Melissa Gilbert, 60, ditches makeup and embraces aging – and other women are following suit
Melissa Gilbert, 60, ditches makeup and embraces aging – and other women are following suit
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Melissa Gilbert remembers 'Little House on the Prairie' as it turns 50
The wholesome Ingalls family has charmed generations of young women through its star, Melissa Gilbert.
In a day when celebrities' social feeds are filtered and curated, color coordinated and perfect, Melissa Gilbert's presence is different.
Find her in pajamas on a Friday night in one photo. In another, which she's captioned 'Mature Women's Day,' she isn't wearing makeup, and says she earned 'earned every line on my face.'
Is she the most real woman on the internet?
Perhaps. And that is just the point.
At 60, she has no patience for anything but being herself. So she shares her life - sometimes polished in matching dresses with one of her grandaughters, or more casual in jeans and a T-shirt makeup free on a self-care Sunday. And she wants other women, particularly those 50 and older to feel the same way – to embrace themselves as they are.
'Visibility matters, especially as we age,' Gilbert says in a call from New York City where she had just wrapped the play "Still" off Broadway. "And we need a place to be ourselves. I'm too old to pretend to be anyone else."
Gilbert launched Modern Prairie three years ago with Nicole Haase. Modern Prairie sells housewares and patchwork jeans, offers quilting classes and cooking lessons. But the main hope, Gilbert says, is to create community through its app.
"It's a wonderful way to nurture friendship which is so important especially as we age," says the former 'Little House on the Prairie' star. "We wanted to create a space where women could be completely and totally honest and and share what is going on with their lives and their bodies and not have that kind of cruel commentary you often see online be the norm."
Melissa Gilbert on why she ditched Botox, embraced aging
She and Haase understand that friendships become even more important to women as they grow older, and that studies show people are healthier when they are more connected.
They recently launched a 'Get in the Picture' campaign to encourage moms to stop standing behind the camera and get in photos.
"If I show my daughter that I'm getting in the picture. It shows her to get in the picture," Haase, Modern Prairie's CEO, says. "It says you are worth it. You are valuable. Melissa is embracing aging and giving other women permission to do that, too."
It's what Julia Randolph needed. After raising two kids, taking care of her 91-year-old mother, and long COVID, she felt as if she had lost herself. Through the app, she felt seen.
Randolph, 59, was featured in a recent Instagram post for Modern Prairie. "I never used to be in photos," she says. "I picked myself apart. I was always behind the camera. I barely have 10 pictures of the kids and me together. I hated the way I looked."
Now she feels better about herself, and has lost 80 pounds. She credits that to the new community she found.
Melissa Gilbert shaped a generation How the "Little House on the Prairie" star influenced women
'The big thing about it is we all try to love each other, try to support each other. We're not women from high school. We're in our 40s and over and we're different. We congratulate each other, we're happy for each other," says Randolph. "It's been a blessing to have people."
It's something that drew in Cheryl Perry, a chef and cookbook author.
"I'm a 60 year old chef working with women who are my age and we highlight older womens' strength," says Perry, who teaches monthly cooking classes for Modern Prairie. "What's interesting in our political climate, you think it would be more, people expressing their political opinions. None of that is there at all. It's relief. You are taking people for what they present."
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