7 Beauty Lessons We Can Learn From Pamela Anderson

Cosmopolitan

6 hours ago

There's no debating it: Pamela Anderson is an icon. If you somehow don't already know, here's the potted history: the model, actress, activist, and entrepreneur rose to fame in the 1990s and 2000s for roles (among many others) in the lifeguarding classic TV show Baywatch as well as the camp, cult, superhero movie Barb Wire.
Throughout the 2010s, she became a public spokesperson for animal rights, and has enjoyed a jubilant second act throughout the 2020s: appearing on Broadway as Chicago's Roxy Heart, starring in a Jacquemus campaign, and heading up films like the artsy The Last Showgirl (for which she gained a Golden Globe nomination) and The Naked Gun.
Throughout the 2020s, she has also sparked major conversations regarding beauty, namely for her decision to depart from the high-glam looks synonymous with her early career and often reject makeup altogether. Emerging as a new kind of beauty legend, she favors trend-setting bobs, pared-back or non-existent makeup, and unfiltered confidence.
Below, we count down the top beauty lessons to learn from the one and only, Pamela Anderson.
You'll have noticed that Pamela often goes bare-faced to events, embracing a more pared-back look for fashion week and awards shows. She's even graced magazine covers with a completely natural look.
Speaking of her decision to take a more fresh-faced approach to beauty, Pamela has explained that this is tied to the death of her long-time makeup artist, Alexis Vogel, who passed away from breast cancer in 2019.
"She was the best," she told Elle. "And since then, I just felt, without Alexis, it's just better for me not to wear makeup."
Despite this tragic reason for changing her look, foregoing makeup has allowed Pamela to redefine makeup on her terms.
She's also co-founded her own skincare brand, Sonsie and, on the brand's site, Pamela explains: "To me, true beauty is about celebrating authenticity. I want to look like myself, feel like myself, and that means taking care of myself on my terms." Amen!
In recent years, Pamela has been outspoken about her desire to provoke conversations about beauty standards and ageing, encouraging women to focus on confidence as an expression of beauty, and partnering with the Dove Self Esteem Project.
Realizing the public reaction to her decision to not wear makeup, she has explained that she has made the decision to push the envelope surrounding beauty norms. "I am much more comfortable in my own skin, but I am also in an industry that really focuses on beauty. And I thought, 'I'm going to challenge beauty,'" she told TODAY.com.
Speaking with Harper's Bazaar UK, she has explained that she has made a concerted effort to stop comparing herself to others. "I never see somebody and think, 'I want to look like that.' I just want to see who I am," she said.
"It's freedom to know you can walk on a red carpet without a stitch of make-up on. I mean, why can't I? Men do it all the time."
For Pamela, it's also key to discuss the pressure placed on women to look youthful at all times and find ways to experiment with beauty in new ways.
"We're not trying to chase youth," she said, speaking on the podcast How To Fail With Elizabeth Day. "That's just been fed to us, to look as young as we possibly can, as long as we can."
"I have my own insecurities and things I catch myself [doing], but I think that's the challenge," she added. "To embrace those parts of yourself, even the ones you don't necessarily like a lot."
However, she notes that her decision to embrace her natural look was met with major scepticism. Specifically, relating to the first time she notably attended Paris Fashion Week in 2023 without wearing makeup, she recalled asking: "I said, is anyone going to fall over backwards if I'm not wearing makeup?'
For the Met Gala earlier this year, Pamela gagged us all with a super short bob complete with a micro fringe while wearing a Tory Burch silver sleeved gown. At the time, we noted that the dress and hair look recalled Zendaya's 2018 Met Gala look, which drew inspiration from the patron saint of France, Joan of Arc, and it seems like we may have been right!
"I'm possibly doing something on Joan of Arc, but I didn't realise I was actually kind of morphing into her, with the hair and everything," she said to Harpers Bazaar UK, of her Met Gala look and bob. "That's what's fun about these evenings—they're like little movies. You can just create one in your head."
While not all of us are channelling Joan of Arc, micro fringes have been trending this summer, and Pam proves just how great this 'do can look...
Another trending hairstyle? The bob. In fact, Cosmopolitan's US edition has dubbed 2025 "the year of the bob". Part of the bob's ubiquity is no doubt due to its versatility; there are so many different ways of styling the hair do, as proven by Pamela herself.
As well as unveiling a micro bob at The Met, she recently debuted a tousled French bob on a magazine cover.
Handily summing up the look's appeal, Samantha Cusick, contributing Cosmopolitan expert and professional hairstylist, previously told Cosmopolitan UK that the look is: "That effortlessly cool, jaw-skimming cut that just screams Parisian chic. It's short, sharp and always looks like you've made zero effort (in the best way)."
Just because Pamela keeps her makeup lowkey doesn't mean she doesn't experiment! You'll have noticed that she hops on trending hair and beauty looks, such as her aforementioned bob experiments, as well as skinny brows and *drum roll*..."ghost lashes".
This lowkey lash look is all about barely-there definition, a slight elevation of lashes via a lash curler or a tiny lick of (preferably clear) mascara.
We've clocked that Pam has been trying her hand at the look, and it's a reminder that it can be fun to dip in and out of trends as a way of switching things up.
While Pamela has become synonymous with no-makeup, she deviated from this stance for the 2024 Met Gala.
The actress explained that she was aiming for a look that was: "kind of romantic and approachable – but still 'done'," in an interview with Vogue.
I feel like there's always been this very elegant woman inside of me. And I feel like [the Met Gala] is actually the time I get to be that woman," she elaborated.
"We wanted to explore the next incarnation of natural—an elevation of natural—and to show how you can wear a full face of make-up but in a very fresh and beautiful way," the legendary makeup artist Pat McGrath, who was behind Pamela's beauty look for the evening, also told the outlet.
So, there you have it! Whether you want to keep it pared-back or more experimental, the major teaching from Pamela's approach is that beauty should always be an expression of you.
Megan Wallace (they/them) is Cosmopolitan UK's Former Sex and Relationships Editor covering sexual pleasure, sex toys, LGBTQIA+ identity, dating and romance. They have covered sexuality and relationships for over five years and are the founder of the PULP zine, which publishes essays on culture and sex. In their spare time, they can be found exploring the London kink scene and planning dates on Feeld.