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Valerie Monroe on Muck Rack

Valerie Monroe

New York
As seen in: How Not To F*ck Up Your Face, The New York Times, Yahoo Entertainment, Yahoo Life, HuffPost, Yahoo Canada, Back Row, Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance, REAL ART DETROIT, Substack, Flipboard and
Former beauty director O, The Oprah Magazine, CEO VJMonroe LLC, Duenna at Substack newsletter HowNotToF*ckUpYourFace
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Articles by Valerie Monroe

Regrets, I Have a Few

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
well, just one, but it’s kinda big Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap that ❤️ above and then prepare yourself for one of the great mysteries of the internet: PPAP. 💐 💐 💐 Sometime HNTFUYF muse, L, lightheartedly scolded me last week about my review of two lip stains. “You were so ‘meh’ about them,” she said. “I want you to recommend something you really love.” L, you know what I love? The box of four Hermès 15 ml travel-size fragrances I buy a couple times a year.
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This Is Your Skin on Booze 2.0

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap the ❤️ above to ensure you’re enrolled in the HNTFUYF Hall of Fame. Then, head here to ensure you’re registered to vote! 💓 💓 💓 I want to thank you all, Dear Readers, for posting photos of yourselves last week in HNTFUYF’s inaugural chat (still live). What joy to see your faces.
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Your Perfectly Imperfect Face

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
plus, a hyaluronic acid brief Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap that ❤️ above and then read about one of the best ways to stay sharp even as your edges are rounding out. I started thinking about chaos several weeks ago after I found an unpleasant rash staring back at me in the mirror—or wait, was it because of the unusual concentration of storms brewing in the South Pacific? Or the flurry of news about a serial killer called AI? Or threats to voting rights?
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A Warning ☠️

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please pump that ❤️ above to help increase HNTFUYF’s circulation. Then, if you’re a fan of eyelash extensions, take a peek at some research you won’t want to miss. Of all kinds of mysteries, I believe medical mysteries might be the most unpleasant. Especially when one manifests on your face. More specifically, on my face. During an otherwise blissful week in Maine recently, I noticed a strange feeling on the skin near my upper lip.
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Now We're Supposed to Have a Forever-35 Vagina?

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By Valerie Monroe
| Allure Verified
I have an old friend I’d like you to meet. She’s plenty post-menopausal, in other words, far from our culture’s youthful ideal, but she’s still delightfully employed. Unless you knew her when she was in her prime (as many did, she’d be happy to report), a casual observer wouldn’t notice a difference in her appearance, except for her now faded fleece, a bit more daintily tailored but still sporty.
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Now We're Supposed to Have a Forever-35 Vagina?

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By Valerie Monroe
| Yahoo Life Verified
Valerie Monroe Mon, September 21, 2026 at 10:00 AM EDT 6 min read Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Add Yahoo on Google I have an old friend I'd like you to meet. She's plenty post-menopausal, in other words, far from our culture's youthful ideal, but she's still delightfully employed.
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Now We're Supposed to Have a Forever-35 Vagina?

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By Valerie Monroe
| Yahoo Style Canada Verified
I have an old friend I'd like you to meet. She's plenty post-menopausal, in other words, far from our culture's youthful ideal, but she's still delightfully employed. Unless you knew her when she was in her prime (as many did, she'd be happy to report), a casual observer wouldn't notice a difference in her appearance, except for her now faded fleece, a bit more daintily tailored but still sporty.
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The Old Lady Energy Revolution Arrived at the 2026 Emmys Original

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By Valerie Monroe
| Allure Verified
Not long ago, I wrote a story about the delightful recognition that at the 2025 Golden Globes ceremony, Old Lady Energy was in vibrant display. (Sixteen women between 50 and 70 were nominated for awards.) An old lady myself, it never occurred to me that calling out women who happen to be thriving in their abundant maturity might be offensive. It sadly was, to many commenters who hadn’t considered that thinking the term “old lady” is an insult is actually insulting to old ladies like me.
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Your Beautiful Aging Face

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please hit the ❤️ above before you take a moment to remember one of the most remarkable women of our time. This week’s post comes to you from the verdant hills and valleys of midcoast Maine, where HNTFUYF’s beloved Maine correspondent—the linchpin for all kinds of delightful affairs—brought together the HNTFUYF staff for a mirthful evening and an impromptu photo shoot.
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Getting Your Shots

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap the ❤️ above before watching this thrillingly clear video about how misinformation snowballs in the beauty market. Scrolling on Instagram the other day, I clicked on an ad from Bandolier, as I might be in the market for a new iPhone case. Up popped a photo (below) from their latest collaboration, prompting intense bewilderment. What’s next, a feedbag?
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A Perfect Hair Mask

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap that ❤️ before you read a smart take on the state of beauty marketing to kids. 😴 😴 😴 As a way to wind down before bed, I often watch old videos of the 1950s game show What’s My Line? The ubiquitous, white glove gentility warms me against the chill of the current zeitgeist as I consider, alone in the dark, all the things that could possibly go wrong now, tomorrow, and in the gaping, unknown Next.
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Dolly Parton Was What Great Beauty Looks Like Original

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By Valerie Monroe
| Allure Verified
She was Just. So. Darn. Good. Good at writing songs that wrenched the soul. Good at singing them with a voice that was, as she said, “real different.” Good at witty repartee: “I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb…and I also know I’m not blonde.” Good at spreading her wealth. And maybe most surprisingly, good at showing us, once and for all, the profound importance of intention behind our aesthetic choices.
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End-of-Summer Retail Therapy

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap that ❤️ above before you read about what may be a previously undiscovered women-led culture. Though I do look forward to the fall (and my return to Tokyo), slipping toward summer’s end always makes me melancholic. It’s anticipatory grief, I think; I’m already missing the steamed sweet corn, the colander brimming with juicy black plums, and the late, rosy sunsets that lend the buildings out my window an aura of shimmering gold.
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Minding Your PRX, PRP, PDRN, and PRFs

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap that ❤️ before you peep into the life of a few sexy spiders. In honor of… okay, more sexy news! July 31 was National Orgasm Day, which feels like a good enough reason to offer all HNTFUYF-ers an extra 20% off the current sale price of the Laura Geller Baked Starter Kit.
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Your Most Vexing Questions, Answered

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap that ❤️ above before checking out the unlikely people keeping Taiwan’s marine harvest tradition from drowning. 🥸 😲 😀 A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned a study that debunks the notion that long-married couples grow to look more alike, but seems to confirm that we choose mates who generally look like us. My friend Bernhard Fink, an evolutionary anthropologist, had more to add.
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Yellow Threads Among the White

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap that ❤️ above to learn what makes you especially vulnerable when online shopping. 🌊 🌊 🌊 As you read this, I plan to be frolicking in the Pacific with my family (arriving from Japan) on Hawaii’s Big Island.
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Spot Reduction

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap the ❤️ above before reading a few useful hints about how to determine whether that face you see online is real or AI generated. 🪞 🪞 🪞 TikTok evidently now has a whadayacallit that lets you scan your face and then have the app match you with another person who looks almost exactly like you. I don’t recommend scanning your face on TikTok or any other app (except for Global Entry) but twinning is a fascinating idea, don’t you think?
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You'll Never Think About Beauty the Same Way Again

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap that ❤️ above before you check out this notification from The Department of Useful Body Parts. Sometimes a PR email inadvertently captures something in the zeitgeist we hope we might all soon forget. A pitch I recently received began, “Sweating? Sobbing? Both?
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Sun-Protect Your Precious Crown

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap that ❤️ above before you read a heartwarming story about going Dutch.
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How to Make a Pretty Mouth

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap the ❤️ above and then look at the very best way to use a treadmill. Can’t help myself: one more! 🛁 🛁 🛁 I had a tremendously fun (and distracting) time a few weeks ago when self-described makeup, skincare, and style entrepreneur Trinny Woodall invited me to her hotel bathroom to make a video.
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Menopausal Ears

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Every time you tap that ❤️ above, a little bell rings in the halls of HNTFUYF and we know another reader has gotten her post. Since I returned from my most recent trip to Tokyo several weeks ago, I’ve had a more difficult transition than I can remember. Tokyo was magnificent when I left in the middle of May: the breezes temperate; the shrines and temples glinting gold and serene; the giant, majestic trees flaunting their lush, emerald canopies.
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Sauna Magic?

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please hit the ❤️ above and then read a funny/sad story about a shrinking face. I like The Beauty Brains podcast, hosted by two cosmetic chemists: Perry Romanowski (always delightfully quirky) and Valerie George (always cool-headed and a new mom). They’re terrific at explaining the mysteries of skincare and haircare, and are appropriately skeptical about beauty marketing’s often preposterous claims.
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The Temples of Youth

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please hit the ❤️ above for a clue as to why your anger might feel different these days. 👤 👤 👤 A few weeks ago I shared a conversation I had with my friend Pamela Redmond about her play, Old Woman Naked. A favorite dermatologist friend, Laurel Geraghty, MD, was motivated to share her response with me, which I think HNTFUYF-ers might find helpful. I have been thinking a lot about Old Woman Naked. I’m someone who looks at old women naked for a living.
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How Not to F*ck Up Your Face

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please hit that ❤️ above to find out how Great American Individualism might be hurting our love lives. 🙏 🙏 🙏 Thank you to the wave of new readers who subscribed during HNTFUYF’s half-off sale (which ended on Sunday). I hope you’ll enjoy hanging with us and that you’ll send your most vexing appearance questions to valeriemonroe@substack.com. 🔶 🔶 🔶 Last week a curious reader emailed me with a question about peptides.
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How Not to F*ck Up Your Face

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Welcome readers, old and new! Please hit the ❤️ above to help your old friend here at HNTFUYF regain some sense of equanimity. Last week, to celebrate five years of HNTFUYF, I had the brilliant idea to give readers a gift: A five day, 50% off sale on subscriptions. Because I also wanted to thank paid subscribers for their invaluable contributions, I decided to comp them a six-month extension on their subscriptions.
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How Not to F*ck Up Your Face

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
plus, is that hair growth serum working? Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap the ❤️ above if you, like me, believe your high school experience wasn’t the happiest time in your life. 🎁 🎁 🎁 Big news here: HNTFUYF recently celebrated a 5th birthday. I know times are tight and paid subscriptions are a luxury. So to make HNTFUYF subscriptions more affordable, I’m offering $25 annual subscriptions for five days only. The 50% sale is running now until May 31 at midnight EDT.
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How Not to F*ck Up Your Face

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
a 73-year-old woman gets naked in public Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap the ❤️ above for encouragement to step out of your comfort zone (if, in fact, you still have a comfort zone). And about a discomfort zone: You might want to check out my recent story in Allure about the skeletal profiles we’ve been seeing recently on the red carpet.
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A Beauty Ideal of Extreme Thinness Is the Opposite of “Longevity” Original

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By Valerie Monroe
| Allure Verified
Even if you don’t keep a sharp eye on the current celebrity coverage, you’ve most likely noticed some remarkable photos cutting into your feed in recent months. Remarkable in their featuring of razor-sharp shoulder blades, protruding collarbones, Olive Oyl arms, even visible ribs. There’s a vast shrinkage going on among the famous names that have a substantial impact on our beauty standards. Some of our most visible celebrities have gone from merely thin to gravely gaunt.
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How Not to F*ck Up Your Face

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap the ❤️ above to read the most intriguing headline of the week. Maybe hold off on that facelift! Speaking of aging and time travel (weren’t we?), have a look at this short post I wrote about Old Bad Bunny’s Met Gala costume. 🖼️ 🖼️ 🖼️ I returned last week from a trip to , a lush, hilly island in the Seto Inland Sea that’s been abundantly fertilized with art, immersive and otherwise.
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We Love Bad Bunny's Old-Age Makeup, But Real Signs of Aging? Yuck. Original

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By Valerie Monroe
| Allure Verified
Save Story Save this story Save Story Save this story Did you see photos of the inimitable Bad Bunny at the Met Gala? Old Bunny! Or, as one writer described him: Bad Rabbit. Looking very much like a Diego Velázquez portrait of an aging Madrid nobleman, with a manicured gray beard and mustache, age-spotted hands, and elegant cane, 32-year-old Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio added about 50 well-lived years to his profile.
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How Not to F*ck Up Your Face

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap that ❤️ above for news suggesting “scarred for life” may one day be a thing of the past. The friends I traveled with last week deposited photos they’d taken into a shared album, so we could collectively access memories of our trip. Handy! One of the photos showed a woman with a sagging neck and a noteworthy pot belly. I’m bringing it up here because that woman was me. I immediately got this feeling that I’m slouching around in a body I have no awareness of.
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How Not to F*ck Up Your Face

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap that ❤️ above to maintain a healthy bottom-line about your butt. 🏝️ 🏝️ 🏝️ As you read this, I’ll be traveling with two dear friends, one younger than I and the other a bit older. We’re taking the bullet train to the Japanese “art island” of Naoshima to explore its widely admired architecture, sculptures, and geography before making our way to a neighboring small island, best traversed by bike, and then heading our separate ways.
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How Not to F*ck Up Your Face

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap that ❤️ above to keep your brain gears well-oiled. 🇯🇵 🇯🇵 🇯🇵 Not long ago here in Tokyo, I boarded a train without having any idea where I was going. One of Tokyo’s many marvels is that an older woman like me, not fluent in the language and unaccustomed to the more discreet nuances of the culture, can feel comfortable and safe just about anywhere in the city.
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How Not to F*ck Up Your Face

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap the ❤️ above for motivation to slip out of your shoes and walk barefoot on the grass. 👃 👃 👃 From the department of “The More Things Change,” a recent PR email explored the weird world of bedtime nose-taping. “Once reserved for post-rhinoplasty recovery, nose taping is now being embraced by beauty enthusiasts as a low-effort, non-invasive way to de-puff, sculpt, and refine the look of the nose—especially overnight.
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How Not to F*ck Up Your Face

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap the ❤️ above for an interesting take on why some of us are Disney snobs— especially interesting to me because I was a proud snob until I visited Tokyo Disneyland, where total immersion by people of all ages is definitely a thing. Speaking of immersion… Bananas! 🍌 🍌 🍌 I often reprimand myself for not taking my regularly scheduled immersion into Japanese culture more seriously—enrolling in history classes, for example.
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How Not to F*ck Up Your Face

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
A technical glitch ⚡ prevented some readers from receiving this post today; here it is again for all to see… Every time some kind of dam unaccountably opens and releases a flood of new readers to HNTFUYF, I’m determined anew to give you your money’s worth (even those of you who aren’t paid subscribers). This past weekend, I found my inbox brimming with fresh followers.
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How Not to F*ck Up Your Face

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Every time some kind of dam unaccountably opens and releases a flood of new readers to HNTFUYF, I’m determined anew to give you your money’s worth (even those of you who aren’t paid subscribers). This past weekend, I found my inbox brimming with fresh followers.
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More Women Are Wearing Their Wrinkles With Pride. Their Gray Hair, Not So Much. Original

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By Valerie Monroe
| Allure Verified
I have a friend deeply averse to the notion of anything remotely toxic so much as brushing up against her skin. She wears no makeup, uses no cosmetic products of any kind except moisturizer when needed, and though I’ve never asked her which cleaning products she uses at home, I’m pretty sure she swabs everything down, possibly including her teeth, with baking soda only.
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How Not to F*ck Up Your Face

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please hit the ❤️ above for the latest Japanese tweak that might shrink your makeup time down to almost nothing. To tie a (loose) knot on our lively thread a couple of weeks ago about my decision to have filler injections, I thought the Dear Reader who precipitated the thread should have the last word. Several commenters mentioned her youth, suggesting that her feelings about aesthetic intervention would surely marinate with age.
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How Not to F*ck Up Your Face

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please hit the ❤️ above if you’ve been tuning out so often you find yourself missing things. ✈️ ✈️ ✈️ While you read this, I’ll be flying over Alaska (where I can sometimes glimpse a sea of snow-capped mountains) to my palm-size apartment in Tokyo. Transitions aren’t my favorite thing, even when there’s a thrilling reward (my family) on the other side of them. But I’ve got the back-and-forth between New York and Tokyo down to a manageable system.
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How Not to F*ck Up Your Face

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap that ❤️ above for an enlightening take on the value of forgiveness. 📰 📰 📰 As I write this post, I am, as I imagine many of you are, distracted by distressing headlines. (One distressing headline from New Scientist I won’t investigate further: “How Worried Should You Be About an Asteroid Smashing Into Earth?”) A post about appearance feels not only irrelevant, but maybe provocatively off. I even considered posting just this today: How Not toF*ck!Up Your Face.
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Makeup Magic for Mature Skin

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap that ❤️ above for an uplifting story about a feisty old woman who lives in a shoe happily with a robot. I’m returning to Japan in a couple of weeks, so I’m trying to brush up on what little vocabulary I know, most of which seems lost in the nearly empty foreign language vault of my brain. I discovered, though, that the words for “handsome lawyer” (kakkoii bengoshi) have permanently taken root, as they effectively describe my son.
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The Case of the Disappearing Lip

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
and other mouthy issues Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap the ❤️ above to familiarize yourself with what a trends company is calling the “Synthocene Era” and how a few sharp women in the beauty industry believe it will influence how we think about our appearance. Warning: It mostly ain’t good. More that ain’t good, if you love wearing extensions. 👄 👄 👄 I wrote a story for Allure several months ago about rethinking my personal choice to eschew plastic surgery. Why?
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Go With the (Lymphy) Flow

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap that ❤️ above to reserve a flying Toyota next time you visit Japan. 🪞🪞🪞 For some reason, a handful of readers recently sent me questions and then apologized for being vain. (You know who you are.) It reminded me of the flush of unpleasant emotions that can be precipitated by thoughts of one’s own vanity. Even the most well-adjusted among us can feel shame or embarrassment when confronted with how much we care about our looks.
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How to Get the Best Brows

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap the ❤️ above to discover a new use for those dried placenta strips you have lying around. 🤑 🤑 🤑 Hyaluronic acid (HA) is a naturally-occurring molecule in the skin and joints with a high capacity to retain moisture; it’s often used in topical moisturizers. So when I received an email the other day touting a new study that revealed oral hyaluronic acid supplementation could increase skin moisturization, reduce wrinkles, etc., I was intrigued.
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Are Facials Actually Worth It?

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By Valerie Monroe
| Katie Couric Media
Facials occupy a strange place in the beauty universe: part self-care ritual, part pricey question mark. If your own routine is more “cleanse, moisturize, repeat… occasionally” than a 10-step regimen, it’s fair to wonder whether handing your face over to a professional now and then actually pays off.
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Fraxel, XERF, and Vir

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! If watching strangers come together to sing anthems of peace moves you to tears, please tap the ❤️ above. Go here if you’re also moved to action. 🧠 🧠 🧠 Off on a familiar tangent with a physician friend the other day, we were trying to grok how the brain developed over the course of human evolution (as one does). Not “how”in terms of chemical processes and the like, but rather “how”as in how the f*ck did it happen?
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Bleph/No Bleph: The Epilogue

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap the ❤️ above to treat yourself to one of the most delightful stories you’ll likely ever read about a wintry mix. Personal anecdotes this week seem frivolous given world events, so I thought I’d share a few news stories that might burnish whatever joy or optimism you bravely continue to embrace. 🐮 Cows! They’re just like us! Bessie reveals her surprising self-care routine. 🌳 Tree bark in your sunscreen? Personally, I’m good now, thanks.
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The No-Bleph Bleph?

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By Valerie Monroe
| How Not To F*ck Up Your Face
Welcome readers, old and new! Please tap the ❤️ above for a reminder that it’s never to late—or too early—to connect with your loving self. Recently, I’ve rediscovered the pleasures of humility. I’m being only a little sarcastic, as the pleasure/pain principle (as it relates to humility) feels most like a loving breakup. Which I guess in a way it is. I’ve been induced to let go, reluctantly, of my attachment to endless walking.
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Is the Backlash to Facial Conformity Finally Upon Us?

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By Valerie Monroe
| Allure Verified
I had the extraordinary experience of watching the movie Hamnet the other day. Extraordinary not only because of the gorgeous and evocative cinematography, the deeply moving emotional integrity, and the raw, fierce character studies, but because of the incomparable expressions of feeling—from suspicion to anticipation, joy, unfathomable grief, and finally ravenous awe—on the face of the 36-year-old actor Jessie Buckley.
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