Vergara, 50, is the latest celebrity to announce she is launching products to slot into our daily beauty routines.
It used to be a contract to be the face of a multi-national beauty brand or a fragrance with your name on it that were coveted signs of Hollywood success. (Vergara has previously had her own perfume) But in 2023, stars don’t want to represent someone else’s beauty brand, they want to create their own. Skincare has been a popular route in recent times but makeup lines are also common for new brand developments.
Vergara’s new brand Toty – named after a nickname her family use for her – takes both skincare and makeup and blends them into another burgeoning beauty category: suncare. Toty has launched in the US with a range of SPF 50+ essentials, including a mineral sunscreen, a color-correcting cream, a makeup compact for touch ups and an ingestible antioxidant supplement intended to help support skin against free radical damage from the inside out.
The Colombian American actress, model, and television personality best known for her role in long-running TV series Modern Family, said she is motivated by helping others prevent the skin damage UV exposure can cause. However, she admits her initial interest interest in SPF was its anti-aging abilities and ability to protect her appearance.
“In my 20s, I read in a magazine that the sun was the enemy of beautiful skin and something clicked and I started applying sunscreen to my face every day. From that day I made suncare my number one priority”
She says while she was committed to protecting her face since that time, she was less careful about the rest of her body, something she regrets.
“I grew up in very tropical weather in Barranquilla, Colombia, and there was no one ever telling you, ‘Don’t get sunburn’ or ‘Don’t tan,’” she shared with Harper’s Bazaar of her experience with sun protection.
“I wish I had made that decision sooner also for the rest of my body, but I didn’t. I just thought to save my face, and that was it. So, I haven’t had my face in the sun without protection since the ’90s.”
While protecting her face, Vergara became a fan of Heliocare, a popular European sunscreen line. When the time came to create her own products she sought to work with Cantabria Labs, creators of Heliocare.
The brand helped create colour cosmetics including a tinted CC Cream containing SPF and more products in the line are expected to land later this year.
Vergara says while knowledge around the importance of SPF has grown, even she battles with convincing the men in her life, her husband, actor Joe Manganiello, and her son Manolo, 31, from a previous relationship.
“It’s hard with men. I always had a hard time making them wear a sunblock, but I’m always doing it. I don’t care what they’d say to me,” she bemoans.
“If we’re on vacation and they’re laying next to me, I’m putting sunblock on all of them. I don’t care what they say. They can kick and scream. I’m like, “Joe, you’re acting like I’m putting poop in your face. It’s sunblock, for God’s sake.”
