Pro Tennis Player Sloane Stephens talks her Vaseline Collab and more

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Pro Tennis Player Sloane Stephens talks about her new Illuminate Me Collection co-created with beauty blogger Shlaom Blac and artist Cristina Martinez.

Video Transcript

SLOANE STEPHENS: The time is now to show people your worth and your value.

DANA OLIVER: Hi, beauties. I'm Dana Oliver, and on this episode of "My Beauty, My Way," pro tennis player Sloane Stephens is spilling her skincare secrets and more. Sloane cocreated a skin-care line for Vaseline made specifically for Black women, and it's a grand slam.

Sloane, first of all, how are you doing? How are you taking care of yourself during this pandemic?

SLOANE STEPHENS: I'm just kind of going with the flow, which is very hard because for an athlete, you know your schedule. You know when you're training. You know everything that's going on. It's been difficult, but just trying to take care of myself the best way I can.

DANA OLIVER: You know, we've noticed how vocal you've been about the Black Lives Matter movement, especially on social media. Were you ever nervous about sharing your activism as an athlete?

SLOANE STEPHENS: There's never been a platform before as loud as this one, like as your own platform. I think for the people who do follow me and want to learn more who simply just weren't educated about what has happened over years and years and years, like, that's something that you could educate people or people can move forward. That's how you move a generation forward instead of backwards.

DANA OLIVER: Now, you know, this year you worked aside Shalom Blac and Cristina Martinez to cocreate a skin-care line for Vasoline that was made specifically for Black women. Why was this project so important for you?

SLOANE STEPHENS: Well, I think it's important because I as an athlete and then Cristina as an artist and Shalom as an influencer, I think we all came from different aspects of life, and we all require the same thing. So there's something for everyone in this product and especially for Black women who look for moisture and they look for hydration and they look for something that smells good. Like, all of those things are in this product, and being able to create it for Black women in a time like now is really important and crucial. And to have something for us made by us I think is also really, really cool.

DANA OLIVER: Yeah, I have to thank you all for that. And I have the products here, but can we talk about this body oil?

SLOANE STEPHENS: I think, like, when Shalom and we were creating it, she was like, oh my God. I love this. I'm glowing already. It's super lightweight. It goes right over the body butter. It gives you that shine and shimmer that you want without having, like, specks of glitter on your skin for two weeks after.

I'm always ashy. I'm that Black girl who, like, never puts lotion on. So when I did this cocreation with Vaseline, it was perfect because I got obsessed with my own lotion, and it's also really moisturizing. And I don't know, sometimes when you go and work out, after you put lotion on, you get this, like, weird, filmy, like, sweat down your legs. And this doesn't give you filmy sweat, so just FYI. [LAUGHS] So like actually like a nice-- like, your legs will just slide off each other, which is great.

DANA OLIVER: I love a body butter, so I was so glad to see that that was part of the line that you cocreated with Vaseline. So what are some of your favorite products to wear when you're off the tennis court?

SLOANE STEPHENS: So some of my favorite products for my skin, like my face, like this is the Holy Grail of all skin products. This is like a game changer.

I put this on mostly at night like-- or afternoon like after I practice and my day is finished. But when I'm in the sun a lot, I use this C.E.O. Glow just because it has, like, vitamin C in it and turmeric, and it kind of just, like, calms my face down.

DANA OLIVER: Now, you don't see a lot of melanin-rich Black women like yourself, myself at the forefront of beauty and beauty campaigns. How do you hope to change that and, you know, be an example for young girls and women?

SLOANE STEPHENS: I think having a voice and just being an athlete in general, I have a big platform. So to use that now for women who also look like me-- like, I play tennis in a sport that there aren't that many other people of color or Black women. I think in a time like now, it's a lot of support. It's a lot of using your platform. It's a lot of encouragement. And I think that as we continue to grow and learn more and learn about how things should be, how we think they should be and how we can change them, I think that's really important.

DANA OLIVER: And my last question for you, Sloane. Complete the sentence for me. My beauty is--

SLOANE STEPHENS: My beauty is power because my platform is powerful. As a Black woman, I'm powerful.