Pamela Anderson is glowing from the inside and out.

The actress and author, who’s opted to forgo makeup in recent years, opened up about her personal journey with embracing her natural beauty while speaking with PEOPLE exclusively at her Sonsie pop-up in New York City.

Since announcing her co-ownership of the skincare company rooted in mindful beauty in January 2024, Anderson’s perspective on her own outward appearance has changed as she’s embraced that philosophy for herself.

“So much more freeing and so much more confidence,” Anderson, 58, said of how she’s been influenced by the Sonsie mission. “It’s a choice,” she made clear when speaking with PEOPLE at the event held in Soho on Friday, Oct. 24.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy. “You do have to work on it. It’s a practice to be confident going out of the house with or without makeup,” the Naked Gun actress told PEOPLE while chatting underneath her floral-covered pergola, which she transported from her Vancouver Island home to N.Y.C. for the garden-inspired pop-up.

Camino Real star adds, “I just kind of could see something culturally and I thought, ‘I want to jump off the crazy train. I want to be one of the first ones to jump off the crazy train and just peel it back and see what’s going on’.”

The mother of two — who shares sons Brandon Thomas, 29, and Dylan Jagger, 27, with her ex-husband, Tommy Lee — put forth an added perk of forgoing makeup as a part of her daily getting-ready routine.

“I’ve saved a lot of time,” she joked.

While Anderson is an proponent of the makeup-free lifestyle for herself today, she told PEOPLE that she’s not so sure she would give a younger Pamela advice on the topic.

“That’s the thing. You look back in hindsight, after having some life experience, you can look back and see yourself. But I mean, I don’t know if I’d give her any advice,” she said, explaining, “You have to discover for yourself, and I would’ve had to discover for myself.”

She added, “If someone told me to do something when I was younger, I wouldn’t have done it. So you just have to kind of find your own inspirations and own reasons.”

Anderson also engaged in an intimate Q&A with her eldest son, Dylan, at a kick-off event for her weekend-long pop-up, which was open to the public on Saturday, Oct. 25 and Sunday, Oct. 26.

Dylan, who partnered with his mom on the venture, asked her to define what mindful beauty means to her as the philosophy is at the heart of their skincare brand.

“Authenticity,” she told him. “Mindful beauty means you think about the impact you have when you use a product or buy a product. There’s just some products that are more sustainable than others and you have to kind of be mindful about that.”

“It’s more than a skincare brand to us,” she continued during the Q&A. “For me it’s like therapy really, just peeling it back and being comfortable. It’s a practice because, I don’t wear a lot of makeup lately… I wear zero makeup.”

Of Sonsie, she added, “It’s been an interesting journey so far, it’s only been a year.”

Prior to the pop-up, Anderson teased to PEOPLE exclusively what attendees can expect with the transformation of the Soho space into her “magical” home on Vancouver Island, and why she chose her Canadian escape as the theme.

“The garden is always the best inspiration,” she told PEOPLE, adding, “A little piece of magic for everyone to enjoy and dance through.”

Sonsie’s “embedded charm” is rooted in “nature, fun and playfulness,” Anderson made clear. “I never want to lose sight of that.”