Mariska Hargitay, fresh off a directorial debut for her recent “My Mom Jayne” documentary, is adding yet another title under her belt.

The actress has joined Cetaphil as the face of the brand’s three-piece Skin Activator Hydrating & Firming line, which debuts Wednesday. Priced from $10 for the Hydrating & Firming Neck, Chest and Face Cream to $17 for an allover cream and a separate lotion formula, the range aims to address the appearance of fine lines and crepey skin.

“I have always been a basics kind of girl,” said Hargitay, who is best known for her role as Olivia Benson in the long-running TV drama “Law and Order: SVU,” of her skin care routine. “I have sensitive skin, and Cetaphil has always been a brand and a product that makes me feel taken care of.”

Beyond her personal connection to Cetaphil, what’s “most exciting” to Hargitay about the collection is the technology behind the products. Developed by Alan Widgerow, chief science officer at Cetaphil parent company Galderma, the line taps micro-doses of mandelic acid and centella asiatica in an aim to “wake up” senescent, or dormant, cells, which proliferate during the aging process.

“We found that if we combine these two known active constituents but in micro-doses, they had a very unexpected combined effect,” said Widgerow, adding that while mandelic acid is known as an exfoliator, in lower doses it can “reenergize and reactivate cells.”

The launch is a meaningful one for Cetaphil, for whom Millennial and Gen X-plus consumers comprise roughly 50 percent of its consumer base. “We’re seeing Gen X women drive a major cultural conversation right now, and it’s not about antiaging, it’s about reclaiming what aging means,” said Tara Loftis, global president of skin care and Cetaphil at Galderma.

In tapping Hargitay, who Loftis described as a “national treasure,” Cetaphil is looking to drive that conversation further.

“I’m rocking a red lip, a sexy trench — it’s utterly unexpected,” Hargitay said of the campaign. “But that’s also what I’m about, is, don’t put me in a box, right? Because you have no idea what I’m capable of.”

The launch marks the first for Cetaphil, at least post-2024 rebrand, which targets a demographic other than Gen Z. Last year the brand tapped TikTok influencer Katie Fang to boost its profile with its Gentle Exfoliating collection launch, which was Cetaphil’s “highest-performing launch of the last five years,” Loftis said.

With the Skin Activator collection, Cetaphil looks to lean further into the science-driven M.O. of Galderma, which grew 9.8 percent in net revenues in 2024 to an estimated $1.3 billion, per the 2024 WWD Beauty Inc Top 100 list.

“Skin care has never been more competitive or more saturated than it is now, and while it’s fairly easy to create a brand that looks cool and gift it to the right influencers, what’s more scarce is powerful science, and so that’s what we’re tripling down on,” Loftis said. “Our focus is on amplifying our science across our product, across our digital campaigns, and across every tenet of our marketing.”

Added Hargitay: “It’s exciting to be this age and be unapologetic and to invite other women into that space — to step into our beauty, into our power.”

The actress-turned-director has felt this power of late in more ways than one. “My Mom Jayne,” which explored the life of Hargitay’s late mother, Jayne Mansfield, was the second documentary film she’s developed (she also coproduced the 2017 HBO Max documentary “I am Evidence”), and she has more up her sleeve.

“I have quite an appetite,” Hargitay said of what she’s envisioning in terms of future projects. “It’s sort of interesting because you do one project and it sparks this bubbling-up of creativity, because it’s almost like now you have more space. New things are coming that, before, I may have been too afraid to tackle, but now I go, ‘well, let me just try and see what happens.’”