Ellen Pompeo Shares the Sources of Her Glow Including What Makes Her Feel the Most Beautiful (Exclusive)

By Jackie Fields

Have you noticed Ellen Pompeo’s glow?

It’s hard to miss whether you’re watching her on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, which just wrapped season 21 in May, or in the recent Hulu mini series Good American Family.

Her radiance was also on full display when the actress attended a Walk of Fame ceremony in her honor in April. It was then we had to know the secrets of our favorite TV doctor’s beauty routine.

Luckily she answered the call.

The Meaningful Beauty ambassador since 2019 says it was her “chemistry” with Cindy Crawford that led her to a partnership with the brand.

“I am old enough to know that Cindy was one of the first women to have a beauty brand. I don’t know of any other women in her position that were doing beauty brands back then when it wasn’t cool or popular,” Pompeo recalls. “I’m sure she got more than a few eye rolls.”

Pompeo, who fought to become one of highest-paid dramatic actresses on television, knows a thing or two about forging an uncharted path, has the utmost respect for her friend, who just celebrated Meaningful Beauty’s 20th year.

Today, she owes some of her glow to Crawford.

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“I love the serum. That’s my hero product from the line, and, I think that’s their best product,” she says of the Youth Activating Melon Serum, which improves hydration and elasticity utilizing melon leaf stem cell and Hydrosome H2O technologies. (The latter helps the former penetrate deeper to firm and plump skin.)

Pompeo’s also a big fan of the brand’s eye patches, especially when she travels. “I can totally wear them on a plane and just go to sleep,” she says of the Revive and Brighten Eye Masques.

While Pompeo didn’t always prioritize spf (“I had plenty of sunburns as a kid,” she admits) the product is high-priority now, and she completes her routine with the brand’s Anti-Aging Day Crème Broad Spectrum SPF 30 Sunscreen.

Of course, her wellness regimen also plays a huge role in how Pompeo, 55, looks and feels. “I think diet and exercise is honestly the key. I know everybody says it, but I really do,” she says. “I’m a pretty regimented person. Very disciplined. My husband [Chris Ivery] says I’m the most disciplined person he knows which I think is a compliment.”

For one, her diet is “super-clean,” she says. “I’m really quite militant about the way I eat and what I eat,” she says. Her one weakness is sweets, which, “is kind of a problem,” she adds. “But I really try to manage it. I really just try to eat dark chocolate and cherries.”

The actress also has to move “all day long,” which sometimes means getting creative during a long day at work. “I’ll ride my bike from my trailer to the set,” she explains.

Pompeo also tries to get in a few minutes in a sauna as well as a cold plunge “pretty much every day that I can,” she adds. “Even when I travel, I try to look for hotels that have sauna and a pool. If they don’t have a cold plunge, put a little bit of ice water on your face! I think it really tightens up my face, and the endorphin rush also makes me feel great.”

For Pompeo, a balanced wellness routine helps keep her mind clear. She’s also very honest when it comes to her outlook on aging.

“Obviously getting older is a privilege, but I definitely make my living on TV with my face. So, I think you can lean into the aging, if you want, or, you can fight it. And I think I’m just trying to keep it at bay, you know?”

She continues, “I definitely am not going to say I’m keeping it 100% natural, that’s for sure. I definitely have vanity. It’s definitely not easy to watch yourself age.”

For the TV star, that means she boosts her routine with a minimally-invasive beauty procedure every now and then with peels, Morpheus8 treatments and “a little bit of Botox.”

One thing that she’s not into is filler. “I don’t like it at all. I’m not really into it,” she says.

And while she has a teen, Stella Luna, and a pre-teen, Sienna May, at home on the verge of entering their Sephora Kid era [She and Ivery also share son Eli Christopher], Pompeo says they don’t have any influence on her beauty routine.

On the contrary, it’s still Pompeo who’s doing the influencing, telling them they don’t need multi-step routines, and more.

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When it comes to when the TV veteran feels most beautiful, she’s clear: Probably after [makeup artist] Hung Vanngo beats my face.

“I have an incredible privilege of having the best hair and makeup people. So after they’re finished, you’re like, ‘Okay!’”

“It’s like a fun part of the job, for sure. Again, it’s not easy to get older, but Hung is definitely amazing. I love when he does my makeup.”

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