Even Dolly Parton’s Sister Never Saw Her Without Makeup After Stardom
Dolly Parton never stepped out without heavy makeup and a blonde wig. The singer had a very specific look, and she did not stray from the style that she described as “glamorous trash.” While it’s not surprising that fans never saw her without makeup, her family members didn’t see her bare-faced either. Her sister, Stella, said that after fame, Parton never went without makeup.
Dolly Parton’s sister said she never saw the singer without makeup on
Stella grew up with Parton, so she naturally saw her without makeup at some point in her life. This changed as they got older, though. She said that she never saw her sister without makeup on “after she got to be Dolly Parton.”
“She would sleep in her makeup when she’d come spend the night with me,” Stella Parton told CBS News.
Parton has stated that she views “Dolly Parton” as a character. Clearly, she had a deep commitment to keeping her image in check.
Dolly Parton joked that she even went to sleep in her makeup
Parton frequently stated that she had no intention to ever be seen without her makeup on. She joked that she always wanted to be prepared for having to rush out of bed in the middle of the night. She said that the only way she’d leave the house without makeup on is if her husband wasn’t around.
“Not unless Carl was dead,” Parton said in an interview with The Independent in 2002. “Maybe if I had to get him to the hospital in the middle of the night, but I’m not even sure about that – I might make him hang on so I could at least get a little lipstick on. But seriously though, when I’m in California, they’re so prone to earthquakes you never know when you’re going to have to run out in the street, so usually I’ll sleep with my make-up on – well, at least my eye make-up. I wouldn’t go out without it – I’d rather be dead.”
She got creative with her makeup application as a child
Even before she had access to makeup products, Parton said she improvised to achieve the beauty looks she wanted. Her father didn’t allow his daughters to have makeup.
“He did not believe girls should wear makeup – at least not his girls,” she wrote in the book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “He thought it would make us look trashy and get us into trouble.”
As a result, she had to get creative.
“Until I was a teenager, I used red pokeberries for lipstick and a burnt matchstick for eyeliner,” she said, per Vogue. “I used honeysuckle for perfume.”
She also powdered her face with flour and used Mercurochrome to color her lips.
“The one thing [Mercurochrome and Merthiolate] had in common was their ability to stain the lips so that the color would last for several days,” she wrote. “This meant that Daddy was bound to notice. ‘Where did you get lipstick?’ he would demand through gritted teeth. ‘It’s not lipstick, Daddy. It’s my natural coloring,’ was always the plea delivered in spurts between frustrated wipes with a coarse washcloth.”
