Kiehl’s Creme De Corps
I could have chosen any one of a handful of iconic products from cool New York apothecary brand Kiehl’s. Creme With Silk Groom, the hairstyling cream so loved by session hairdressers to give sleek, ungreasy definition to shorter styles and crazy curls, perhaps (not that I have ever in my life got to grips with it). Or Blue Astringent Herbal Lotion, a potent toner that makes you momentarily brace. Certainly Kiehl’s lip balm qualifies easily, since so many beauty fans, myself included, made pilgrimages to London’s Liberty or Harvey Nichols to pick up a tube before Kiehl’s was on every high street. But from all of Kiehl’s products, I’ve concluded that the true icon is Creme de Corps, the celebrated cocoa butter and sesame oil body cream, loved for its richness and superior moisturising on very dry skin.
This thick, custardy cream, smelling weirdly, but pleasingly, like the paint in a primary school craft lesson, was among the first products developed by Irving Morse, the Russian-Jewish immigrant who bought the original East Village Kiehl’s apothecary-style store in 1921. It has remained a Kiehl’s bestseller ever since. It’s a fairly uncompromising product that relies on word of mouth among dry and sensitive skin sufferers. Even on the thirstiest skins, rubbing it in can be like kneading dough, and if you’re sitting on a nice white towel at the time, you can expect it to be stained temporarily with crème brûlée smears and blotches (it’s only the beta carotene and nothing more sinister). But the results are fabulous: skin is sort of cocooned in rich moisture, not greasy and grubby-feeling. It’s very good at giving shins an even, very slightly shiny finish, and at improving the look of blotchy upper arms. It’s great for post-tattoo healing and on babies and children with eczema and other dry skin conditions (oh, that I’d had Creme de Corps as a kid). It’s the loveliest product to slather thickly on post-bath skin, then get into clean pyjamas and a freshly made bed, phone on divert, massive mug of tea and a remote control at one’s side.
There’s a whipped version in a tub, though I’ve had much less success with it. It has a more matte finish but starts to bobble and peel away if you massage too hard. There’s a lighter version too, though I feel it rather misses the point of Creme de Corps, which is to baste skin in rich, fatty moisture (oily or normal skins might as well get something cheap). But the original bottled Creme is still absolutely wonderful on my dry skin. Regular use certainly improves skin condition over time, but it’s what I use occasionally when I’m going somewhere special, when I want my bodycare to hold up to a posh perfume, blow dry, make-up and frock. Because Creme de Corps is an expensive treat, albeit one that goes an awfully long way. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can get round the problem by buying cheaply from eBay. Kiehl’s simple packaging (unless one of the very lovely limited edition Creme de Corps designs) is way too easy for counterfeiters to mimic and you end up with something similar to UHT milk tinted with yellow food colouring. I bear the mental scars.
Eucerin Aquaphor
Having spent my childhood coated in thick, unctuous petroleum-based lotions in a host of generic white bottles, itching like mad and being teased mercilessly by classmates, I really should hate Eucerin. It’s an unsexy, slightly joyless brand that makes skincare feel like a chore not the pleasure it can be. And yet weirdly, it has slipped past my firewall against mineral oil-rich pharmacy-shelf brands, and somehow occupied a place close to my heart. There are some excellent products in the range, some of which I’ve been recommending for many years. The Hyaluron Filler serum and creams, for example, are brilliant on dry and dehydrated skin, plumping up lines and restoring some perk.
But Eucerin’s icon comes in the form of Aquaphor, an ointment used widely since 1925 in medicine and in homes, nicknamed ‘The Duct Tape of dermatology’ by the very many doctors who swear by it. For them, Aquaphor’s appeal lies in its ‘semi-occlusive’ formula, meaning that while it traps in moisture and provides a barrier against germs, it still allows oxygen and moisture to reach the skin to aid wound healing. For beauty lovers, Aquaphor offers uncommon versatility. It works as an excellent humectant on dry lips, wind-chapped limbs and cuticles, as a tamer of brows and a subtle gloss for mouth and cheeks, a curer of nappy rash, and as a handy barrier against hair dye staining (just apply it around the hairline before mixing the colourant, then leave it until you’ve done your final rinse). It contains mineral oil, and so I wouldn’t recommend it as a face cream – although plenty happily use it as one without breakouts or irritation – but regardless of skin type, it’s well worth keeping a tube in your bathroom for all else.
Burt’s Bees Beeswax Lip Balm
It’s true to say that it’s much harder for a small company to create an icon than it is for some huge multinational whose research, development, marketing, advertising and PR spend is, metaphorically speaking, a bottomless cup of coffee. It’s perhaps harder still to do it while refusing to compromise on your principles of self-sustainability and all-natural formulas, and yet the thoroughly good eggs at Burt’s Bees somehow pulled it off. It started in Maine, when local artist and single mum Roxanne Quimby was trying to thumb a ride home. Burt Shavitz, a local beekeeper who sold honey from the back of his truck, stopped. The pair got chatting and Burt offered to give Roxanne any unused wax from his hives, so she could make it into candles. The candles, fashioned into fruits and vegetables, were beautiful, and their success allowed the pair to fund their next project, a beeswax lip balm.
To say this sweet, simple, natural, homespun product took off would be to grossly understate the achievements of Burt’s Bees. The cruelty-free lip balm, devoid of traditional ingredients of petroleum jelly, mineral oil or camphor, packaged in either its classic round bee print tin or a convenient stick, is a product that sums up perfectly the cult beauty movement of the 1990s, where customers sought out quirky, one-off products by cool brands outside the megabrand triumvirate of L’Oréal – Estée Lauder – LVMH. Burt’s Bees’ message of authenticity, nature and simplicity was, and still is, extremely appealing. I can think of no other product that infiltrated the snobbish cult beauty market via the shelves of health food stores, or as a novelty item sold in gift shops, and yet by virtue of being both effective and rather lovely, this succeeded. Burt’s Bees’ pluck, size and product range are already enough for me, before even factoring in what a thoroughly decent company it is. There are now many good products in the Burt’s Bees range (the Almond and Milk Hand Cream, which smells intoxicatingly like newborn babies wrapped in marzipan blankets, is my favourite), but the first and bestselling lip balm formula remains its queen bee.
Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair
There are several reasons Advanced Night Repair deserves both your respect and its iconic status. Launched in 1982, it was the world’s first consumer skincare serum. The idea behind it was that unlike moisturising creams, which have to pack in emollients, sun protection and thickening agents to deliver the right protective texture, a serum could have a much finer texture, smaller molecules and be stuffed predominantly with ingredients that fixed specific skin concerns. While a cream sat on the top of the skin, an inherently finer serum could dig a little deeper. In creating Night Repair (the ‘Advanced’ came later, and since then, it’s been known in the business as simply ‘ANR’), Estée Lauder completely changed the conversation around skincare. We were no longer talking merely about lovely creams that made us feel nice, but questioning the old wives’ belief that mere moisture kept skin looking its best. ANR was about specific problem-solving with active ingredients, and when it came to choosing those ingredients, the Lauder team struck gold.
Hyaluronic acid is a viscous fluid substance found naturally in the human body, particularly around the eyes and connective tissue, where its primary function is to keep things moist, mobile and comfortable. Its magic is in its ability to hold a thousand times its weight in water. Scientists began to wonder if its topical use could help dehydrated, crêpey, ageing skin do the same, plumping it up a little, like a raisin dropped in warm water. The research team at Lauder felt it could, and combined the hyaluronic acid with antioxidants