Jessica Alba on Pregnancy, Skincare & Getting The ‘Friends’ Haircut | Body Scan | Women’s Health
– My mom was always like, literally she goes you were the Poltergeist every time you came out of anesthesia, you were cuss at people. You would scream at people. She was like, the nurses were scared because you would just be like rawr! Hi, I’m Jessica Alba.
And this is my “Women’s Health” body scan. My favorite thing about my body is for the most part it works. (Jessica laughs) Yeah, I mean, I’m really appreciative that I still feel connected to my body, especially after kids.
There’s there’s that moment of like, who am I, what am I, you know? And just that, that moment of wanting to connect back to who you were before, but you’ll never be the same. When I had my daughter, I actually got pregnant at 26 and had her at 27.
That’s when I really sort of stopped and looked around at my life choices. And I really started to think about health and wellness in a totally different way. I was always in my head and always like I had this idea or this goal of what I should look like or what a should be and comparing myself to other people.
And I never just appreciated who I was. I was like ridiculously insecure. I just didn’t have a lot of self-love. And I think after I had Honor, not only did I learn to love this body that, that held, carried this child and, and, and like nourished this baby and you know, yes, I did gain a little bit too much weight.
I do have the scars, the stretch marks that have or have not gone away. The weirdest ones are the ones like on the thighs, the inner thighs. I was like, oh, whoa, okay. ‘Cause I didn’t see my thighs for a very long time.
So didn’t know those were there until I lost the baby weight. The most important thing for me to do is look at this little baby and just like cuddle her and nurture her and create the safest and best environment for this little person.
In order for me to be that best self for her. I need to take a step back and be more connected to me. My mom like gave me every perm when I was way too young to have perms because she went to beauty school.
But I, you know, I loved it cause it was also bonding time with my mom and I felt so like kind of grown up. My first real haircut was Chris McMillan cut my hair. I was 12, almost 13. And it was after I met him for an audition for Milla Jovovich’s music video to play younger Milla Jovovich.
And then instead of hiring me, they’re like you should go to this modeling agency. First thing you need to do is get some contact sheets and you know, you should go to the salon and get your hair cut.
And Chris McMillan gave me like the “Friends” cut and I got home and my hair was like to here and had those like massive layers. And I was dying. I was like, oh my God, this is so amazing. I loved it so much.
And my dad was like, you’re grounded. I didn’t tell you you can cut your hair. Like mom was with me, mom let me do it. This is for work. You know, I like blamed it on it being for work. Meanwhile, I was like, cut it off please.
And then Chris McMillan became like the biggest thing ever. And I was one of the first to get that “Friends” cut. And it got me a lot of catalog. I dislocated some, my ribs up here and here from doing like harness work when I was doing stunts, they used to sort of drop me from the ceiling of these tall warehouses when I was in “Dark Angel”.
And one time my harness was too high and too tight and it spun around another actor and then it just compressed my ribs and dislocated them. I used to do Thai boxing for “Dark Angel” as well as you know, just to train and to kind of get better.
And so I dislocated my shoulder, you know, punching as well. So now I’m careful whenever I’m doing any kind of boxing, not to like go too hard For some ungodly reason, I got all four of my wisdom teeth pulled when I finished the pilot of “Dark Angel”, but before we did all of the EPK, so the one sheets which is like the posters, and of course I got dry socket.
Of course I did. I swelled up. So I looked like a clump and it was like, here, no neck. My mom, for sure, she was like this, I don’t know. She was like, this could be permanent. And she like kept freaking me out.
And I’m like, is it really permanent? And then I’m on pain medication. And you know, I don’t know, you know, what’s going on. And now when I looked back, every time I see those, if people show me photos from the, the one sheets from the first season and these posters were everywhere and they had to like, that’s when I learned about contouring, my face was still so big and I already had a baby face, it was so full.
And then they had to like, you know, also take it down in post. Did a lot of scuba diving for a TV show. I did as a teenager called “The New Adventures of Flipper”. And then I use those same skills in “Into the Blue”.
First was scuba diving, because you do have your apparatus you got to know how to use it. The biggest thing is like, if you run out of air what are you gonna do? And so it’s like being able to function and know what to do if you run out of air, which has happened a couple of times, you know taking someone else’s regulator and putting it in my mouth and trying not to freak out and go to the top because yet you can really get hurt because the oxygen in your blood can expand and then you’ll have to decompress.
It’s like a whole thing. So just like learning, it’s more about like, if it all goes to hell in a hand basket, what’s gonna happen? And you’re, you know 50 feet below, you know, the ocean surface. So that is scuba diving.
My whole life I’ve had very reactive, sensitive skin, but in my teens and 20’s, I definitely had more hormonal breakouts. Diet related breakouts, stress-related breakouts. And then when I started to really think about the ingredients that go in things, and what’s in and around me, that’s when I started to get less of those types of like really clustered acne breakouts.
And a big one for me is like the synthetic fragrances. Once I identified that as the culprit to my breakouts and skin issues, then it was, it’s been easier to kind of navigate through clean and what that means and how, you know, then it was about performance.
And I was like, I felt like for a long time I was putting layers of dirt on my face. And I was trying to do like mineral makeup and things like that. I was like, this is not cutting it, dammit. And so that’s what really like inspired me to create a beauty line that has makeup and skincare because that is really the combination.
And I love color. I mean, I love makeup. I still want to like wear it and I’ve been wearing it my whole life as professional. But then also just in my day to day. We’ve integrated even our, like a bonding time, a lot of skincare, self care, you know.
My Haven, my nine-year-old even she’s like on it when it comes, she’s like, I’m gonna, I have to, Mom, I have to do my whole skincare routine Mom. And I’m like, okay, Haven. I’m like, well go do your skincare.
And I’m like, it doesn’t even take that long. I’m like, what are you talking about? What do you even do? But she has like eight steps and she’s nine. I’m like, I don’t know if I created a monster, or I’m like really happy that she’s like into self care at this age.
So Honor and Haven and I, like we have like a whole set up. We have nail, you know, cuticle oil. And we have like the little cuticle clippers, although they they’re not allowed to cut their own. I am the one that trims, if that needs to happen because you know, it could get bloody and bad.
And then we just do like fun colors. Sometimes we do like those stick on ones. Haven doesn’t have a ton of patience, so she’s better with the stick on ones. Now she’s into that like long nails that have like they’re like this long I’m like, who do you think you are? Like, what is happening Haven? And she’ll just go around the house and like touch things, touch the fridge, just like watch her hands.
And I’m like, whatever, it’s fine. You know, where is she going? Thanks for watching “Women’s Health”. Check out my YouTube page. And you can see lots of different tips and tricks that I do for skincare and makeup.
And yeah, we have a lot of amazing skin products at Honest, every, for everyone, from baby all the way up to yourself and your mama and your grandmama and your daddy and everyone else.
