Nicole Richie regrets wearing so much make-up when she was younger
The 44-year-old star has adopted a "less is more approach" to cosmetics as she has gotten older and she wishes she had made the transition to a more natural look a lot sooner.
31 January 2026
She told Pop Sugar: "I like to feel like myself.
"When I look at videos and photos of myself in my 20s, the first thing I think of is, 'I thought I needed so much.' "
However, the Simple Life star noted she had a lot of fun experimenting with her appearance when she was younger but wished she had been more knowledgeable about what her skin needed.
She said: "[I] was having so much fun, and I do think that beauty and fashion should be this ever-flowing, ever-changing thing.
"Experimenting with what you like and what you gravitate towards is amazing, and very important for self-expression.
"I'm by no means knocking it, but I'm [also] like, 'You were so young, you didn't even need all that stuff.'"
Nicole tries not to follow beauty trends because they can be "extremely limiting" and she's learned the hard way that they don't always suit her.
She said of the early 200s trend for frosted lipstick: "It was so great on my friends, and terrible on me.
"I was like, 'That's what I get for following a damn trend.'"
But when it comes to current popular looks, Nicole praised side partings and fake freckles, but isn't a fan of short nails or matte foundation.
She added: "I'm feeling like there's a '90s trend, [to] everything that you said."
Nicole previously admitted she "wanted to look like something else" during her 20s.
She told People magazine: "When I look at my photos of myself in my 20s, the first thing that comes to mind is just how much I thought I needed between extensions and make-up.
"I would say, 'I can never let anyone see me without extensions, not even my animals' [because] my hair is so thin. Back then it would take about six hours to put in a full head of extensions, so sometimes I would take out my extensions the night before and then get them put back in the next morning.
"While I loved all that, and I think it's so much fun. I didn't need it, and I do think that I was still in a stage where I wanted to look like something else."
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