Sydney Sweeney has responded to the criticism she received for making a soap with her bathwater, which went viral and sold out immediately.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal published on Wednesday, the Anyone But You actor addressed her side hustles away from Hollywood, which range from selling Miu Miu bags to the limited edition soap.
Sweeney told the outlet she didn’t expect the negative reaction she received when the soap was first announced. “I think it’s important to have a finger on the pulse of what people are saying, because everything is a conversation with the audience,” she said.
“It was mainly the girls making comments about it, which I thought was really interesting,” Sweeney continued. “They all loved the idea of Jacob Elordi’s bathwater.”
At the time of its launch, Sweeney said that the Dr. Squatch soap was a response to fan demand.
“When your fans start asking for your bathwater, you can either ignore it, or turn it into a bar of Dr. Squatch soap,” Sweeney said of her “Bathwater Bliss” soap.
Only 5,000 bars of the $8 ap were made and sold in June, and were quickly put up for sale on eBay for between $100 and $2,000.
According to the Journal, the soap currently fetches around $1,500 on the resale market.
Earlier this month, Sweeney became embroiled in another controversy, this time over her participation in an ad campaign for American Eagle.
For the campaign, which includes the limited launch of the wide-legged “The Sydney Jean,” the actor featured in multiple photos and videos, including one where she cleans off a poster of herself wearing a denim jacket and jeans and bearing a punny tagline about denim. While the phrase initially said, “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Genes,” the last word was then crossed out and replaced with “Jeans.” The same tagline appears in nearly every ad for the campaign.
Online critics pointed out that phrases such as “good genes” and “great genes” have historically been used in the language of eugenicists, who believe the human race can be improved genetically by selective breeding.
Following the release of the ad, American Eagle released a statement on Instagram to address the backlash. “‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans,” the retailer wrote. “Her jeans. Her story.”
However, when asked about the controversy by the Journal, Sweeney declined to comment.
