Serena Williams Enters the Makeup Game with Wyn Beauty and Shares Her MVPs for a 5-Minute Face (Exclusive)

Serena Williams is set to make her mark in the beauty world. 

The tennis champ, 42, introduces her brand Wyn Beauty (pronounced “win”) with 10 products created with active lifestyles in mind. 

The collection, she says is a reflection of the needs she sees in the makeup space. 

“I've always been into beauty,” Williams tells PEOPLE exclusively. “But when you're a tennis player, there's only so much that you can do because you’re out there on the court for hours. You move and sweat a lot, and you wipe everything away.”

“Then, imagine you're on center court and you're winning, and then you have 15 minutes to get ready before your press conference — and that includes undoing all the tape jobs and showering. You want to look halfway decent after sweating for hours,” she continues. 

“So for me, it was really just about: how am I able to represent myself in the best way? What are those key products you need to look presentable?” 

“That's been a journey that I've been on for my entire career. I would say the second half of my career I was able to find some answers. Nothing that was really perfect, but something that I knew could [help with] how I wanted to represent myself in front of millions and millions of people," she says.

Williams not only had to create her beauty looks for the court and her press conferences, but for appearances around the world. 

“When I would travel to places 20 years ago before 40 shades of foundation existed, I had to be the biggest advocate for my makeup. I couldn’t rely on makeup artists to have my color, and I had to learn how to do my own makeup,” she shares. “ I never found a skin tint that I truly loved and actually worked, so I knew I needed to create something.” 

Enter: Wyn Beauty, a culmination of six years of hard work. 

“This definitely started before COVID,” Williams shares. I remember talking to a distributor and saying, “we're really excited about this, but still playing tennis and trying to focus on that too." 

She admits: “I needed to try to do one thing at a time.” After retiring from tennis in Sept. 2022, she was able to go full speed ahead with this endeavor. 

Naturally, Wyn Beauty includes some “tennis-isms,” she says. 

“I felt like we have to include some … and I thought the tennis ball green packaging, which we call our Wyn chartreuse, made sense and is authentic to my story. [The color] represents a lot of energy to me when you’re holding it in your hands. It means a lot to me because I will always love tennis.”

With 91 skus across her assortment, Williams, who’s always reached for the essentials, finds it challenging to choose her favorites.

“I’m going to try to narrow that down,” she says. “I’m going to start with our lip and cheek tint [called] MVP: Most Valuable Pigment. What I wanted to do with this collection was to have versatile products because I'm always on-the-go. I think active beauty doesn't necessarily mean running a marathon or playing in the finals of the US Open: everyone's life is active. I'm more active now than I've ever been. I wake up in the morning around 7 o’clock and I want to have a look that can last all day throughout all of my activities. And so it was really important for me to focus on things that could do that.” 

Next up, she loves its Hydrating Skin Tint with SPF 30, Featuring You. “I would have my liquid foundation and then I would have my sunscreen, and I would mix them and put that on my face. That was kind of really my aha moment of: I need to create something that really kind of speaks to everything and everyone." 

Her Soft Matte Creamy Concealer, Nothing to See, is one she “can't leave home without” and the Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner, Glideline, is an “obvious” pick. She adds: “And, I’m going to throw in the brow pencil, Taking Shape. I love my brows!”

Rounding out her debut: Word of Mouth Max Comfort Matte Lipstick, Say Everything Max Intensity Featherweight Lipstick, No Words Needed Lip Serum, Big Vision Lengthening & Defining Tubing Mascara and Glideline Longwear Eye Pencil. The products range from $18 for the lip serum to $28 for the skin tint (which comes in 36 shades) and is available on ulta.com and wynbeauty.com.

Williams says as she’s stepped away from tennis her 5-minute face has become a slightly longer process, but not by much. “It doesn’t have to be,” she says. For date night with husband Alexis Ohanian, she focuses on her eyes. “Mascara and eyeliner.”

The enterprenuer, who’s mom to daughters Olympia and Adira says having beauty moments with her elder daughter is “special.”

“She just watches me do my face and she just kind of copies it. It's quite funny, because sometimes it’s a little too much and I’m like ‘Oh my goodness, don’t use that color!’ But I try to let her be. She’ll always remember these moments.”

Williams adds that Olympia has an eye for what’s on-trend.

“I have mannequins and she loves doing their faces, and she’s started contouring them. I'm like, ‘How did you learn how to do that?’ And she's like, ‘That's what you do, mommy.’

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Nowadays Williams says feels most comfortable and confident in her skin with minimal makeup on.

“I feel the most comfortable and confident when I'm just at night in bed and I have my face on still and it's not a lot, but it's just enough. And I just feel refreshed.”