Martha Stewart posted a close-up selfie on Instagram on September 14, 2026, with glossy nude lips and a caption that briefly broke the internet:
“I’ve been thinking about releasing my nudes.”
Hours later the 85-year-old lifestyle mogul returned to the same account to clarify that the “nudes” in question were not photographs of herself but a forthcoming line of nude-colored lip serums from her skincare brand Elm Biosciences.
The original post on Stewart’s official account, @marthastewart48, drew more than 632,000 likes and tens of thousands of comments within hours, according to People magazine, which first reported the tease. The follow-up post, a short video of Stewart applying a gold-tipped product, carried the punchline:
“My ‘nudes’ are just a ‘ploy’ they are actually fabulous lip serums to wear day and night to keep your lips as lustrous and soft as your skin!!!!!”
“I’ve been thinking about releasing my nudes.”
The tease comes as Elm Biosciences prepares to expand its aging-focused catalog. Stewart co-founded the brand in September 2025 alongside her longtime dermatologist, Dr. Dhaval Bhanusali, a board-certified dermatologist, laser surgeon, and biotech entrepreneur who also founded the dermatology pharmatech platform Skin Medicinals and serves as dermatologist-in-residence at Hailey Bieber’s brand Rhode. The line debuted with two anchor products: the A3O Elemental Serum at $135 and the Inner Dose Daily Skin Supplement at $50, backed by an advisory board of more than 350 dermatologists and scientists. Stewart joins a wave of celebrity-founded beauty brands in 2025–2026, a trend that includes SZA’s Not Beauty line, which launched exclusively at her GNX tour pop-ups.
Stewart’s Instagram timing did not happen in a vacuum. Six days earlier, on September 8, she made a cameo on the season 16 premiere of The Real Housewives of New York City, a beat Vulture called a “prima ballerina leading an elementary-school dance class”. The Bravo appearance put her in front of a reality-TV audience just as her beauty brand was preparing its next drop, and the Instagram tease picked up that momentum the following Monday.
Celebrity friends jumped into the comment section fast. Shark Tank investor Barbara Corcoran, 77, wrote,
“If you do it, I’ll do it!”
— a line ComingSoon.net also confirmed. Former Bachelorette contestant Tyler Cameron commented,
“You’ll set the world on fire Martha!”
Real Housewives of New York star Jenna Lyons added a one-word reply, per People. Other commenters played along with the joke. One demanded “impeccable lighting” before any potential release, and another floated the idea of a coffee-table book, per the People.com recap.
The brand rollout fits a longer pattern in Stewart’s second-act career. In May 2023, at age 81, she became the oldest cover model in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit history, photographed by Ruven Afanador in the Dominican Republic. She has continued posting swimsuit and poolside selfies in the years since, building a social-media presence that rivals much younger lifestyle influencers and that her brand and broadcast partners now lean on for launches, in contrast to the celebrity-kids skincare debate, which questions age-appropriate beauty marketing for the under-18 set. The longevity of that playbook is its own story, even as the broader beauty-industry landscape has absorbed losses, including the death of Uoma Beauty founder Sharon Chuter at 38 amid a lawsuit. The “nudes” tease lands squarely in Stewart’s playbook.
The lip serums do not yet have a public release date. They will be sold direct-to-consumer at elmbiosciences.com and through select dermatology and medical offices across the U.S., per the brand’s launch coverage. Stewart’s pattern of releasing teaser content in the days surrounding a product drop suggests the actual rollout is closer than the captions imply.
