Intro for May 30, 2025

Dear Gossips,  

Yesterday I mentioned Sydney Sweeney in context to Scarlett Johansson and Hollywood/everyone else’s long tradition of being completely unhinged about hot blondes—which literally goes back to silent cinema and Jean Harlow—which in turn set off a conversation on The Squawk about Sydney Sweeney selling her used bathwater in a bar soap. 

In case you missed it, Sweeney did a body wash ad for Dr. Squatch, a natural soap brand marketed to “manly men”, in which she was in a bathtub:

 

Now, she’s made a limited-edition bar soap claiming to contain her used bathwater:

The soap claims to contain “a touch of Sydney's very own bathwater”, which is a touch too much for me, I’m afraid. I guess I’m a prude, but I don’t like broiling in my own bathwater, let alone someone else’s. But this is clearly a tongue in cheek way of acknowledging that no one is normal about Sydney Sweeney.

The question, though, is whether or not Sweeney participating in something like this is pandering to the worst contingent of so-called fans who police her body and get real gross about her online. I mean, it clearly is pandering in that after the bathtub commercial, people (men) left comments up and down social media about wanting to drink her bathwater—the Saltburn effect in real time—and she and the brand are obviously leaning into that. But it’s SOAP, how worked up am I supposed to get about SOAP? Frankly, anything that gets dudes to wash their asses is a win in my book.

More interesting to me is Sweeney’s overall approach to brand partnerships. She has a LOT of them, including but not limited to: Miu Miu, HEYDUDE shoes, Dr. Squatch, Laneige, Kérastase, Samsung, and she’s done a workwear collab with Ford and Dickies (she famously restored her vintage Bronco). Some of these brands are luxury, like Miu Miu, and some are more determinedly working class, like Ford and Dickies, some are up-market, like Kérastase, and others are mass market, like Dr. Squatch. She’s kind of all over the place. 

Given her past comments about coming from a non-privileged background—comments she claimed were taken out of context but unless a reporter for The Hollywood Reporter straight up fabricated quotes, which would be big news if she did, Sweeney once said, “They don’t pay actors like they used to, and with streamers, you no longer get residuals”—I don’t blame her for cashing checks wherever they’re offered.

And I don’t think it hurts her in terms of her work as an actress and budding producer. She’s working with top tier directors like Ron Howard, David Michôd, Paul Feig, and Jon M. Chu. She’s been on multiple hit TV shows, she produced and starred in practically the only successful R-rated rom-com in recent memory, she’s got an Oscar bait movie coming up with the Christy Martin biopic. As an actress, Sweeney is doing just fine. But as a celebrity, I do get stuck on all these brand deals a little bit. Not the quantity of them—get paid, girl—but the inconsistency of the target market. There’s no exclusivity. 

If I had to define her brand as an actress, it would be “rising power player”, if I had to define her brand as a celebrity it would be “sells anything”. Some might say “shill”, but I don’t like that term because it’s condescending, and again, I do not begrudge her a paycheck, especially since a lot of the films she’s making aren’t big-budget blockbusters, they’re smaller projects that burnish her reputation as an actress, which is her main job. I just don’t think she’s building any exclusivity into her public persona. Maybe she doesn’t want any! That’s okay! But she does take enough luxury brand deals that she seems to want some, at least. Her brand presence is confusing. How would you define Sydney Sweeney’s brand?

Live long and gossip,

Sarah