Naomi Watts is within the business of storytelling. 

Best known for her acting roles in movies “Mulholland Drive” and “King Kong,” the multihyphenate also cofounded clean beauty retailer Onda Beauty in 2014 and is now leveraging her expansive know-how into her next chapter: founding a menopausal beauty brand. 

Launching in partnership with biotech company Amyris, Stripes debuts Oct. 18 with 11 products that range in price from $40 to $85 and might be available for purchase at Onda Beauty, in addition to on Amazon and the brand’s own website, Iamstripes.com.

Having decidedly spent enough time dwelling on the “doom and gloom” of menopause, Watts looks to the long run with optimism and hard-earned resolve, braced to actively construct the very support system she has long searched for herself. 

“Women should feel just like the menopause conversation is a standard one to have,” said Watts, who can be Stripes’ chief creative officer, in an exclusive interview with Beauty Inc. “This needs to be the tip of the shame and secrecy, and the start of something recent and wonderful for girls.”

Complete with a cooling face mist, thickening scalp serum, hydrating vaginal gel, probiotic supplements, body oils and more, Stripes seeks to offer those undergoing the assorted stages of menopause with myriad products geared toward the physical effects that many ladies endure. 

It’s no small ambition — while the tides are starting to show, menopause and all that pertains to it have long been whispered about but never spoken of openly each in the wonder category and in mainstream public consciousness as a complete (Watts even revealed once in an Instagram caption that even the word “menopause” used to freak her out). 

The prevailing stigma surrounding menopause — which roughly 25 million women endure symptoms of every year, in response to a recent report by Grand View Research — implies that many ladies navigate the life phase in solitude.

“In my forties, when my hormones began plummeting, I didn’t feel there was a support network in any respect,” said Watts, who’s now 53. “I’d crack jokes with friends to check the waters and see if anyone else was hovering around that point, but they wouldn’t land, so I form of just swam around it in secrecy and shame, feeling pretty awful.” 

While the menopausal beauty space remains to be in its relative infancy, a handful of rising brands comparable to Womaness, Higher Not Younger, SeeMe and Pause Well-Aging have launched to speed up the conversations surrounding aging. 

Also contributing to the shifting cultural weather is consumers’ own growing curiosity. 

Data from Spate indicates U.S. Google searches including the word “menopause” are at a monthly volume of 1.1 million searches, a 5.2 percent year-over-year increase, while Grand View Research forecasts the menopause market will reach $23 billion by 2028.

“It might be quite alienating whenever you’re a brand and so they’re declaring this notion you could look a lot younger,” Watts said. “It’s just not a story we would like to be sold — we’ve lived through cumulative experiences, ups and downs, and I desired to make Stripes as authentic to that and as aspirational as possible.” 

Per Spate, the symptom which drives essentially the most searches alongside “menopause” and “perimenopause” are hot flashes, garnering nearly 380,000 monthly searches within the U.S.

While they’ve significantly lower volumes at present, searches for symptoms like stress, cysts, hair thinning and mood swings alongside “menopause” and “perimenopause” are showing essentially the most rapid growth.

With Stripes, Watts seeks to tackle all the above and more.  

“Stripes is driven by my personal story, but I also understand it connects to many others’ stories,” Watts said. “We spend 40 to 50 percent of our lives in menopause, so let’s make it the higher half of our lives — why not? We’d like to arm women with the education and support to achieve this.” 

When Watts became involved with Onda, she was struck by how little representation and space there was for aging beauty consumers. She recalled, “I’d have my hands on as much as 70 to 80 different brands during that have and was all the time trying recent things, even people who didn’t find yourself on our shelves. Looking closely in any respect these products, it became clear to me that this demographic was underserved.” 

After having previously toyed with the thought of writing a “sexy and fun” menopausal handbook, Watts’ Onda experience beckoned her to nix the thought and as an alternative pursue one more enterprise into the wonder biz. Soon enough, she was on the hunt for the precise partner with whom she could forge her next frontier. 

Having long known fashion designer-turned beauty founder Francisco Costa from his time as creative director at Calvin Klein, Watts consulted with him about her plans, and Costa nudged her toward Amyris, which acquired his eponymous skin and body care brand in 2021, and for whom Costa now serves as chief creative officer.

“After just a few conversations with Francisco about Amyris, I’d already heard enough — I knew they were a incredible company, and that we were in alignment,” Watts said. 

One cold call later, Stripes was underway.  

“The natural joining factor of Naomi, Stripes and Amyris is the incontrovertible fact that we’re done compromising,” said Deb Millard, president of healthy aging brands at Amyris, which can be the parent company behind Biossance skincare, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley’s Rose Inc. and Jonathan Van Ness’ JVN Hair. 

“We’ve been compromising in the way in which that we’ve managed women’s health basically; we’ve been compromising within the incontrovertible fact that menopause is that this hushed thing that folks don’t speak about and we compromise within the ingredients that we put in beauty products for girls,” Millard continued. 

For Watts, whose wellness journey began long before menopause and even maturity (“I used to be a baby of the ‘70s — my mom was a hippie,” the actress said as she detailed her upbringing, which consisted of a vegetarian eating regimen, homemade clothing and routine meditation practices), sustainability and clean ingredients were a non-negotiable  — a key mutual understanding between her and Amyris. 

“For us, it’s all about biotechnology,” said Millard. “Clean to us isn’t taking a leaf off a tree and saying it’s clean since it’s organic and got here from a tree — that’s still disrupting nature. For us, clean means with the ability to replicate molecules that exist in nature through the fermentation process.” 

“We’re capable of create something that has a really small impact on the environment, is incredibly clean in formulation and the molecule principally mimics the thing that we’re trying to copy almost 100%,” she continued. 

On the core of every Stripes hair, face and vaginal product is (fermented) ectoine, a natural compound derived from certain bacterial species’ that protects cellular functioning and combats dehydrated skin, a typical menopause side effect. 

“The rationale we desired to tackle every category is because whenever you lose estrogen, you don’t just start losing it in a single place and never one other — it impacts your whole body, out of your hair to your vagina,” Millard said. 

One other of the brand’s hero ingredients is Amyris’ signature sugar cane-derived squalane, which is thought for promoting cell turnover along with its emollient properties. 

“Our combination of squalane and ectoine is patent pending, since it is so powerful in water retention,” Millard said. 

“Ectoine literally operates as an irrigation system, searching for out the places where moisture is most urgently needed, after which the squalane will lock that in,” added Watts. 

The Dew as I Do facial cream, which retails for $80, is infused with vitamins B, C and E and seeks to enhance skin barrier function. The Cool Factor facial mist, which costs $42, harnesses edelweiss leaf extract and magnesium — which has been linked to body temperature regulation — to scale back discomfort attributable to hot flashes. 

“Beauty to me is an extension of wellness, and I’ve all the time been involved in feeling and looking out my best, particularly as I’ve gotten older,” said Watts, whose ample time spent getting primped in a makeup chair before stepping in front of the camera has cultivated in her an acute awareness of all that goes on her face, and is what first sparked her understanding of the synergy between beauty and wellness. 

Nine of the brand’s debut products are packaged in glass bottles (two of them being refillable), while the cooling face mist and densifying hair mask are available in containers comprised of post-consumer recycled plastic.

Hyaluronic acid, glycogen, acai oil and Ayurvedic medicine staple, Ashwagandha, are among the many other key ingredients in Stripes’ debut line, for which the products only tell half the story. 

For Watts, launching Stripes is one facet of a bigger desire to pass the mic. 

“To be originally of the [menopause] conversation may be very exciting,” Watts said. “We’re attempting to grow a community. There’s going to return a degree where it’s not only going to be me up there; it’s vital that we hear everybody’s real stories.” 

In encouraging women and folks of all walks enduring menopause to share their experiences, not only does Stripes aim to assist make the more onerous points of the transition feel somewhat lighter, but in addition to emphasise that menopause and aging can — and will — be celebrated. 

“I actually hope people embrace [menopause] and that the conversation grows and there’s no more feeling ashamed and like, ‘What the f*ck?,’ — let’s turn it right into a ‘F*ck yes,’” said Watts. 

“We get to laugh, cry, laugh, cry as much as we would like, and though we’ve been told it’s an uphill battle — which I get — on the opposite side, you do get yourself back. And that’s if you end up like, ‘OK, I get this now. Now’s the time to take charge and forge ahead.’” 

Earlier this yr, Amyris acquired Onda Beauty, marking the corporate’s first retail acquisition. 

Said Millard, “Onda really matches our mission of being clean, and all the brands it really works with also lean into that messaging. We would like to proceed to expand the platform and produce all the brands that [Amyris] has to life in a more physical way.”

Along with its website, Onda has two doors — one in Recent York City and one other in Sag Harbor — where facials, body treatments and intuitive readings are offered alongside the shop’s curated collection of clean beauty products featuring brands like Osea, Nécessaire and Amazonian-inspired hair care brand, Rahua. 

In partnering with Amazon for the launch of Stripes, Watts and Amyris aim to make sure the brand is accessible to all who its message may resonate with. 

“Amazon is in every household. It has an incredible reach, and we would like to be convenient for the patron and meet her where she’s shopping, and never make her attempt to find us where she’s not,” Millard said. 

Amyris didn’t comment on sales expectations for the launch, nor did Watts, but industry sources estimate Stripes will do $3 million in retail sales during its first yr in the marketplace.

Despite her recent side hustle, Watts has no plans to step away from acting any time soon. She stars in Amazon Prime Video’s remake of the chilling 2014 Austrian film, “Goodnight Mommy,” which was released today, and can appear alongside Jennifer Coolidge and Bobby Cannavale in Netflix’s upcoming limited series, “The Watcher.” 

“I still love my day job, and I still need to proceed to be an actor,” Watts said. “In my industry, [menopause] is normally so unspoken about, so I in fact still carry loads of fear, but I’m hoping that folks embrace this story because it truly is a natural phase of life that we should always all grab in the perfect, most meaningful and positive way.”

So far as the brand’s future, the feedback of its fledgling community will fuel upcoming launches and expansions, while Stripes seeks to proceed to innovate when it comes to developing unique and efficacious formulas and increasingly sustainable and refillable packaging. 

“We would like to alter people’s perspective of this phase of life — literally turn it on its head and rebrand it,” Watts said. 

“Women have suffered in silence for a lot too long, and I feel it’s fair to say that we might be the last generation of that, and we will be ok with being the changemaking generation.”