Today marks what would have been Jackie Kennedy Onassis’s 97th birthday, and there’s no better excuse to revisit the beauty rituals her dermatologist recorded in extraordinary detail.
Before social media and before Sephora shelves stocked skin care, there was the dermatologist phone call, a form of intimacy that sounds almost unimaginable now.
On one end of the line: the iconic Jackie, who, like many other A-listers of the time—Audrey Hepburn, Greta Garbo and Marilyn Monroe included—relied on New York–based Dr. Erno Laszlo, a Hungarian-American dermatologist famous both for his expertise and for his custom skin prescriptions. (Dr. Laszlo famously created Phormula 3-8 specifically for Marilyn Monroe to heal a scar on her stomach; Monroe, in turn, was quoted as saying: “Dr. Laszlo not only heals my skin, but he soothes my soul.”)
Besides being a Hollywood go-to, Dr. Laszlo left a legacy through his eponymous skin-care line and the meticulous transcripts he kept of his telephone conversations with patients.
Case in point: three pages of three-hole-punch notebook paper dated from the spring of 1963 that transcribed everything from Jackie’s (aka Mrs. K’s) “couple of pimples” to why her visit in May to Dr. Laszlo’s New York office might be delayed, because she was flying.
“Is it still all right for the ‘sunspots’ to sit in the sun, even with your oil?” asked Mrs. K, according to the transcribed records from April 18, 1963.
“Yes. In the last three months, I will work out another instruction with almost the same preparations,” Dr. Laszlo answered over the line.
While the oil in question may have popped up in conversation some 60-plus years ago, it is still available today, as are several other Jackie-approved selects. According to the brand, Kennedy used the Light Controlling Toner ($75), Phelityl Cleansing Oil ($67), Sea Mud Deep Cleansing Bar ($44) and Shake-It Tinted Skin Treatment ($56).
“The legacy of Erno Laszlo’s skincare has existed for nearly 100 years with formulations showcasing a personalized and science-backed approach,” shares Patricia Schuffenhauer, chief product officer at Erno Laszlo. “With years of expertise, we’ve realized that beauty consumers crave products that are simple yet impactful with clean ingredients, as is the case with Erno Laszlo’s Phelityl Complex. Tried and true, and proven successful for icons like Jackie Kennedy, Erno Laszlo was ahead of its time with science-backed products that have always focused on skin-barrier repair and ritual-focused skin care.”
Six decades on, the answer to her question is still the same, and still on the shelf.
