“It’s a bit surreal, honestly,” Daisy Edgar-Jones tells British Vogue, somehow still chipper despite being stuck in static New York traffic. She’s referring to her freshly inked Estée Lauder contract, confirming her role as the brand’s newest global ambassador.
If certain things are predestined, then the origins of Edgar-Jones’s new gig can be traced right back to early memories of watching her mother, Wendy, using the brand’s fêted Advanced Night Repair serum each evening. “I remember sitting in bed and smelling it on her. It’s the scent that really takes me home. It’s very nostalgic.”
Wendy actually has a lot to answer for when it comes to Edgar-Jones’s beauty obsession. As a child, she would venture into her mum’s make-up bag, perusing for bits that looked good to a then five or six-year-old Daisy. “Unfortunately, I then stole from her make-up bag for quite a few years until I could buy my own,” Edgar-Jones says, laughing. Now, the Twisters and Where The Crawdads Sing star treats her beauty routine like a ritual. “Putting my make-up on each morning is such a nice time to check in with myself,” she shares. “It helps me express my individuality and express my confidence.”
Edgar-Jones has picked up all sorts of skills over the course of her career, she says, while prepping for red carpets but also while getting into her various characters. Like the choppy-fringed, rosy-cheeked Marianne Sheridan, whose confidence with make-up (and generally) grew as she escaped school and forged her own path at university. Or, Muriel Edwards Walker, Edgar-Jones’s character in 2024’s On Swift Horses, a 1950s woman who sported a curled-under bob and just-so lipstick.
“I’ve learned a lot through the characters I’ve played, as well as being able to work with some of the most amazing make-up artists in the world for [red] carpets. It’s really expanded my knowledge of make-up and beauty.”
Like most beauty lovers, Edgar-Jones is curious to a fault, perpetually asking what products her glam team are using and how they apply them. “A lot of the artists I work with overline the lips for a fuller look,” she explains, “and using a darker tone can make it look almost like a disappearing shadow.” Up top, it’s “a very chunky mascara”, mostly for the ’60s effect it gives, she says.
Outside of Wendy’s early influence, Edgar-Jones says Jane Birkin remains her eternal inspiration. “[Birkin’s] influenced so much of my fashion, my fringe and my make-up,” she shares, noting the actress’s “timeless, beautiful yet very natural and real” qualities.
Edgar-Jones herself is never more real than on a summer jaunt to, say, Worthy Farm. “Now that I’ve been going to festivals more, I’ve been trying to pin down how to achieve a fringe that stays in place,” she laughs. “Obviously, dry shampoo helps, but I bought a little roller and just wet my hair with a water bottle, put a roller in and let it air dry. It actually really helped.”
This year, she’s all set to star in Georgia Oakley’s Sense and Sensibility, portraying Elinor Dashwood opposite Esmé Creed-Miles as Marianne. Rumoured to be a quieter, more poetic adaptation of Jane Austen’s seminal novel, it’s likely Edgar-Jones’s beauty evolution is set, once more, to be subtly influenced by her role.
For now, though, her focus is on the bustle of New York City, where Edgar-Jones now joins Paulina Porizkova, Nia Long and Imaan Hammam in Estée Lauder’s glossy frontline.
