Jane Fonda needs no introduction, but what you might not know about the actress and activist is that she’s a big fan of CBD. I recently sat down with the funny and formidable leading lady—over Zoom of course—to discuss how the trendy ingredient plays a role in her wellness routine, as well as the beauty products she’s loving and her passion for “Fire Drill Fridays.”
Has the pandemic changed how you think about self-care?
“My self-care hasn’t changed at all. I do the same things I always do. For me, self-care means I wake up feeling OK. It means I’m not hungover; it means I got enough sleep; it means my skin is not dry. In other words, I moisturize, I sleep nine hours a night, and I drink very, very little—never so much that I would have a hangover. I don’t have that many more mornings to waste so I’m very careful.”
How do you shut off all the noise?
“I read vociferously, I meditate, I have a dosist cannabis pen—it’s CBD; it doesn’t make you high, but it puts me to sleep—they have one for calm, one for bliss, whatever. But mine says ‘Sleep,’ and that’s what I use to go to sleep and I have no hangover in the morning. It’s white and it has a little window so you can see the oil in it, and when you’ve had one puff, it vibrates. So you know when you’ve had one puff.”
What are your thoughts on CBD?
“I think it’s important to go to companies that are very reputable and have been out there for a while. In the realm of skin care for me, Uncle Bud’s is one [Fonda is a brand ambassador for the company]. In the realm of something you would take a puff of to go to sleep, dosist is a really good company. I tend not to go for the tinctures and gummies so much because I never know quite how much I’m getting and it can make me kind of ‘off’ the next day.”
Do you remember your first experience with CBD?
“About five or six or seven years ago, I was taking a very low-dose sleeping pill, and my very, very hip good doctor said, ‘I think you should stop.’ I took the sleeping pill and I got sleep, but I always had to take a nap. I was filming Grace & Frankie, and always during the lunch break—which was only a half-hour long—I’d have to sleep. He said, ‘I want you to get off it and switch to CBD, so I went to a dispensary in Los Angeles and I asked them, ‘What is the best CBD for sleep?’ and they turned me on to dosist and I’ve used it ever since and it really works.”
What about CBD skin care? Do you use it on sore muscles?
“I have osteoarthritis, so I use Uncle Bud’s topical roll-on on places where I’m sore and it helps relieve the pain, it really does.”
How did your relationship with Uncle Bud’s come about?
“They asked me (laughs). I wasn’t very aware of CBD skin products frankly, but they came along and asked me to try it. I don’t use everything, but I do use the Roll-on and they have an Overnight Face Mask that I like very much. I’ve got a kick out of doing this: I use the body lotion and I tend to alternate a lot of different face creams, but I sometimes use the body lotion as a face cream.”
Speaking of face creams, are there any others you love?
“Yes, L’Oréal has a product line called Age Perfect that I use that’s very good. I use their lipsticks; their mascaras are fantastic; I use their face wipes. There’s another skin-care cream that I like a lot made by Mila Moursi. I like to rotate a lot. And to be perfectly honest, that idea came years and years ago from Catherine Deneuve who had been married to my husband before me. She said that’s what she did—this was in the 60s—and I thought, well if it’s good enough for her.”
Have you found that the rotation benefits your skin?
“I think it benefits my skin. I tend to have dry skin, and as you get older, skin tends to get drier. I really do have to pay a lot of attention to moisturizers. On places where I’ve gotten a lot of sun damage—my chest, my arms, my hands, my lower legs—I use Weleda Skin Food that comes in a green tube. It’s very, very thick, but it really works. I put it on my lower legs and arms, and it disappears immediately—my skin just soaks it up. Interestingly enough, when my makeup artist is making me up for a movie or Grace & Frankie or whatever, he actually puts a little bit of it on a sponge and puts it under my eyes.”
Are there any supplements or immune boosters you take for overall health?
“Well, this is a very woman thing, OK, but something that’s helped me with bladder infections is called Ellura. It’s made of cranberry extract and I take one every day. A very cutting-edge OBGYN turned me on to it and it’s really great. And because I’m older, I take vitamin D supplements.”
What are you looking forward to this year?
“I’m looking forward to jumping back into Grace & Frankie—it’s our last season. That’s going to be fun. And then I do two movies after that. But I’m going to be continuing my virtual Fire Drill Fridays until I can get back out into the street.”
What are Fire Drill Fridays for those who don’t know?
“In the fall of 2019 I moved to Washington, D.C. for four months and started these rallies every Friday. It’s a project of Greenpeace. We engaged in civil disobedience and risked getting arrested, and the crowds got pretty big, people were coming from all over the country—mostly women. And then when COVID hit, we started them online, and in 2020 we had about 9 million people following us online. We have on average 80,000 to 100,000 people every Friday across platforms. They also volunteer to write letters and call elected officials and voters, and they were very active before the election. We’re really building a movement and growing a community and it’s kind of great. Oh, and can I say one more thing about hemp?”
Yes of course, go for it.
“Long ago in the beginning of this country, hemp was a big deal for our forefathers. They grew it, I think they smoked it (laughs), they made fabric out of it, a little bit later Henry Ford made a car out of it that you couldn’t even dent with a sledgehammer and it ran on hemp oil. And then it was outlawed. I have a number of articles of clothing that I adore made out of hemp, but I have to get them from China. All that to say that as we phase out of fossil fuels, which we have to do quickly, that hemp could become a central part of our material economy—I’m talking industrial hemp. I was just in Northern Minnesota where Anishinaabe women are growing hemp, and it could become a very important part of our economy. It can also grow in various parts of the country. You can smoke it, you can use the oil to do all kinds of things for you, you can make clothes out of it. People should keep that in mind. Keep your eye on hemp! Invest in hemp when the time comes.”
