Lifestyle Mirror

“I hardly even wear mascara,” Charissa Thompson confesses after wrapping her cover shoot with Lifestyle Mirror cover shoot. She’s the first to admit she’s not so inventive with her makeup looks (she tends to play it safe with Dior blush, Chanel bronzer, and L’Oréal mascara for nights on the town) but that might be due to makeup fatigue: “Sometimes at work, I feel like I’m wearing too much makeup. But it’s all HD television, so it reads well on camera.” Due to the cosmetic demands of the lens, Thompson has adopted a strict skincare routine: “I started using a Clarisonic, which really seems to help remove makeup. I also use the Mario Badescu masks and his spot cream is my favorite.”

Less-is-more is a new approach for the ESPN anchor, who reluctantly revealed a former, darker past with her beauty choices. “I made the horrible mistake of wearing extensions and fake nails years ago. Nobody needs that,” she said, laughing. “What was I thinking? It took a lot of money to make me look that cheap.”

But there’s one thing Thompson has absolutely no regrets about: her workout regimen. “I’ve done Bikram Yoga for the last ten years. There’s a studio I go to now in Connecticut.” On top of diligent class attendance, she also makes time for at-home workouts with the Insanity DVDs. 

One wonders if such discipline ever gets exhausting, but looking at ESPN’s constantly rotating roster of beautiful blonde women (Erin Andrews just recently left the station, on the heels of Michelle Beadle) it’s no wonder Thompson takes her looks—and herself—seriously. “There’s a certain pressure,” she said carefully. “You’d be fooling yourself if you didn’t think the appeal of women in sports is keeping a certain look up. But it’s not something I’m not willing to be self-deprecating about.” 

Of her former colleague, Erin Andrews, Thomspon says, “Erin and I are really good friends. People like to portray us as enemies. We just went out to dinner, and we’re kind of the same in the sense that we have that tomboy side but we can still throw on a dress and be fine. It’s nice to have the option for both—to work in a male-dominated place, but still be girly.” —Phillip Picardi