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We Will Always Love Dolly Parton’s Most Candid Beauty Confessions

Watch: Dolly Parton Was Hospitalized 4 Days Before Her Death at 80

Looking like Dolly Parton was more than a 9-to-5 job.

“When I arrived in L.A. in the ’80s, I started sleeping with my makeup on, partly because of the earthquakes,” the 11-time Grammy winner wrote in her 2023 memoir Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones. “I thought, ‘I’m not heading out on the streets without makeup in case there are cameras out there! I’m going to be ready to go!'”

And she stuck with that nighttime routine long after she and husband Carl Dean moved back to Tennessee, noting, “I don’t want to go to bed looking like a hag with Carl.”

We can’t even imagine the iconic entertainer, who has died at the age of 80, going to her final resting place looking anything less than perfectly put together, either.

But while her look was unapologetically unnatural, the “Jolene” singer said time and again that what you saw on stage represents who she really was.

“Much as the fictional characters that populate my songs uncover essential truths about me and the people I’ve known, my clothes and makeup also reveal the real me,” she wrote in her book. “Maybe they’re both ‘made up,’ but they reflect my innermost self, my own personal truth.”

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See Dolly Parton’s Last Public Appearance 2 Months Before Her Death

So, sure, Dolly was a national treasure thanks to her inimitable voice, vast catalogue of hits and her tirelessly warm, inviting manner.

But part of what put her on another level was her wholehearted embrace of head-to-toe glam, her wigs, legendary curves and six-inch heels making her a physical force to be reckoned with despite being only 5 feet tall.

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“I am comfortable with who I am. And I dress for me,” Dolly explained to Allure in 2021. “I do what makes me happy. So I would just say to anybody: ‘If you’re comfortable wearing no makeup, be that. If you wanna wear too much, do that.'”

In the meantime, she added, “I’ll do what’s best for me, as everybody should.”

But while Dolly did apparently roll out of bed looking that way, she never pretended that her signature style didn’t take effort. Read on for her most candid beauty confessions:

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Dolly Parton’s Unexpected Style Inspiration“When I was little, I patterned the way I looked after the town tramp in our hometown,” Dolly Parton told Vogue in 2023. “I thought she was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. She had the peroxide blonde hair piled up on top, with red lips and fingernails, the high heel shoes, the tight skirt. I thought she was amazingly beautiful.”

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Dolly Parton Made Do With What She Had From an Early AgeIn her 2023 book Behind the Scenes: My Life in Rhinestones, Dolly detailed using the ash from a burnt match tip to line her eyes and staining her lips with pokeberries when she was a kid.“I’m no natural beauty,” the singer once said, per Into the Gloss. “If I’m gonna have any looks at all, I’m gonna have to create them. You don’t need to buy expensive cosmetics; almost anything will do if you know how to apply it.”

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Why Dolly Parton Wore Makeup to Bed”I never go out with a bare face,” Dolly told Allure in 2021. “Not even when I go out. Somebody, please open my coffin to put some makeup on me. At night, I leave my makeup on. I don’t want to go to bed in curlers and Clearasil and patches all over me for my husband.”She noted that Carl Dean, her husband of then 55 years, wasn’t in the best of health (he passed away in March 2025), so she had to be ready for an ambulance to come at any time.Moreover, she continued, “I have to be earthquake-ready, I have to be tornado-ready. You’re not gonna catch me out in the streets bare-faced unless you’ve caught me in the morning when I’m cleaning my face and getting ready to put it on again. If I had to hit the streets then… I probably would just die in the tornado. I can do my makeup in 15 or 20 minutes, though, and I wear a wig almost every day.”

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When Was Dolly Parton Not Wearing Makeup?”It doesn’t matter when you clean your face,” Dolly noted in her 2023 book Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones, “as long as you clean it once a day. After I wake up, I do all the little rituals, and then I start over again and go out every day and look good all day long.”

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Drugstore Beauty Worked for Dolly Parton“I try all the new things that come out, but there’s nothing better than good old Vaseline and those Almay eye makeup remover pads,” she told First for Women in 2015. “I use those little pads to clean my face and it leaves enough mineral oil on my skin that it’s a good nighttime moisturizer. I have pretty good skin considering my age, and I think a lot of it is mineral oil and bacon grease.”

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The Truth About Dolly Parton’s BoobsDolly was candid about her weight going “up and down” through the years, telling reporters in 1987 that she’d lost about 50 pounds by eating small amounts of food six or seven times a day.And she merely wanted her breasts to stay in line with where her body was.”I’ve been known for my boobs long before people started having the implants, and I have never had silicone injections,” the Straight Talk actress told the Chicago Tribune in 1992. “’I have had some cosmetic surgery, especially after I lost weight and stuff, and I’ve had my breasts lifted, but not injected. That would scare me to death, anyway.”As she put it to CBS News’ Dan Rather in 2004, she had them “pumped up and fixed up. They just stand up there like brave little soldiers now. They’re real big, they’re real expensive and they’re really mine now.”However, they weren’t insured for $1 million apiece—or for any amount.”It’s not true about that,” Parton said in dispelling that rumor on TODAYin 2022. “Years ago, was it Betty Grable, or one of the great famous stars that was famous also for her legs? And at that time I said, ‘Well maybe I should get my boobs insured since I’m famous for them,’ but it was just a joke. I didn’t do that.”

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Her Butterfly Tattoos Were More Than Body ArtDolly relates to butterflies—they “don’t sting, they don’t bite, and they are so beautiful,” she told W in 2021—and has paid homage to them with body art, but not because she loves tattoos per se.“Most of my tattoos came because I’m very fair and I have a tendency to scar when I get any kind of cut,” she explained to the publication. “I’ve had surgeries for different things, and if the scars didn’t heal properly, I just gotta put tattoos to take the sting out. I don’t have the real heavy, dark tattoos. Mine are all pastel. And I have more than one!”

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How Dolly Parton Came Up With Her Signature FragranceAfter fielding enough compliments about how good she smelled, Dolly decided to bottle that signature scent, which, she told Allure, was simply “a combination of things I love.””The two main ones were Tova’s musk bath oil and Mary Kay Intrigue,” she explained. And when they discontinued her favorite perfume, “I went on eBay and bought every bottle. I was paying a huge amount of money buying Intrigue. I’ve got hundreds of bottles even still, that’s how serious I was about the smell.”When she started her Dolly Beauty fragrance line, starting with Dolly: Scent From Above, she gathered up her favorite products, including lotions, and told her licensor Edge Beauty, “Help me find the closest thing we can. But legal.”

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How Dolly Parton Lived in Sky-High Heels”I wear heels every day. I have them custom made,” Dolly told Vogue. “It’s important that you have a shoe that’s built to fit your arch, and to where your body weight is on that…I have bought shoes off the rack at times, but then you’ll get a blister or it’ll hurt here or there. I love the extra height [from heels], and I’ve always thought they were sexy. They make you look powerful.”

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How Much Makeup Did Dolly Parton Really Wear?We know she wore makeup past the hours of 9 to 5, but what did Dolly wear, and when?”I’m like an artist, like a kid with paints and crayons,” she told Bustle in 2024. “I love to try new makeup, new colors, new designs. And I just love lining my lips this way one day and then being a little bold the next.”But first, foundation. “I always put that on,” Dolly said. “I put on a little blush, but I use different moisturizers. It just depends on what I’ve used through the years that still works for me.”As for daytime vs. nighttime, Dolly explained, “I wear basically the same makeup” and do touch-ups throughout the day.”If I’m doing something at night, like a show or something,” she added, “I’ll often wear glitter and more shadows, and put a little shine here and there that I wouldn’t normally during the day.”

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Dolly Parton’s Thoughts on Plastic Surgery”I don’t really think about it too much,” Dolly told The Guardianin 2011. “If something is sagging, bagging, or dragging, I’ll tuck it, suck it or pluck it.”She told Oprah Winfrey in 2020 that she thinks she was “about 40” when she started having plastic surgery. “I’m a firm believer, whatever it takes to make you feel better about yourself,” she explained on The Oprah Conversation. “If you’ve got the nerve, and you’ve got the money, and you’ve got the need for it…If you feel good about you, you can make people feel better about themselves, because you feel good.”But Dolly acknowledged that you have to be discerning when you go the surgical route.”You’ve just got to be very careful not to overdo it because you never know,” she said on The Howard Stern Show in 2023. “Anytime you go under the knife, you could come out looking not good.”And, she noted, “I try to do just little bits at a time— I don’t do like really big stuff. I do fillers, Botox…only when I have to do something a little more, and even then, I try to be careful.”

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Dolly Parton on Aging (or Not)”I ain’t never gonna be old because I ain’t got time to be old,” Dolly quipped to Oprah in 2020. “I can’t stop long enough to grow old! I’m just gonna be the best I can be at whatever age I am. And I bet you I won’t look much different when I’m 95, if I live that long…I’m gonna look like a cartoon. I’ll have on the makeup. I’ll look as young as my plastic surgeons will allow me, and all the makeup and lighting and all that. But I think more than anything, it’s about what comes from inside you.”

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