Forget Kim’s waist trainer and vampire facials, I’m always more fascinated with beauty, diet and fitness regimes of the silver screen icons. Books like Rebecca Harrington’s I’ll Have What She’s Having: My Adventures in Celebrity Dieting provide a delicious insight into the lives of famous beauties. Like Marilyn Monroe, who drank a hot milk and raw egg concoction for breakfast and ate broiled red meat for dinner (full diet and exercise details from a 1952 issue of Pageant magazine posted on Into the Gloss). While a high protein diet may have helped keep her famous figure in check, a two dozen or so beauty products enhanced her ridiculously gorgeous face.

Marilyn’s makeup case resurfaced at a Christie’s auction in 1999 (and was sold for $266,500). For her dewy complexion, the actress used an Anita d’Foged (now Anita of Denmark) Day Dew foundation in Ivory Medium and matching coverup. It looks like star’s iconic cat-eye liner was most likely a result of Elizabeth Arden‘s Eye Stopper eyeliners, as she owned both brown and black. She also had a Glorene of Hollywood brand eyeliner and half strip falsies. A woman after my own heart, Marilyn was a fan of Elizabeth Arden cream eyeshadows, opting for Autumn Smoke and Pearly Blue shades. There is also one Leichner of London cream eyeshadow stick in an unidentified colour. She had three Max Factor lipsticks, although it’s well-known that Ruby Tuesday shade was her favourite. In true ’60s fashion, her nail polish of choice was Revlon, in iconic shades Cherries a la Mode and Hot Coral. While we are well aware of her love for Chanel No.5, Marilyn’s case held two bottles of perfumed lotion by Shisheido (and she had a fondness for a mystery Rose Geranium eau de toilette she ordered under a pseudonym). The case contained two pots of Erno Lazlo makeup, Marilyn’s skincare line of choice.

We do know a few additional Marilyn makeup facts from Charlotte’s Makeup Web. Her mascara of choice was by Helena Rubenstein. She loved Guerlain’s Diabolique lipstick (now available as 522 Insolence de Rouge in the KissKiss Range). The actress used a stick shadow Elizabeth Arden in White Lustre all over her lids up to the brow bone. As for skincare, Baroque in Babylon did a full inventory of Marilyn’s top shelf, including Erno Laszlo Active Phelityl Cream which was found at her bedside.

Half a century later, and this woman is still spellbinding. Ever wonder who bought her makeup and what they did with it?

Image courtesy of therichest.com.