One of Giada De Laurentiis’ favorite things to do is to discover. That’s why, this fall, the celebrity chef and TV personality is teaming up with the ultimate “shopping discovery experience” of Marshalls for the Share WOW, Get WOW campaign, and surprising some lucky customers—who are encouraged to share their Marshalls finds on Instagram with #MarshallsWOW and #contest by October 31 for a chance to receive a WOW experience of their own—in the process. The 50-year-old recently sat down with us to dish on her part in the program, what she’s been doing turning the time spent at home (spoiler alert: she recently celebrated a milestone birthday) and mastering her makeup moves for Zoom.

On the campaign:
“This year has been rough on everybody and I was excited when Marshall’s reached out because it’s such a cool program and it brings a bit of joy to consumers, which is what we really could all use at this moment. Basically, to kick it off, I surprised one Marshalls’ shopper with a one-on-one virtual cooking class. She’s a baker and a part-time teacher and she makes these beautiful cakes. She found this very large sifter that she was super excited about because it helped her fit more flour to make more cake quicker. That’s the thing about Marshall’s—people experience a real ‘wow’ factor there. It’s a little bit of a treasure hunt when you’re in-store, because each store is so different, and you never know what you’re going to find. There’s such a feeling of discovery. For this shopper, it was a baking sifter; for somebody else, it might be something yoga-inspired or interior-design inspired.”

On the “Zoom Boom”:
“At the beginning of the pandemic, I did my cooking show from my kitchen. I was so afraid of having a makeup artist with me, because they’re so close to your face, so I ended up doing it myself. I realized that lipstick is HUGE and I actually wear more lipstick on Zoom than I normally would in front of the cameras—because it’s so saturated, it sucks so much color off you. Lipstick gets my lips super dry after I talk for a while, so I put on a little lip gloss as well. I always have a little bit of powder and I love my bronzer to give myself that glow. I also like using a water spray or any kind of face spray to hydrate and get that balance between not being too shiny, but being hydrated. With my hair, I spray a little hairspray on a fine-toothed comb to take care of the flyaways, instead of spraying it all-over the place. I have a whole bunch of tips, but using gloss and lipstick are number-one on my list.”

On sharing beauty tips with her daughter:
“I learned my beauty routine from my mother who learned it from her mother. It’s a long line of beauty routines and I started mine at about 12, which is my daughter’s age now. For years, my daughter was not interested in even brushing her teeth, much less getting into a skin-care routine but, in the last six months, she got into it! She makes her own scrub that I taught her how to make—it’s a mix of rice flour and olive oil so your skin stays hydrated, but it also takes off all the dead skin. She does a lot of scrubs, a lot of face masks and she’s really into this Lazy Susan–type circular container we actually found at Marshalls. She has all her beauty products stored on it. It’s really cute and it’s made her excited about taking care of her skin.”

On turning 50:
“I had a lot of anxiety about turning 50 [in August]. Some of the anxiety was not so much about turning the actual age, but more about what I was going to do to celebrate the fact that I’ve been on this planet for 50 years. I made it for 50 years! How was I going to plan that kind of party? Then, all of a sudden, the pandemic came around and I realized, back in May, ‘Well, that stress is gone because I can’t do anything to celebrate it.’ I think that some of the stress was lifted just because of the sheer fact that we couldn’t go anywhere or do anything, so I started to just chill out.

I will say, for the last six months, I’ve been able to chill out more than I have in the last 20 years. I’ve probably gained a year or two of my life from being at home—from not being able to travel and not work quite as hard and not have as much stress as I usually do in my regular life. So, I think that a lot of that previous anxiety went away. It melted away and my age didn’t matter as much because so much else is going on in the world.”