'80s Icon Molly Ringwald Talks Scrunchies and Mauve Nail Polish

Updated on 5/16/2015 at 1:00 PM

"Don't shave your eyebrows." That's just the first piece of beauty advice that actress Molly Ringwald has to share with the crowd at Dove's #BeautyStory event in celebration of the new Dove Beauty Bar campaign. She partnered up with award-winning storytelling group The Moth to talk about her perspective on beauty, which was untraditional. As she told the moving meet-cute story of her parents, she revealed that her father is blind. "The biggest influence that my parents have had on me was through having confidence," she explained. "Growing up with my father gave me a different point of view on beauty and more confidence to focus on something else." That something else? Starring in your favorite movies from the 1980s, of course! We chatted with Molly about her iconic roles and her favorite '80s trends — and the advice she's passing on to her daughters.

What Prom Advice Do You Have For Your Daughter?

"I'm just hoping that she actually makes it to prom. I didn't actually go to my own prom because I'd felt like I'd already done it with Pretty in Pink. I would really like to see kids really not spend a gazillion dollars on prom. Prom is so ridiculously expensive. I love Pretty in Pink for that — the fact that she really makes her own dress. That should be a thing: prom under $200. You could even do less than that, but just go to the vintage store and pick up stuff, do your own makeup, not have it be this huge red carpet event."

What Was Your Favorite Part of Your Breakfast Club Beauty Look?

"I loved the mauve nail polish that I had going, and I had those perfectly long nails."

What Did You Hate (and Love) About '80s Style?

"The bagginess, you know? There were some pretty big, shapeless, baggy clothes out there in the '80s. My favorite was the color. There was something really explosively colorful about the '80s that I liked. And I love having Ray-Bans in like every different color — I still do that. I have yellow Ray-Bans, and red, and purple, and multicolored Ray-Bans. And scrunchies are kinda coming back! I don't have enough hair to use the scrunchie, but I'm not totally anti-scrunchie."

What Beauty Milestones Are a Rite of Passage?

"The first major one is when you first go through puberty, where your body is changing. You have to get used to your grown-up body — that was a big one for me . . . I feel like life is lived in seven-year cycles. When you get to the end of each cycle, you think about what the next seven years of your life are gonna be like. I like to mix it up, whether it's a hair color or a husband. [Laughs.] I'm kidding! We've been together for almost 15 years . . . Turning 40 was really amazing — it kicked me into high gear. It made me realize that whatever I was going to do, I had to make the choice and do it. The first 40 years of your life, you let life happen to you, and then after, it's sort of like, 'No, no, no, I've got to make this happen.'"

What's the Deal With the Lipstick Trick in The Breakfast Club?

"I really feel like I'm so disappointing to people because that [Breakfast Club scene] really points to the power of movie magic and editing. [John Hughes] actually was embarrassed to tell me about what was in the script. I had to keep saying, 'John, can we talk about the lipstick thing? Are there prosthetics involved?' But all I really do is put my head down and then I put my head up and then it's done."

What Beauty Advice Do You Have For Your Children?

"Have confidence and not necessarily follow trends but to be a trend maker. My daughter is a huge trend spotter — she was all about mustaches before the whole mustache trend happened. She was doing that in second grade. Everyone thought it was kind of weird and goofy, and then a year later it just exploded. So she already gets that. But what I really try to really impress upon them is to just have confidence to be themselves, to take risks, and to just have fun. Really, just have fun."