Sydney Sweeney's Soapy Swindle
Soap with a touch of a hot celeb's bathwater?? Don't give the Pedro Pascal fans any more ideas
Disclaimer for Sydney Sweeney’s eyes only: I would love some kind of interview + unedited transcript discussing each decision you’ve made in your career so far. I don’t need that published, because the airing of your secrets would adversely affect your career, obviously, so I’m willing to keep the contents a secret or burn them after. That’s all!!
Do you remember the first time you bought a product solely because it was branded to or by a particular celebrity? Was it Lady Gaga’s Fame perfume, a murky black concoction bottled by a claw machine like hand, meant to represent the poison of stardom? Perhaps you remember the fomo of not owning Beats by Dr. Dre over the ear headphones in middle school? Or should we take a pick from the proliferation of celebrity-backed makeup brands that seem to multiply by the minute under predoninantly monosyllabic generic names? (Scarlett Johansson’s The Outset, I am looking straight at you. That could be another Rachel Cusk book or a wellness retreat. I literally do not understand the intent.)
There is nothing new about celebrity-backed products; the stars we choose to watch and follow aim to take advantage of our attention for the sole purpose of lining their pockets with money money moneyyy. Sure, I believe their avowed enthusiasm for their product, but anyone can have an interest in anything; that is the baseline from which to launch any new company. Part of our one-sided tug-of-war with capitalism is the intrinsic link between power, influence, and money. Celebrities are continually aiming to possess all three, and the best way to do that is by appealing to and exploiting us.
When news broke in late May that actress Sydney Sweeney’s latest product endeavor was a bar of soap made with her own bath water, the reaction was explosive but expected, ranging from feminist outrage to begrudging acknowledgement of its cleverness. "Sydney's Bathwater Bliss," a collaboration with men's personal care company Dr. Squatch, is a limited-edition bar of soap (just 5,000 were made) containing the typical fixings of a hygienic product, plus a "touch” of Sweeney's real bath water.
Here’s the ultimate kicker about the soap: Sweeney says she pitched the idea. “I think that it’s more fun to see everybody else talk about it,” she said with a smile to E! News, seen below.
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The role that catapulted Sweeney into fame was – for better and for worse – the naive, busty, and over-sexualized Cassie in Euphoria, the Sam Levinson high school sexploration of what teenagers really did away from prying adult eyes. Since then, her star has risen to unbelievable heights – as we love to do to young female ingenues – prompting the national insistence to suggest the best and worst of her. “Is Sydney Sweeney a pick-me?” one Reddit post asks. “So Sydney Sweeney’s not pretty and can’t act? Such insults by a woman play into men’s hands,” reads the title of a Guardian op-ed.
In this debate over whether Sweeney’s soap endeavor speaks to a naked self-awareness of owning her sexuality, a simpler interpretation emerges. Beyond the paradoxical response to her existence and career, Sweeney has relied on a familiar framework: rags to riches. Outside of her career moves, her PR has been reliant on two main tenets which operate as a cause and effect. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, she spills about struggling to make ends meet after her family moved to Los Angeles for her career, taking on whatever roles came her way and living paycheck to paycheck. Since that interview, she has explicitly fed that narrative, reiterating the volatile nature of the thankless, glamorous industry of being a working actress. Even if you choose not to read about Sweeney’s trajectory, you’re still passively consuming her image on billboards, screens, magazines through her sponsorships, Miu Miu ensembles, and car expertise TikToks.
If you’ve been following Sweeney’s money-making side quests at all, her cheeky response to the Dr. Squatch partnership is no shock – I’m assuming you raised an eyebrow and moved on. The 28-year-old actress has proven herself to be nimble and mightily strategic, perhaps to a fault, when setting up her extracurriculars. Let’s take a trip down memory lane of partnerships, endorsements, etc:
May 2022: In the most recognizable move for a young actress, Sweeney attached herself to a fashion house. Her Miu Miu ad campaign signaled a serious dip into the couture world, making her face a bit more recognizable.
January 2024: Ford teamed up with Sweeney to design a custom Ford Mustang to help ignite young, female interest in the brand. Additionally, Sweeney was featured in an Auto 101 TikTok series and launched a workwear line, moves that did breathe new life into Ford.
August 2024: Sweeney’s weird partnership foray into weird partnerships was as the new spokesperson of Heydude, a company that previously deployed a reference to The Big Lebowski to sell their Toms x Clarke x Croc x Skechers mash-up of a shoe. “The brand never sacrifices style for comfort, which is why Heydude’s iconic styles are my favorite shoe option whether I’m traveling or commuting to set,” Sweeney said. “I’m thrilled to represent the brand in 2024 and beyond.” Where’s the image of her rolling up the Euphoria season three set with these melded to her feet?
May 2025: The infamous Dr. Squatch collaboration!
June 2025: Baskin-Robbins collaboration called Sweet on Sydney include her “go-to” orders of Sydney’s Signature Scoop (rainbow sherbet with gummy bears on top in a chocolate-dipped waffle cone with sprinkles) and Sydney’s Signature Fizz (rainbow sherbet blended with Starry lemon lime soda and topped off with mini gummy bears). The top left ad in the lede image was taken outside my neighborhood Dunkin’!
Honorable mentions: Laneige (her promotions with the Korean skincare brand used words like “bouncy” and “firm,” which drew scrutiny), Bai (“wonder water” has anyone tried this before??), Kérastase (a hair brand that praised Sweeney’s “fearlessness with her hair.. and roles she takes”).
And as Heather Schwedel reports for Slate, this list doesn’t even cover the various collaborations she frequently promotes on Instagram, most of which have no discernible throughline or commonalities. In some ways, her willingness to say yes to pretty much anything has positioned her as an anti-brand; a working woman capitalizing on a built-in perception, furthering a common legacy of scandalizing the public and securing her bag. As John Ludeke, the senior vice president of global marketing for Dr. Squatch, said in the company’s news release: “There’s no playbook for turning Sydney Sweeney’s actual bath water into a bar of soap, but that’s exactly why we did it.”
Except there is a playbook, a savvy one written by Sweeney and her team. Typically, celebrity branding is a way to signal to consumers the type of person they are or aspiring to be; Jessica Alba is more associated with the values of the non-toxic, family-friendly Honest Company than her last few roles (if you’re curious, she was last seen as a Special Forces officer in a 2024 movie called Trigger Warning, a generic action movie coasting on being female-led). Positioning the difficult nature of being a working actress alongside her endless parade of ads has made Sweeney “a new brand of capitalist actress with skills – like appreciating a good pair of boat shoes,” as Schwedel puts it. She’s not just a bruhgirl, the everywoman, the girl next door; she’s whoever you need her to be, just like the nature of her main profession.
What’s always been interesting and aggravating about Sweeney is her ability to recognize and exploit the failings of celebrity culture and patriarchy for her gain. She spills about her family saying she has the best tits in Hollywood in the same breath as she complains about not being taken seriously enough by her peers. Beneath the soundbites and sponsorships, Sweeney has been diligent in crafting an interesting filmography, from her training to transform into boxer Christy Martin to admitting to taking work too seriously (“vicious,” she called her behavior on set for Echo Valley).
In an interview with Vanity Fair last year, Sweeney came to terms with the nature of celebrity and the loss of control that comes with fame: “We’re going to have a conversation, we’ll talk for 30 minutes, it’s condensed, then people don’t understand the context behind the conversation, and it’s all clickbait. Unfortunately I don’t get to control my image — my image is in your guys’ hands.” In Sweeney’s case, this dichotomy is the inevitable result of catering to the gaze that made you famous, and one she’ll have to contend with forever – so long as she urges it on.
Knowing her every word and move is and will be scrutinized, Sweeney’s clever intentions persist. Just this week, Sweeney drew some fire for attending the evil Bezos-Sanchez wedding. Puck News reported a potential reason for her appearance in Venice: the actress is launching a lingerie brand backed by Ben Schwerin, whose fund Coatue got injected with $1 billion by Bezos. Can’t blame a woman for working. (But can you?)
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In promotion for her book Make It Ours about designer Virgil Abloh, The Washington Post’s critic-at-large Robin Givhan spoke with NYTimes fashion critic Vanessa Friedman about the man in question for Interview Mag. Their conversation is two of our greatest critics marveling at Abloh’s artistry, his status as one of our last renaissance men who was hungry to pursue and consume everything. In his time on earth, Abloh did just that, using fashion as a conduit for world-conquering visions of grandeur. As Givhan puts it:
[Wanting Givenchy] also fed right into the, “Okay, he believed he could do anything and should be able to do anything.” That’s the thing that was fascinating to me, because so many times you have people—not to harangue white men—but there’s this level of ownership where they assume they are the best person to do something. So it was impressive to see Virgil say, “I want to do this. I can do this. And frankly, I think I’m a great person to do this.”
The Bear Season Four’s Gratuitous Deep Conversation Starter: SoooOOOooo, we got bed bugs. Not much has been able to lift us out from the hallucinatory fog of getting bitten in our sleep while bites swell up like ping pong balls in real time. Our psyches are irrevocably damaged. Anyways, the new season of The Bear alleviated some of our psychosis with its performatively profound character studies that were all shot extremely close-up. This is a thank you to the crew on season four of The Bear; I love any excuse to count the pores and eyelashes on Ayo Edebri and Ebon Moss-Bachrach and avert the piercing blue gaze of Jeremy Allen White.