Everything’s coming up roses for Pamela Anderson, who’s blooming in her new era of empowerment — and bringing a sense of self to new projects along the way.
The latest fare is the launch of her vegan skin care company Sonsie’s new Cleansing Mousse, formulated with a natural essence from rose hips, inspired by her rose garden in Vancouver.
“I start each day when I’m home in my rose garden, so I felt, ‘How do I bring that with me?’” Anderson exclusively told WWD. “I do make a rose hip oil, and I wanted to bring that into the skin care line.”
Since becoming co-owner in January, the new cleaner is her first co-created product with the brand, which debuted with a moisture mask, super serum and lip balm as part of its lineup.
“When I started working with the Sonsie group, I really wanted to start applying my life lessons and things that I’ve learned along the way — accepting where you are on your beauty journey — and I just felt like the rose garden, for me, was a very grounding message, because I kind of rediscovered myself in the rose garden.”
Anderson said she returned to her native Canada for a couple years on a journey of self-reflection. “I guess a homecoming, you could say, to really kind of look at my life and remember who I was — not what other people were telling me I was — and I didn’t want anything that had happened to me define me. I wanted what I do to define me… all these realizations came to me in the rose garden.”
As her first collaboration with the brand, Anderson wanted to create a product that would intimately connect her with consumers.
“When you are using the product, you know that I care deeply about it and about people that are using it, and the messaging that goes along with it is: you are beautiful just the way you are. You are good enough.”
The cleanser, which retails for $32 on sonsieskin.com, is formulated with ginger root extract and natural bisabolol, which reduces inflammation, Multi Soothing Complex for hydration, and rose essence from Anderson’s garden, among the key ingredients.
“It’s light enough and nourishing enough where it’s not stripping your face, which was really important to me,” Anderson said. “I have super-sensitive skin, and my skin has never been better right now without wearing so much makeup and just wearing the products, my skin’s getting better all the time.”
Anderson refers to Sonsie’s skin care line as her new “makeup” nowadays since embracing a bare-faced era throughout 2024, including a WWD photo shoot in February and her appearances on this year’s film festival circuit, where her forthcoming movie “The Last Showgirl” debuted at Toronto International Film Festival in September.
“I don’t know how I pulled this off, just like this movie I’m doing, I don’t know how I pulled it off either,” Anderson said. “I just feel like the stars have aligned, and if you just believe in yourself long enough…always keep that little fire burning,” she added, referring to a quote by Cormac McCarthy. “You know, timing is everything. So, this seems to be my time, so I’m embracing it.”
The timing is right for a venture with Sonsie, a cruelty-free, clean brand — an apt match for the longtime environmental and animal rights activist. “I think people associate me with those things,” Anderson said. “I’ve been doing it for a long time, even 30 years ago, when it was annoying to make sure things were cruelty-free…especially in this industry.”
It’s Anderson’s authenticity that has helped drive the start-up’s flourishing consumer base since Marie von Behrens-Felipe and her husband Roberto A. Felipe initially launched the brand in June 2023.
“Even with the influx of new customers that we’ve had since Pamela has joined us, we’re still seeing an over 32 percent returning customer rate,” said cofounder Roberto Felipe. “And even in October, we’re well above 36 percent returning customer there.”
Felipe described the brand’s online community-driven relationship as where it sits in the cultural zeitgeist, and Anderson is among the community leaders.
“First and foremost, this is something that is for the community, but then also working with Pamela and kind of telling a story behind her and her rose garden, and bringing that all together was something that we’re really, really excited about, so it’s kind of twofold — it’s us giving something to our community, but then also us giving a piece of Pamela that makes her feel like home to our community as well.”
Anderson’s co-created cleanser amplifies how she has been incorporated with Sonsie’s branding and audience growth, in addition to other footprints. “She does a lot of positive affirmation, then journal writing that she shares on a weekly basis with the community,” Felipe said of her Open Journal Substack newsletter, “so we really embrace that into what we’re now calling this thing ‘Mindful Beauty.’” The initiative includes affirmations shared through the brand’s social channels and through cards received with the product. “We’re really excited to share that with the community.”
Offline, Anderson will be a key player beyond creative channels as she’ll be incorporated in retail expansion strategies, Felipe said.
“We want to make sure that we’re doing things that feel authentic to her. As we start to get into first quarter and second quarter next year, and we start to bleed into the rollout around our retail strategy, Pamela will be extremely involved in that, and she’ll be out there on the front lines, with people — touching them, hugging them — and making them feel what Sonsie feels like in real life.”
“We’re going to be doing some retail rollout with some strategic people domestically and internationally — luxury beauty retailers that we feel excited about from a marketing standpoint as we get into Q1, but multi-functional skus is the priority,” Felipe added. “We want to be a brand that’s focused on less is more, so we want our skus, to be used in different ways.”
For the forthcoming releases, Anderson said she knew where to look for inspiration. “Well, I just think: ‘What I would wear next? What I would do next?’ I’ve got some things that I am really excited about, and that’ll all be in the first quarter.”
