Christina Ricci opened up about her perimenopause journey and symptoms, including restless shoulder syndrome, joint pain, brain fog, word recall difficulties, dry skin, and cystic acne.The actress has also experienced postpartum and perimenopausal hair thinning and hairline inconsistency.Hair-growth supplement Nutrafol has been her holy-grail product for strengthening her tresses; the brand has also made her feel supported and more confident.<\/p>\n
Perimenopausal symptoms<\/a> can last up to 15 years\u2014about a fifth of the average woman\u2019s life. That translates to up to a decade and a half of daily challenges ranging from hot flashes and mood changes to vaginal dryness and sleep problems (and, trust, these are just a few examples from a very robust list). For such a pivotal, intense, and lengthy life transition, Christina Ricci<\/a> finds it absurd that it\u2019s not widely discussed\u2014her mom didn\u2019t even know what perimenopause was even though “she went through it,\u201d the actress tells InStyle.\n<\/p>\n \u201cIf we talk about women’s rights and women taking up space and women being equal to men, then that means there can’t be any shame in talking about any of our health needs,\u201d Ricci says. \u201cIt makes us seem less important when we’re not giving attention to a huge life change for every woman, and it’s important that we treat women as important as they are.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Christina Ricci attends the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards on January 15, 2024, in Los Angeles, California.<\/p>\n Getty Images<\/p>\n The 45-year-old is more than happy to go first when it comes to sharing her perimenopause experience, listing off her symptoms\u2014including restless shoulder syndrome, joint pain, brain fog, and word recall difficulties\u2014with humorous, animated explanations. \u201cI\u2019ve experienced skin changes: like, all of a sudden, I’m a dry, desiccated sack, but I also have crazy teenage boy acne, which is exciting and challenging, but certainly surprising. I used to get really excited when I had pimples, because I thought it meant that I was still young, and now with the cystic acne, it’s a little much. There’s also the mood swings, which remind me a lot of being pregnant, a lot of rage. Sometimes I cry for no reason.\u201d\n<\/p>\n The biggest perimenopausal difficulties the Yellowjackets star<\/a> has faced are hair thinning<\/a> and hairline inconsistency, symptoms she had first experienced postpartum, following the birth of her daughter, Cleopatra, in 2021, at age 41. Back then, her celebrity hairstylist husband Mark Hampton recommended hair-growth supplement Nutrafol.\n<\/p>\n Christina Ricci and Mark Hampton attend the 2025 Vanity Fair Oscar Party on March 2, 2025, in Beverly Hills, California.<\/p>\n Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cIt really worked for me,\u201d she shares. \u201cIt was so wonderful because it was one less thing to worry about\u2014dealing with the baby weight, breastfeeding, and all of those things. Then, two years later, I started having perimenopausal symptoms, and it affected my hair and its thickness again, so I went right back to Nutrafol.\u201d She adds that the company is one of the only supplement brands that tests and has published studies on perimenopausal women. \u201cAs we’re finding out so much about how little women have been considered in medicine, healthcare, and drug trials, I really feel supported by a brand that considers me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Taking Nutrafol has helped boost Ricci\u2019s confidence. (She jokes that it\u2019s \u201clucky\u201d that perimenopause happens in your 40s instead of your 20s, \u201cso you don\u2019t have all these insecurities and crap.\u201d) To the actress, confidence is all about feeling like herself. \u201cI\u2019m going to age. My greatest hope is that I still look somewhat like myself when I’m 97 years old. But, I just try to look healthy. I try to take care of myself and to look like somebody who takes care of themselves, and that’s the most I can really do.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Having a healthy perspective on confidence has become all the more important to Ricci as her kids have gotten older. (She shares 3-year-old Cleo with Hampton and 11-year-old Freddie with her ex-husband James Heerdegen.) She says she\u2019s \u201creally careful\u201d about how she talks about herself and her appearance in front of her children.\n<\/p>\n Christina Ricci attends the global premiere of ‘Yellowjackets’ season 3 on February 13, 2025, in Los Angeles, California.<\/p>\n Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cAs much as I don’t want to say bad things about my appearance, I also don’t want to be talking about my appearance in such a way where it seems like it’s the most valuable thing,\u201d Ricci explains. \u201cI talk to them a lot about focusing on who they are and what they contribute and their life experience\u2014looking out instead of always thinking about how they look. Like, Are you having fun at the beach? Have fun at the beach! Don’t think about how you look in your bathing suit. Those types of ideas.\u201d\n<\/p>\n There is, of course, always a time and place for talking about one\u2019s appearance, and Ricci tries to keep it fun\u2014like the next color she wants to dye her hair. After being on a hair coloring hiatus, Ricci says she just found \u201ctwo really long white hairs,\u201d so it\u2019s time to start up again. \u201cI think I’m gonna dye my hair bright. I might try an orangey-red,\u201d she exclaims, adding that she recently told little Cleo about her potential transformation. \u201cThen, for about a week, every time she saw me, she goes, \u2018Your hair is not orange yet.\u2019\u201d Now, Cleo and the rest of the world will be waiting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christina Ricci opened up about her perimenopause journey and symptoms, including restless shoulder syndrome, joint pain, brain fog,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[97,269],"class_list":{"0":"post-212178","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-nutrition"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}