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E107
November 25, 2025
Still Bobbi: Bobbi Brown on Reinvention, Midlife Entrepreneurship & Finding Purpose After 60
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What does it look like to begin again at 62 and thrive? Beauty industry pioneer Bobbi Brown joins Dr. Mary Claire Haver for an intimate conversation about her new memoir, Still Bobbi, building Jones Road Beauty in her sixties, leaving behind the company that bore her name for 25 years, and redefining what success, purpose, and aging mean in the second half of life.

Bobbi Brown revolutionized the beauty industry with her "no makeup makeup" philosophy in the 1990s, sold her company to Estée Lauder, and spent decades as creative director before exiting in her late fifties. But instead of retiring, she launched Jones Road Beauty at 62 during a pandemic, proving that passion and entrepreneurship don't disappear with age; they evolve. In this personal conversation, Bobbi shares her journey from Chicago to building a global beauty empire, the emotional reality of leaving the company with her name on it, and why she refuses to use the term "anti-aging." She opens up about growing up with a mother who struggled with mental illness, losing her brother to HIV, and how weighted vest training and strength over skinny became her midlife mantras.

Dr. Haver and Bobbi connect over shared experiences of menopause, hormone therapy, and the relentless pressure of being a founder. They discuss what it means to perform when exhausted, learning to say no, and why the maintenance phase of any transformation, whether weight loss or career pivot, is often the hardest part.

Bobbi's memoir, Still Bobbi, is a story of resilience, grit, and determination for anyone who thought their best work was behind them.

Guest links:

Books

Articles

Other Resources

Chapters

00:00 – Opening Ads & Holiday Gift Guide
01:56 – Bobbi Brown on “Anti-Aging” Myths
02:34 – Reinventing Purpose at 60
03:23 – Creating Jones Road for Midlife Skin
05:13 – Chicago Roots & Family Influences
08:10 – Dr. Haver’s Brother, Makeup & NYC
09:56 – Loss, HIV & Life Pivots
10:18 – Birth of the No-Makeup Makeup Look
11:18 – Building Bobbi Brown Cosmetics
17:36 – Leaving Lauder & Launching Jones Road
22:05 – Naming Jones Road + Pandemic Launch
24:31 – Miracle Balm & Social Media Discovery
32:44 – Fear, Failure & Reinvention
40:36 – Menopause Care Gap & Women’s Health
59:28 – Midlife Strength, Hormones & Aging Well

About the guest

Bobbi Brown

Bobbi Brown is a renowned makeup artist and entrepreneur, best selling author, sought after speaker, beauty industry icon, and a hotelier. She founded two successful cosmetic brands: Bobbi Brown Cosmetics and more recently created the clean beauty brand Jones Road. She also envisioned and now operates The George Hotel in Montclair, NJ.

Bobbi made the TIME100 “Most Influential People in the World” list and was also named one of Fortune's Most Powerful Women and Forbes' "50 Over 50" Most Influential Women. She has received the Glamour Woman of the Year Award, The Fashion Group International Night of Stars Beauty Award, and The Jackie Robinson Foundation’s ROBIE Humanitarian Award. She was appointed to serve on the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and has been inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. 

She received a BFA from Emerson College and holds honorary doctorates from Montclair State University, Fashion Institute of Technology, Monmouth University, and Emerson College.