This Is What the Inside of Marilyn Monroe’s Makeup Drawer Looked Like

At this point you could fill a whole set of encyclopedias with the information people have gleaned about Marilyn Monroe’s beauty routine. Her styling tricks, her favorite lotion, even her plastic-surgery records have been widely discussed. We may not wake up and pull off looking like Monroe every morning (much as we’d like to), but that hasn’t stopped the world’s collective obsession with all things beauty and Marilyn. So it’s no surprise that the contents of the star’s makeup drawer are attracting attention.

While you might be imagining Monroe’s vanity drawers filled to the brim with gleaming gold lipstick tubes, pearl-handled brushes, and shiny powder compacts, Monroe didn’t keep a ton of makeup on hand—most likely because she trusted those things to makeup artists, like Allan “Whitey” Snyder, who was so close with the star that he even served as a pallbearer at her funeral. No, Monroe’s makeup drawers were far simpler than the stockpiles of makeup packed into our own drawers. She was even—dare we say it?—practical.

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That’s practical in the most glamour-girl sense of the word, of course. The drawer’s contents, which sold at auction in 2005, included a box of Flents earplugs (they’re still around, so you can block out your obnoxious neighbors the same way Marilyn Monroe did!); a matchbook from the Maisonette, a nightclub in the St. Regis hotel in New York City; an eyelash curler that looks nearly identical to the one you probably have in your own makeup bag; a set of Martha Lorraine false eyelashes (sadly, these aren’t still around) and the box they came in; a gilded comb; a pack of fantastically named Scoldy Lox Glamour Guards bobby pins; lilac Starry Eyes eye shadow; a fancy-looking lip brush; and a braided hair extension.

Somehow, even the sparseness seems luxurious and glamorous. Could this be the answer for us clutter-bugs who failed at the Kondo method? We’re certainly feeling inspired to clean out our drawers.

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