Better With Age

Jennifer Brodeur is a busy entrepreneur and an in-demand skincare expert – um, she has Oprah on speed dial – but you won’t find her turning her back on her to-do list or time itself

- Ingrie Williams

WHAT’S YOUR BEST ADVICE?

Even though I was successful in my own right prior to meeting Oprah, I always felt that I was an imposter – that one day something would happen and people would say "You don’t know anything." Once, when I was having a conversation with Oprah, I kept apologizing while talking. I don’t know if it’s because I’m Canadian, but I kept saying 'I’m so sorry' and she said, "You have to stop." That was a moment for me. Stop apologizing, own who you are and don’t dim your lights for anyone.

AA MEANS SOMETHING VERY DIFFERENT in Jennifer Brodeur’s world. Dubbed “JB Skin Guru,” the Montreal-born and -raised multihyphenate uses the letters as shorthand for the widely accepted phrase that describes potions, lotions and a mindset that is intent on stopping the clock. (Hint: It rhymes with “schmanti-shmaging.”) As an entrepreneur, product developer, educator and expert who is focused on skin, health and longevity, she won’t say the word because it goes against everything she has believed in since she was young. In essence, AA is BS.

As a teenager, Brodeur witnessed a close friend lose her mother to cancer. The disease struck again a few years later, when Brodeur’s godmother passed away. “It affected me profoundly,” she says. “I was so bitter and angry. I started doing marathons to raise money for cancer awareness, and I realized that we talk about AA all the time in the beauty industry. We tell everybody, you’ve got to AA. But we’re all going to age – you can’t stop that. Why don’t we embrace it and think of how the body and cells work and how we can work together so that we can age gracefully?”