@SHOP.WITH. CAROLINE From Stay-at-Home Mom to Millionaire (at 52!)

THE STORY BEHIND CAROLINE BAUDINO'S INCREDIBLE SUCCESS AND WHY SHE WANTS YOU TO GET UP AND GET DRESSED'

- ANDREA LAVINTHAL

Nine years ago Caroline Baudino looked in the mirror and was shocked by what she saw. “I didn’t recognize myself,” says the 52-year-old content creator of her “zombielike” appearance. “I remember thinking, ‘Where’s Caroline? The one that loves to get dressed every day, the one that’s smiling and happy?’”

Baudino left her career as a Spanish soap opera actress in 2006 to start a family with her husband, John, a marketing executive. After years of playdates, pickups and PTA meetings for their sons Finn, now 12, and Sawyer, 14, she craved change. “I found motherhood so much harder than I had expected, and I didn’t realize the sacrifice, the loneliness and the boredom,” she says. “I was walking through life rather than living it.” Baudino decided it was time to “put my oxygen mask on first”—and she was going to start by “getting up and getting dressed.” She put on a great outfit (and a lot of jewelry, which, yes, she sleeps in and wears in the shower) and looked in the mirror once more. “I was like, ‘You are smart, you are capable, you are strong. Let’s go.’”