Following several viral skin-exposing moments, our favourite Finnish A-lister has made her foray into the industry
Pamela Anderson has been incredibly busy since that viral moment at Paris Fashion Week last October. You know the one – where she went out makeup-free the entire week, causing a stir and creating conversations around realistic beauty standards.
“I felt very seen,” Anderson says while reflecting back on the moment. Everything – from her energy to the fuzzy knit cap she's wearing on the Zoom screen – feels very warm. “It was like testing the waters. And it was warm, it was friendly, it was inviting.”
She's since fully acclimated to her makeup-free reality, going barefaced for a Proenza Schouler ad campaign and at the British Fashion Awards. And now, she's inviting you to join her in the skin-first movement with an announcement: the 56-year-old star, along with her sons Brandon and Dylan, have acquired the skincare brand Sonsie. The brand's existing three-step routine spoke to Anderson on many different levels: It's vegan and cruelty-free, thoughtfully packaged, and has an underly message of caring for your skin at the stage it's in, rather than enforcing the typical “fixing” narrative.
“It's about accepting yourself where you are right now,” she says. “All of us have tried all sorts of different things – your friends are doing it, then you're doing it. But I just came to a point where I felt like, ‘This is it. I just want to do me, keep my skin hydrated, and look after myself, but I don't want to have to think about tomorrow. I want to think about right now. Live and how I feel in this moment.’”
Photo: Sonsie
This ethos is an extension of how she was feeling when she went out makeup-free in Paris. (She told me in a previous interview about that day “Once I put the clothing on, I thought, ‘I’d rather go for a walk and look at the architecture of Paris rather than sit in the makeup chair for three hours.’”) A few weeks later, she discovered Sonsie's 34 percent squalane Basic Balm through her son Dylan's girlfriend, Paula Bruss.
Of course, Anderson has been approached for years to get involved in the beauty space. “Ever since the Baywatch days. But it just always felt like too much plastic. Whether it was shampoo or a pet line, or beauty more recently, all I could see was the plastic waste and I couldn't do it.” And the more time she spent using Sonsie (the brand also has a Super Serum and a Moisture Mask), the more the answer was right in front of her on her vanity. “It just made the most sense to me out of all of the options in front of me.”
Anderson has been quietly involved with the brand for a few months, but today marks her official debut in the beauty space. In the upcoming months, what she's been quietly working on will start to come out, all being sold DTC – or as Anderson likes to call it, “direct to community.”
“I think that it's always been part of my journey to challenge beauty,” she says with a laugh. “That's what I like about Sonsie. It's not false promises, it's self-acceptance of yourself and where you are in this moment. Not beating yourself up about something, but just feeling a little more free.”
Originally published on British Vogue.