Alix Earle’s breakout moment has arrived.
The 25-year-old influencer announced her new skincare brand, Reale Actives, on Tuesday, calling it “fun, sexy and easy-to-understand” acne care.
Earl went completely naked for the campaign, posing in a pool of pitch-black water with the tagline “Show some skin.”
“Hot and Acne can be used in the same sentence,” Earl wrote on Instagram. “My dream for this brand is to not only provide great products for your skin, but also to change the way people think about skin ‘imperfections.’ ”
The brand will launch four products on March 31st: a makeup-dissolving cleansing balm, an exfoliating gel cleanser, a mandelic acid serum, and a barrier-boosting moisturizer. Prices range from $28 to $39, with a kit containing all four retailing for $118.
The announcement capped a week-long viral development that included the cryptic Instagram account @wtfisalixdoing and a series of clues that had its nearly 400,000 followers playing detective.
The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover star, who has been candid about her battle with acne over the years, stopped by “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” on Tuesday to promote the line.
She told host Jimmy Fallon that she came up with the brand name (an anagram of her last name) in her childhood bedroom in August 2023.
“I was just playing around with the word ‘authentic’ and my last name, and I thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be a really cool brand name before I even know what it is,'” Earl said on the show.
Earl, who serves as chief brand officer, developed the line in collaboration with consulting dermatologist Dr. Kiran Mian.
She told WWD that existing acne products caused her colds. “I didn’t find it fun to use acne-related products,” she said. “Everything felt very clinical and I wasn’t proud to have the product on my counter.”
However, this momentous announcement was not without its problems. The “Dancing with the Stars” alum told Fallon that when she posted the brand’s launch video to TikTok, she accidentally replaced the intended audio with a Cardi B song.
“The CEO called me and said, ‘Alix, you put Cardi B’s audio in our launch video,'” she recalled with a laugh. “And I was like, ‘What?!’
Reale Actives is backed by Imaginary Ventures, the same company that backed early investments in Skims, Glossier, and Kosas.
