In a society that pumps the air with fossil fuels and criminalizes women’s bodies, Olivia Wilde’s nude True Botanical Campaign is exactly the sustainable, feminist push we needed.
It all started with a healthier self-care routine. Olivia Wilde, a 37-year-old actress, director, and activist decided to pursue a new type of self-care routine upon becoming a mother. Since most beauty products contain toxic chemicals and carcinogens that could harm her two children, Wilde began to use sustainable beauty products and follow a toxic-free beauty routine.
Because Wilde was taking better care of herself, she began to feel more confident in her body. Now, she views skin-care as a sort of philosophical lifestyle centered around accepting and celebrating her body exactly as it is. In a Vogue interview, Wilde describes her empowering self-care routine: “It puts you in this kind of sensorial experience that changes your mood and can allow you to have the opportunity even just to spend time with your body… I don’t want to waste my time striving for some subjective definition of perfection.”
As a celebrity influencer with about 3.5 million Instagram followers, Wilde wanted to use her popularity for positive impact. She became an ambassador for True Botanicals, an all-natural and sustainably sourced skin-care line based in San Francisco. And so Wilde’s True Botanical campaign was born: a nude campaign dedicated to making sustainability sexy and freeing the nipple. True Botanicals gave Wilde complete creative control over the messages she wanted to promote.
“I think that there’s this impression that responsibility and sustainability are inherently rational and boring… But True Botanicals products are so sumptuous, decadent and luxurious, they’re proof that clean and safe skincare can be an indulgence. I wanted to capture and show that sustainability is sexy.”
Wilde in a True Botanicals press release
This is consistent with marketing moves by other beauty brands that are becoming more sustainable: meaning they are free of synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, and other inorganic substances. Cocokind, Sundays, and Herla are examples of increasingly popular vegan, cruelty-free, and affordable beauty brands.
But Wilde didn’t end her message with sustainability. By posing in photos either completely nude or topless, she also fought the sexualization of women’s bodies. “I think that we can all really benefit from making sure that we don’t allow the stigmatization of women’s bodies to infect our own perspective of ourselves… I wish that in this country, we weren’t so terrified of women’s bodies,” she shared with Vogue.
This reflects the post-pandemic resurgence of the Free the Nipple movement: after a year of not wearing any bras during lockdown, many women are going braless in the workplace, at social events, and for other everyday activities. This fights back against the double standards set for men and women: while men’s nipples are normalized, women’s nipples are hyper-sexualized and seen as borderline pornographic.
Wilde describes how the Free the Nipple movement is innately related to body confidence: “We want to celebrate the idea of loving one’s own body and feeling confident because you feel beautiful, and the idea that the rituals we practice for ourselves are opportunities to celebrate ourselves.” All the photos featured in her campaign promote self-love: Wilde unapologetically presents her body as is, captioning her Instagram post with “Feel Yourself.”
Wilde is one of many female celebrities who see nudity as self-empowerment: Brittany Spears posted topless photos to Instagram in August 2021, and Lizzo posted herself fully naked in April 2021.
Admittedly, change happens slowly. Women’s bodies are still criminalized, whether this is through increasingly restrictive anti-abortion laws or Instagram’s relentless censorship of women’s nipples. But with influencers like Olivia Wilde, it’s clear that women nationwide are not going to accept the status quo.
Feature Image Courtesy of WELL Insiders