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“Sofia Vergara and a bunch of dermatologists walk into a bar” might sound like the start of a bad dad joke…. but that's exactly what happened this spring in San Diego when the star hosted a party for her beauty brand, Toty. The event coincided with the annual American Academy of Dermatology conference, which drew nearly 20,000 dermatologists and medical professionals from around the world to southern California.
After spending the day in educational sessions on topics ranging from ichthyosis to atopic dermatitis, a lucky two hundred or so of them were invited to meet the actor best known for her role as Gloria Delgado-Pritchett in Modern Family and more recently, Griselda in, well, Griselda. For her part, according to Instagram, Vergara had spent the previous night with friends at Cipriani Beverly Hills; days later, she’d make an appearance at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party. Why make a detour to San Diego—in Friday-night traffic, no less—to sip cocktails with a room full of doctors?
Well, Vergara knows her audience. Dermatologists are on the frontlines of the ongoing battle to get people to wear sun protection each and every day. And sun protection is what Toty, the line she founded just about a year ago, is all about. (It’s pronounced toe-tee as a nod to how Vergara’s older brother pronounced her name, Sofi, when they were growing up.)
Vergara has always lived in sunny climates. She was born and raised in Colombia and spent time in Miami at the beginning of her career, she tells me as we sit down together before the party. (Just a few moments prior, she was being sewn into a bright orange dress—the same shade as Toty’s branding—that she had had custom-made for the occasion.)
In the ‘90s, Vergara read an article in a magazine (remember those?) about the importance of sun protection both for the prevention of melanoma and to curb signs of aging—and has been “religious” about applying it ever since, she says. These days, Vergara is using her own formulas developed with Cantabria Labs, a Madrid-based manufacturer whose products she discovered during trips to Spain over the years. Her favorite, Toty Ilumina CC Creamy Compact SPF 50+, looks and feels more like a medium-coverage, semi-matte foundation and is meant to be applied with a brush. “To be honest with you, I even forget that it is sunblock,” says Vergara. “To me, it's my makeup."
Toty also includes a liquid cream version of the same tinted formula, an untinted SPF serum, and a resurfacing alpha hydroxy acid treatment that can help minimize existing sun damage. But ultimately, says Vergara, “if you're tanning your face, there's nothing in the world that you put on at night that is going to give you good skin.”
Her own diligence over the years has paid off: “I do think it makes a difference. I'm 51, and I can compare myself to my friends that have never [worn sunscreen], and now they're all like, ‘Fuck, why didn't we pay attention to you?’”
I wonder out loud if they’re now paying the literal and metaphorical price in the form of in-office treatments like lasers and peels to undo the damage. “I believe in all of that [too],” says Vergara. “I feel like you have to take advantage of everything that is out there. I mean, if you care about aging. Nothing wrong if you don't care about it. It's not the end of the world. But if you do, now there's so much stuff out there.”
And Vergara plans to take full advantage of it. “I feel like I'm going to do every plastic surgery that I can do when I'm ready,” she says. “I wish I had more downtime; I would've done stuff already. [But] because I'm in front of the camera, it's not like I can do something and then sit in my house recuperating for weeks.”
For now, she sticks to tiny tweaks that don’t put a crimp in her filming schedule. “I've been doing Botox for a long time in my neck, [around] my eyes,” she says. “I don’t believe in filler. I feel filler does good when you're really young and you want a little bit more cheeks or to plump your lips a little bit. At my age—51—I feel it's not going to make you look younger. It is going to make you look more done. And I feel like it actually doesn't pull you up; it kind of weighs [you down]. So I am against that, once you hit a certain age.”
Speaking of being “a certain age,” Vergara thinks it’s “so ridiculous” that in 2024, menopause remains something of a dirty word. “No matter who you are, no matter how much money you have, no matter what ethnicity you are, no matter anything, that's the one thing we as women are all going to get is menopause,” she says. “My girlfriends that are my age, some of them can't sleep. Some of them have night sweats. It’s good to be aware that that happens. I don't feel like women need to suffer with symptoms when there are things now that can make you suffer less.” (One example: hormone replacement therapy.)
“I’m not really scared of [menopause],” Vergara continues. “I’m pre-menopause. I'm not feeling any hot flashes, but sometimes my memory's not the same, and I used to have the best memory. Sometimes [I’ll say], ‘Where the fuck are my glasses?’ And they're right here. Stuff like that never used to happen to me.”
“My knees hurt more,” she adds. “If I sneeze sometimes the wrong way, my back is like, ‘What the fuck?’” I giggle, not because menopause or the bodily signs of aging are inherently funny, but because of Vergara’s delivery. She is still very much the comedian and actor the world fell in love with during early episodes of Modern Family—even if, according to her, she doesn’t quite look the same as she did then.
“Something that I hate is when I am watching sometimes an episode of Modern Family, and they don't come in order; they put one from the first season when I was 37 and then the one 10 years later right after. I'm like, ‘Fuck you!’”
“You can see the age,” she says. “I shouldn't complain because I'm 51 and I'm still healthy, and I'm very active. I still look in the mirror and I see someone beautiful. But sometimes it's like, ‘Who are you?’ I'm still happy with what it is. I just learn to accept it's not me. It's a new me.”
Vergara is the first to say that her door to Hollywood was, at least in part, unlocked because of her looks—but as anyone who’s seen an episode of Griselda knows, it’s her talent that’s kept it open. “I knew what I had and I was grateful for it. I don't have this thing where I have to say that everything is because of my hard work. No, I had these huge tits that opened doors for me. I don't feel bad for it. I took advantage,” Vergara says. “They keep coming more beautiful and more young than me, but I've been working already for 30-something years.”
During that time, her work has evolved (she produced Griselda in addition to playing the title role) and so too has her beauty routine. Today, for one, her almond-shaped nails are longer than usual. “Right now I have gel because I start [America’s Got Talent] next week. And during AGT, I have to compete with Heidi Klum. Have you seen Heidi Klum's nails?” asks Vergara. (I haven’t but Google them later; they are long and stiletto-shaped.) “I'm like, ‘Heidi, how do you even do anything with those?’ So every time that I start AGT, I get gels so that I can grow them more.”
Earlier that same week of our interview, she ventured even further out of her beauty comfort zone: “I've never done my brows in my life until three days ago,” she says when I ask her about her famously-full arches. “My neighbor is Anastasia [Soare, the founder of Anastasia Beverly Hills] and she bullied me into doing my eyebrows.”
It’s then that we are ushered out of Vergara's room and to the party downstairs, where a crowd of dermatologists in cocktail attire are eagerly awaiting her arrival. Vergara addressed the room, sipped a martini, snapped selfies, and danced to a Latin band. And as her final act of the evening—with a camera rolling—she slathered her perfectly-contoured and highlighted face with SPF and erupted into laughter.
Read more celebrity interviews:
- We Now Know Every Single Beauty Device in Paris Hilton's At-Home Spa
- Charlize Theron Didn’t Get a Facelift, Thanks for Asking
- Sarah Jessica Parker on the Realities of Aging: "I'm Not Delusional"
Watch the history of sun care:
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