Blake Lively, Before and After

We’ll start with this shot of an 18-year-old Blake promoting her first major film on the red carpet. (Before that, she had a small part in Sandman as a child.) Already, we can see that she was lightening her naturally darker hair colour to that golden honey tone that would become her signature. Other things to notice: her nose, eyelids and smile!

Only a few months later, she stepped out with an even lighter blonde—plus an aggressively layered haircut that makes her normally thick hair look thin and stringy. She’s also rocking the skinny, over-tweezed brows that were ubiquitous in the early 2000s. Obviously, this doesn’t appear to be the same nose she has today.

The next year, she kept the messy, beachy hair, but dressed it up with a slick of creamy, bold red lipstick. That may be because she had a smile makeover, too. Her teeth are not only whiter and brighter, but the pointy canines that she had before (which overlapped her lower lip) may have been filed down. 

When Gossip Girl premiered, Blake quickly became a household name—and her long, blonde hair became the envy of millions of women. Already, you can see the results of working with an A-list styling team (which she wouldn’t have had before). The fried blonde hair has been replaced by a darker, golden hue, and styled in smooth, bouncy waves. 

By 2008, she was getting invites to Chanel parties (a clear sign that you’ve arrived in Hollywood). Here, you can see that even under the lashes and liner, she still had noticeably heavy, hooded eyelids. The excess skin actually creates a horizontal fold that hides her crease... but keep watching, because this later seems to change!

Her nose still looked au naturel at age 21, as did her eyelids. This was clearly before blepharoplasty surgeries became commonplace among celebs, because she drew even more attention to the area with a shimmery pink eyeshadow! Meanwhile, her old Hollywood waves couldn’t be shinier.

During her downtime from Gossip Girl, Blake began to build her film career—and here we can see a more grown-up style to go with it. Her hair is sleek and smooth, and rather than heavy shadow or lashes, she opted for simple winged liner. Her brows aren’t growing back too well after all the tweezing, so they’ve been bleached to keep the focus on her eyes.

The year 2011 marked a distinct change in her style. Suddenly, it became a whole lot more experimental and fashion-forward. Case in point: this new red hair colour with bold blonde highlights, a messy fishtail braid, and a glittering gold hair accessory. She also has the biggest smile—maybe because she was attending this event with her co-star and husband-to-be.

A year later, and not only were Blake and Ryan now officially a couple, but she also replaced the red hair with her blondest look yet. With retro waves, a thick fringe of lashes and bright red lips, she looks every inch the young movie star. However, that may be distracting us from other significant changes—such as a narrower-looking nose. 

To be honest, I didn’t notice anything different about Blake until I saw this photo from 2013. She almost seems like a different person! Seeing her stripped back, with barely any makeup, made the changes to her features become suddenly apparent. I’m talking about a smaller nose, yes, but also her eyelids—they are no longer looking as hooded.

At age 27, she was pregnant with her first child (so if her face seems a bit more filled out here, that’s the reason why). Looking at her roots, I actually did not realize that her natural hair colour was this dark! As for her eyelids, even underneath the brown eyeshadow, there seems to be less excess skin than before.

Only four months after giving birth, she returned to the red carpet in full glam (complete with a root touch-up and her go-to side-swept waves). To me, her face seems narrower now than it did back in the day, likely from normal aging and/or post-baby weight loss. I think her teeth appear longer, too, thanks to some gum reshaping to reveal the top of her lateral incisors.

A few months before baby number two arrived, Blake showed off her pregnancy glow. With the high ponytail, long lashes and pink lipstick, she looks like a real-life Barbie doll here—and I mean that in the best possible way! In her earlier pics, it was her nose that stood out, but now your attention goes to her eyes and mouth first (which is always the case when celebs do these refinements).

It was her long, thick hair that stole the show when Blake stepped out for this event in 2017. But you may have missed another update to her look: fuller eyebrows. We know she tweezed most of ‘em off in her teenage years, and they never fully grew back. Now, they’ve suddenly doubled in size, and if you zoom in, you can see real hair growth (not pencil strokes).

As she entered her thirties, Blake solidified her status as one half of Hollywood’s favourite power couple—so of course her style had to match. (Could you imagine this power suit, snake earrings or purple eyeshadow on teenage Blake? Never!) If you look closely at her eye area, you can again see the crease that she never used to have, as well as numerous stray brow hairs. Now I’m wondering if she may have had the same eyebrow transplant procedure as Chrissy Teigen!

Four months after becoming a mom for the third time, she chose another menswear-inspired look for one of her last pre-lockdown appearances. See how much her eyebrows have grown in by this time? The transformation is truly impressive! Now switch your attention to her lips. The lower one now has that “double-lobed” look we know from Dove Cameron, and her top one no longer disappears when she smiles.

So far in 2022, we’ve seen Blake serving up a series of bold beauty looks on her makeup artist’s Instagram. She’s almost unrecognizable here—is it the red lipstick and fuller-looking lips (which may or may not be from makeup)? Or is it her eyelids, which now look much flatter, with brows that are positioned higher up on her forehead?!

When you compare these two photos of Blake side by side, it’s hard to believe that she underwent such significant changes, all the while remaining in the public eye.

The most obvious change is her nose. Before, it was quite prominent in relation to her other features. Now, it is smaller and narrower all the way down, with a more chiseled, defined tip.

“Her nose looks distinctly different in both the tip and also the dorsum and the width of the nose, so I do think she’s probably had a rhinoplasty procedure,” says Dr. Daniel Barrett. “I think she’s beautiful before and after, but there are some differences there that lead me to believe, especially the width of the tip and the tiny little extra cartilage protrusion... she might have had rhinoplasty.”^[1]

“It appears that, like much of Hollywood, Blake has had her nose done! Her nose looks thinner, straighter and more narrow,” adds Dr. Anthony Youn. “The surgery most likely consisted of narrowing the nasal bones and trimming the cartilage of her nasal tip,” explains Dr. Matthew Schulman.^[2]

Looking at her smile, she’s apparently done some cosmetic dentistry over the years, including such procedures as bleaching and teeth and gum reshaping. You can also see that her lips are now quite a bit fuller, and she no longer has a gummy smile. That’s likely from lip fillers at the very least, and possibly even something more invasive to reposition her bite.

And what about her (formerly hooded) eye area? “A lot of people speculate that she’s had blepharoplasty,” says Dr. Barrett. “So blepharoplasty is a removal of excess eyelid skin and sometimes the fat. I see no difference in her pretarsal show; that’s the amount of space between the lashes and the upper eyelid crease.”

But he was comparing Blake in 2005 to 2012—and so much has changed since then! Now she has a crease, whereas before she had none, and the area definitely seems flatter, like some fat was removed. More recently, her brows have become higher (not to mention fuller!). That suggests she may have used Botox at minimum, or possibly even underwent surgical procedures such as a brow or eyelid lift as well as a brow transplant. Who would have thought?!