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Ever since Lisa Rinna rose to fame as Billie Reed on the NBC soap opera “Days of Our Lives” in the early 1990s, the star’s beauty evolution has been in the spotlight. She’s known for having had some work done — in fact, we’ve already discussed how Lisa Rinna’s plastic surgery is so obvious in side-by-side pics. With her more than three decades in the limelight, we’ve seen plenty of different looks on the star, but some of her beauty staples have remained pretty consistent throughout the years.
For one, Rinna loves her short hair. While she experimented with wigs in recent years, the classic Rinna ‘do is still what she’s best known for. And then there are her lips, of course. The star was one of the first in the industry to admit to using fillers, which undeniably paved the way to more transparency when it comes to cosmetic enhancements and plastic surgery. But in order to understand just how much the star of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” has truly changed, we have to take a look back at Rinna in the late ’80s.
1985-1992: Lisa Rinna decides to plump up her lips while rocking barely there makeup
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Lisa Rinna’s career began with her work on “Days of Our Lives” in the early ’90s, but what many may not know is that at that point Rinna had already had some work done on her lips. In fact, photos of the star back in the ’80s showcase what Lisa Rinna’s lips looked like before all the extreme filler.
Toward the end of the 2000s, Rinna admitted that she had cosmetic enhancements in the late ’80s. “I had silicone put in my top lip,” she shared with Access Hollywood (via Today). “Back 23 years ago, my girlfriend and I saw ‘Beaches’ the movie and Barbara Hershey went and had collagen put in her lips and we thought that that was — as silly as it may sound — the coolest thing ever,” Rinna admitted.
Back in her career beginnings, Rinna was in her late 20s, and she became a quick fan of beauty enhancements. However, the actor usually wasn’t rocking a full face of makeup. At the time, Rinna rocked a dewy base with a classic no-makeup makeup look. The actor also wore her hair mostly natural and long, following the messy bed-head hair trends of the late ’80s. However, as we know, that was about to change.
1993-2002: Lisa Rinna cuts her signature hair and embraces more dramatic makeup
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The mid-to-late ’90s were marked by Lisa Rinna’s signature shaggy short haircut, a style that defined her beauty for the rest of her career. Speaking to Paper in 2020, Rinna reflected on her initial decision to part ways with her long hair.
“I was acting and I couldn’t really get a job. I was really frustrated,” the star explained. “My hair was long and I just kept getting close to everything, and I think I had screen tested for seven soap operas. I was in an acting class and one of my acting partners cut their hair off, and it looked really cool.” After seeing the haircut, Rinna was ready for the dramatic change. “It really came out of that. There was no premeditated, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to create an iconic look.’ It was just like, ‘Oh my God, I need a job and I need to somehow stand out.’” With time, the “Days of Our Lives” actor added more and more highlights to it, creating a multi-dimensional look.
With the changes in her hair, Rinna also approached makeup differently, now often embracing a sultrier look. Dark eyeliner and glossy lips became a staple for the star, whose lips continued to gain plumpness.
2003-2012: Lisa Rinna isn’t stopping with the injectables
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The 2000s and early 2010s were marked by Lisa Rinna’s signature look: short choppy layers often styled outward, eyelash-focused eye makeup, and extreme pillow lips. The star’s use of injectables became more obvious, and Rinna decided to address it.
In 2008, the “Melrose Place” star admitted that she loved using dermal fillers to plump her face, even if she had gone overboard with them. “At my age, you have to look good if you want to continue working. Sometimes we do things to help, and I did. I had tried Botox, and then fillers came into the plastic surgery world, and you think, ‘That’s not a bad idea,’” the star explained (via HuffPost). “Two days ago, I saw a photo of myself at a party and went, ‘Oh, jeez. I have too much filler.’ I see that it’s too much, so I’m going to lay off,” she added.
Rinna’s makeup at the time continued enhancing her eyes and lips, with plenty of eyeshadow, mascara, and nude lip gloss. Every now and then, the star would show up in public with a more subtle look, which only made her lip fillers even more obvious. Rinna’s hair was covered in highlights throughout this period, but the closer we got to the mid 2010s, the more blended they became.
2013-2022: Lisa Rinna goes for full-glam makeup and experiments with her hair
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The second half of the 2010s was marked by Lisa Rinna’s time on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” and it’s safe to say that starring in the reality series changed the actor’s approach to makeup. Now, Rinna was all about a full-coverage look with heavy eye makeup and false lashes. The new style suited the star, as it helped balance her plump lips, which now weren’t always the focal point of her look.
Talking about her makeup to Vogue in 2020, Rinna admitted that often, more is better for her. “On ‘Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ they shoot with high definition and that’s scary by the way — it’s frightening, We need more coverage when we’re working. So listen, I’m not afraid to load it up,” the star explained. Privately, Rinna was still a fan of minimal makeup, revealing that the only non-negotiable for her was using a lip product. “I always have to have something on my lips, whether it’s a balm or something,” Rinna told Today in 2020. “Because I wear so much makeup at times for work, I don’t wear any makeup when I’m not working. I might do a little concealer. I always do a lip. But I don’t wear makeup unless I am going out to dinner or working,” she added.
By the late 2010s, Rinna was very well known for her hair, which is probably also why the star decided to give a chance to other hairstyles. Now, we would occasionally see Rinna with a long ponytail — a look she’s achieved thanks to extensions or a wig. Nevertheless, as Rinna was strutting through her 50s, the signature haircut remained a style she’s always gone back to.
2023-Present: Lisa Rinna admits her beauty regrets while changing her look
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In the early to mid 2020s, the reality star’s face began changing even more drastically, which explained why over-the-top Lisa Rinna outfits were meant to distract us from her fillers. In fact, in recent years, Rinna has given us more avant-garde fashion and beauty moments than ever before. From wigs that changed her hair color and length, to bleached eyebrows and extravagant clothing, it certainly seemed as if Rinna was trying to make everyone not notice the change in her facial volume.
In 2026, the star released her memoir “You Better Believe I’m Gonna Talk About It,” and in it, she shared a beauty procedure that caused her face to drastically change. “I went to somebody to get some Botox and the esthetician said to me, ‘I have this SKINVIVE, it’s brand new — you’re gonna love it,’” the reality star revealed (via People). “All of a sudden, my cheeks were like a squirrel gathering nuts. The combination of the Botox making my jawline atrophy, and SKINVIVE giving me volume, made me look freakish.”
Rinna’s transparency on her beauty journey helps bring awareness to the side effects of injectables. As a mother of two daughters, the actor is well aware of the pressure the entertainment industry puts on women, admitting that it’s not a good thing to see so many young people trying to change their appearance. “Once you get older and there’s anti-aging things out there, great. Hallelujah! But it’s happening at such a young age now, the pressure to somehow be perfect,” the “RHOBH” star told People in 2024. “I guess what I have to say is there is no such thing as perfection. There just isn’t. And so if you’re chasing that, you’ll always be unhappy.”
