Drew Barrymore has spent almost the entirety of her life in the public eye, having first captured our attention at age 7 as the pigtailed, wide-eyed star of E.T. Besides achieving the seemingly impossible feat of emerging from a multi-decade career and tumultuous family relatively unscathed—sure, there was the brief teenage battle with addiction, as chronicled in the seminal celebrity autobiography Little Girl Lost (a book this writer has pored over on more than one occasion) and that infamous dirty dance on Letterman circa 1995, but not much else to speak of—Barrymore has managed to leave a remarkable impression on the world of pop culture, both on-screen and off. Her luminous film reel includes projects as varied as Irreconcilable Differences, Poison Ivy, Charlie’s Angels, Everyone Says I Love You, Grey Gardens (“One of the best things I’ve gotten to do in my life,” she says of the HBO miniseries), and pretty much every rom-com worth seeing—all of which she managed to star in while establishing herself as a formidable beauty icon.

Barrymore’s rebellious early days featured many a makeover, which included permed, streaky blonde strands; a bleached platinum crop; powdered pale skin; maroon lips; pencil-thin darkened brows of the nineties variety captured in those famous Guess Girl ads; and the sunny, neo-hippy look of the early aughts. Drew has managed to own not just baby barrettes, the daisy as accessory, and, later, ombré hair, but she also conjured one of our hands-down favorite awards-show looks ever, in the form of the perfectly retro makeup and mommy-drinks bouffant that she wore to the Oscars in 2009. So when the news broke that the onetime CoverGirl face was branching out into beauty with a Walmart makeup line called Flower—”We’re trying to bring prestige into mass,” she explains of the 181-piece range—it seemed par for the course. Here, Style.com caught up with the new mom and budding cosmetics impresario to talk product favorites, mantras, and the glory of the nineties-beauty resurgence that dominated the Spring runways.

So why a beauty line?
Well, you know I have been sitting in a makeup chair since I was 6 years old, and I’ve watched women around me get ready, and it’s a very aspirational environment. And it really made the most insane impression on me my whole life. And then when I started getting really into makeup in my teens and twenties, and being experimental, being playful, and getting to work with the best makeup artists in the world—in film and fashion—it became such a part of my life.

I read that Flower is inspired by products you have been inspired by over the years. How did you ultimately realize that kind of homage?
I don’t know why, what psychic moment in me, but I just always saved everything so that one day I would be able to put it into something. Maybe I’m just a hoarder or a psychic person. But I really care about beauty; I watched brands develop, I know prestige, I know mass, I love pigment, I love payoff. I love every different type of look. I’m always changing my hair and makeup, depending what sort of fun mood I’m in at that time in my life. And then when I became the co-creative director at CoverGirl for six years, it was such a wonderful and empowering experience that when I finished my contract, it was like I had gone to college for six years. What are you going to do with your degree? And I decided to take a risk and start my own brand. But I wanted to do something different, because I think mass makeup is so good, the bar is so high. We are trying to be a game change and bring prestige into mass, and not with a promise but with the actual formulas. There are already 181 SKUs to start, and yet I feel like it’s not enough. I have so much more that I want to try and do.

What are your hero beauty products?
I always really loved a lip liner that you could wear as lipstick. I used to do that in the nineties, and I would love to bring that look back, using our liners. I love a cream eye shadow that moves really well but then sets beautifully and never creases or crumbles. I’m always weirded out by what so much of long-lasting is, but when something comes off easily, that always amazes me, too. And our cream shadow really does those three crucial things for me. You know what I was also obsessed with was the old Shiseido double-ended, one-side-gloss, one-side-matte lip product. What was amazing about it was that the pigments matched perfectly, so you really did get the gloss version and the truly chalky matte version of that same color that you fell in love with. And I thought that was amazing. In fact, I need to bring that back!

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