Selling Bathwater
With her most recent work on Sydney's Bathwater Bliss soap opera, Sydney Sweeney, an American actress best known for her role on the television series Euphoria, has taken over Dr. Squatch's website. Only 5,000 of the limited-edition soap bars were available when they were released on June 6, 2025. At $8 a bar, they sold out in a matter of seconds and now reselling for over $150 on eBay. According to the Independent, one eBay listing is selling the soap at $2,000.
This is not the first time a celebrity has taken the world by surprise by releasing a brand-new product. In 2020, the creator and CEO of lifestyle company Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow, developed a candle titled "This smells like my vagina." Originally priced at $75, the perfumed candle is now being resold on eBay for $400 . The powerful empowerment message and shock value of the candle were more important than its fragrance.
The popularity of these soap bars is not to do so much to do with the quality of the product but rather that they are (apparently) infused with. ‘With refreshing notes of pine, Douglas fir, earthy moss and a touch of Sydney’s very own bathwater’- Sweeney stating, “whatever makes men take a shower”. Sweeney is well known in the industry as a sex symbol, and many of her fans “weirdly… are men.” The actress has admitted in the past that she feels ‘dehumanised’ when people sexualise her body and has “no control” over the online discourse on her body. Therefore, the latest partnership has demonstrated that she is reclaiming her authority and embracing her sex appeal rather than avoiding it.
Following the release of the collection, public discourse quickly became polarised. Some TikTok influencers claimed that unwrapping the soap revealed a hole in the centre, supposedly designed for "better grip" in the shower. Despite the clear inaccuracy of this claim, it gained traction online, with many accepting it without verification. This speculation, fuelled by sexually suggestive interpretations, has been used by some to cast Sydney Sweeney in a negative light. This phenomenon underscores a broader cultural tendency: the willingness to embrace provocative or scandalous narratives—especially those involving female public figures—often at the expense of truth and context.
Just as they criticised Paltrow, individuals on the internet had to express their disapproval of the partnership by calling it ‘gross marketing ethics’, not only is she selling her body as a commodity and filling up the pockets of the men involved with the project. However, Sweeney stated to E News that she “pitched it” to the company, and therefore once a misogynistic attitude towards women, is now an empowering (and frankly funny) edge. Men are going to lust over Sweeney regardless; therefore, she should profit off that. One would say that she could profit from the soap bars for more than $8… monetise the male gaze to the maximum.
Let me know what you think of this collaboration and whether Sydney Sweeney is redefining feminism or reversing It?