Handsome Rob Lowe Reveals His Skincare Secrets

By Sam Schube

Let’s get this out of the way: Rob Lowe is a handsome dude. (Seriously! That’s a frog up there because we literally could not find a photo of the man looking anything less than great.) It’s also impossible not to notice that he looks basically the same now, at 51, as he did when he broke out in The Outsiders at a fresh-faced 19. “What is Rob Lowe’s secret” is a sort of Hollywood parlor game, and now he’s finally spilling it: it’s, uh…a tasteful line of Rob Lowe-developed skincare products? File this under strange but true: for the last six years, he’s worked behind the scenes on Profile4Men, a set of five cleansers, serums, and shaving goops out this month. GQ called him up to talk about skincare, and what goes takes to look like Rob Lowe (plenty of Profile if you’re Rob, reconstructive surgery if you’re anyone else).

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GQ: How did this all start?
Rob Lowe: Broadly, I’ve always taken really good care of my skin. Over the years of doing what I do for a living, I’ve learned every trick of the trade. I really wanted to share my regimen with all men, with a line I created for them. And it needed to be really, really easy, with no hassles. I think men deserve a line that’s for them, that’s not a repackaged version of a women’s line. So six years ago I started kicking this idea around, and here we are today. The line that you have in front of you, I’ve been using the prototypes for years now.

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Six years is a long time!
I built it from the ground up. I designed this myself, from nothing. I met with labs and finance people. A lot of the time was getting the right team on the field, and then it was developing the chemistry and the components with some of the experts that I was in business with. My wife [Sheryl Berkoff], who used to do makeup for actors like Brad Pitt and Alec Baldwin, was the other element of the story. So this, to me, was the only way to do it: to be really hands on, and have it be the kind of line I dreamed of.

You’ve really been in the trenches on this. How much of your time has this taken?
It’s absolutely my second job.

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Other guys might have a car that they’re tinkering with in the garage, but you’ve got this.
Oh, absolutely. This has been a very time intensive, money intensive—personally— endeavor for me, for the past six years, day in and day out. Sampling, product testing…I designed the website myself, along with a team.

Rob Lowe, web engineer!
For that, I call my son who’s up at Stanford.

How has your routine changed?
Well, when I was younger, I didn’t care. People would tell me to put sunscreen on, and I’d laugh. I don’t come to this naturally. I don’t think most guys do! I’m not a product person per se. But over the years of being frankly forced to do it, I’ve become a believer.

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Have you learned any grooming tricks?
Our “Revive” eye rescue serum, that’s something that, I discovered, really made a difference, but they always made it for women. Thirty percent of men sleep less than six hours a night. All my best friends just don’t sleep. And that’s the first place anyone looks less than their best, is their eyes—whether it’s lack of sleep or allergies or dark circles or puffiness, what have you. That’s job one: get that area under control. So I really wanted to find something—and ended up having to create it—that you can throw in your pocket, like a chapstick, and carry it with you all the time. It’s sort of like your secret weapon: you wake up, you hit your eye. You get on the train and commute in; right before you go in the office you hit it again. You’re going out to lunch and want to get that little pop, you’ve been working a long half of a day, hit it again. And the same when you go home for dinner at night.

Movie makeup is notoriously rough on skin. Was that ever the case for you?
Yes! I sometimes wear old age makeup for 18 hours a day for four weeks, and I’ve got prosthetics that they’re putting on and taking off with really powerful glues. Your face can get really severely damaged if you don’t have the best people working on it, and you’re also not taking care of it on top of that.

What’s your routine like now?
One of the fun things about being in the skincare business is, now I get to use my own stuff, and have been now for the past four years. I use our pro comfort shave gel—I shave in the shower with that, and then I use the shave serum after. Most of the line has the age-combating elements, which at my age are really important to have, particularly because guys don’t realize, but you start losing it at 20. So I just use this as I would hope that our first customers would use it. The under-eye serum, we talked about how I use that. And then the cleanser—the scent of the cleanser is one of my favorite things. I love our cleanser. I wanted to get that just right, because I’m not a fragrance guy. I don’t want it to smell like something that would be waiting for you in your hotel room.

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So if I use this line, I’ll look like Rob Lowe.
[Literally cackles] Well, I’ll tell you what: I don’t know if you’ll look like me, but you’ll absolutely look the best you can possibly look.

Well, it’d be funnier if it just made everyone look like Rob Lowe.
I’m coming out with a Halloween mask for that.

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