Pamela Anderson's Best Make-Up Free Looks Yet

Pamela Anderson has been turning heads since day one, going from modeling gigs  to more prominent jobs like "Playboy" covers and as C.J. Parker on "Baywatch." But while it sounds like Anderson was living the Hollywood dream, her life has been filled with sadness and tragedy. But today, she has managed to take her power back, including with her appearance.

Anderson was widely regarded as a sex symbol, which seemingly typecasted her into roles that focused more on her body than her talent. Then came the infamous stolen sex tape during her marriage to Tommy Lee, which intensified this hypersexualization. She resented this fixation on her looks, telling People in January 2023: "I never thought I was pretty ... I didn't like that I had any kind of qualities that were attracting the wrong kind of attention."

In the last few years, Anderson has dialed back on makeup, starting after the death of her longtime makeup artist, Alexis Vogel, in 2019. "She was the best. And since then, I just felt, without Alexis, it's just better for me not to wear makeup," she told Elle in August 2023. However, Anderson's decision also seemingly has to do with finally having authority over her appearance — which she says she didn't have in her early career — and defying the industry's obsession with vanity. "I did notice that there were all these people doing big makeup looks, and it's just like me to go against the grain and do the opposite what everyone's doing," she continued. Below, we revisit Anderson's best no-makeup looks.

Pamela Anderson's stunning transformation from a glammed-up sex symbol to a woman confident in her own skin became clear at Paris Fashion Week in October 2023. Though she had gone barefaced on social media before, proving that she's still a total beach babe without makeup, this appearance turned heads as full glam is expected. However, "The Last Showgirl" star looked gorgeous without a single brush stroke to the face. "Something just kind of came over me and I was dressing in these beautiful clothes and I thought, I don't want to compete with the clothes," she recounted in her newsletter The Open Journal (via Glamour) in December 2023. "I'm not trying to be the prettiest girl in the room. I feel like it's just freedom. It's a release." 

That week, Anderson was photographed in several different ensembles without makeup, including in the above photo, where she's sporting a floral dress while attending Victoria Beckham's Paris Fashion Week show. What's particularly special about this look is her dress's pattern nods to one of her favorite pastimes — gardening — as well as her personal metamorphosis. In August 2024, she told Better Homes & Gardens about her big move back to Canada at the beginning of 2020 after years of living in Los Angeles and a brief stint in France. "I came to a point where I decided to move home and disappear and get into my garden. And when I started building the garden, it was really like a metaphor of putting my life back together. I began planting seeds, and the smallest things became really profound," she told the outlet. There's no doubt that Anderson is finally blooming in every way possible with this look.

Pamela Anderson also went makeup-free for the Glamour Women of the Year Awards in October 2024 in New York City. The "Love, Pamela" author donned an elegant sage dress with a bejeweled collar that really brought out her light-colored eyes. On social media, fans gushed over her look. "She looks so elegant and more beautiful than ever," wrote one user in response to a video of her at the awards on Instagram. "She looks balanced and in tune with her inner self after all the craziness that her life has been. Good for her," penned another.

Ahead of the awards, she doubled down to Glamour about how makeup had been scrubbed from her beauty routine. "I've just done it and I've played with it. I've nothing against makeup, but I felt like it just looked better on me in my 20s than it did now," Anderson explained. She continued to note how she's learned to embrace her true self — flaws and all. "I think, instead of trying to be this polished person, I'd rather be raw. One eye is smaller than the other, my nose is crooked, my lips are weird. Everyone is weird. Everyone has imperfections," Anderson continued.

By now, Pamela Anderson's makeup-free moments at high-profile events are practically her trademark, but somehow, she keeps making the barefaced look even more iconic. Take the case of the Screen Actors Guild Awards in February 2025, where she floated onto the red carpet in a floor-length, ethereal white gown, dripping in diamonds and channeling Old Hollywood with sleek, polished curls. "Pamela looking like a goddess at the #SAGAwards," wrote one user on X, formerly Twitter. 

Another highlight of Anderson's look was her glowing skin. In January 2024, she became a co-founder of the vegan and cruelty-free minimalist skincare brand Sonsie. As she told Vogue that same month, this was an opportunity she could feel good about, as she's been vetoing brand deals for years due to their poor ethics. "It just always felt like too much plastic. Whether it was shampoo or a pet line, or beauty more recently, all I could see was the plastic waste and I couldn't do it," Anderson explained.

But what struck a chord with her about Sonsie was that its products weren't marketed to reverse flaws or aging but rather to enjoy your skin as it is. "I just came to a point where I felt like, 'This is it. I just want to do me, keep my skin hydrated, and look after myself, but I don't want to have to think about tomorrow. I want to think about right now,'" Anderson explained. She certainly is the perfect face for Sonsie, showing just how breathtaking you can look when you stop trying to remedy or cover up your true beauty.