The 19 Best Girl Boss Beauty Looks: From Sex and the City to Empire

Yesterday the trailer for Office Christmas Party debuted featuring Jennifer Aniston looking cool as a cucumber, not a flatironed golden hair out of place as her colleagues fall to pieces at their holiday bacchanalia. It’s Aniston’s third consecutive turn as the head of her office, fresh off her role as Dr. Julia Harris, DDS, in both Horrible Bosses and Horrible Bosses 2.  And in the midst of the Democratic National Convention’s historic Hillary Clinton nomination, perhaps there has never been a better time to celebrate women in power—their pulled-together looks as demonstrative as their politics.

In Hollywood’s version of art imitating life, Aniston joins a league of trailblazing strong female leads who have shown us what it looks like to take charge at work. On both the small and big screens, a few simple hair and makeup codes nonverbally communicate control under fire. With an immaculate brushed-back updo, Christina Applegate shoots straight to the top of the corporate ladder as a high schooler-in-disguise in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead simply because she looks the part. A crisp haircut turns Melanie Griffith’s professional fate in her favor in Working Girl. Salma Hayek’s mob boss in Savages would be nothing without her severe bangs, and Rugrats power player Charlotte Pickles flexed the importance of a no-nonsense business ponytail long before it became the Céline woman’s calling card.

Complexion-enhancing natural makeup also has its place, with a neutral lip, peachy blush, contour-defining eyeshadow, and, we’re guessing, a swirl of sweat-proof face powder escorting Faye Dunaway, Mary Tyler Moore, and Kerry Washington through any scandal unscathed.

Not that demure is the only route to power. Cruella de Vil and Cookie Lyon’s enviably maintained statement lips and affinity for animal prints illustrate a healthy thirst for proverbial blood in business. For Erin Brockovich and Samantha Jones, flaunting their sexuality via a low-slung blouse or thigh-skimming skirt only empowered them to feel more capable of doing their jobs—and staying one step ahead of the men they were purposefully distracting. Here, 19 girl boss beauty looks that will have you saying, “I’m right on top of that, Rose.”

 

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