A lot of our products have their fans. For some it’s the Makeup Remover & Cleansing Oil, others love the Sesame Body Oil, and many adore our Beauty Serums. But we find, year after year, that our Rich Face Cream is our best-selling product and the one that people rave about the most. It was one of the first products we made, and its formula has not changed for 10 years, apart from a few minor tweaks.
As I set out to write this I had to really think why it’s still our number one product. I don’t know the answer, but my feeling is that it’s so loved because it epitomises something important. Our Rich Face Cream fans love it because they understand it’s a new way of making face cream. They also understand that it’s so much better than the old way.
It’s unlike any other cream: as soon as it touches your skin you know it’s different. A tiny dab spreads a long way over your skin and feels like silk. You know instinctively that it delivers pure nourishment - a feeling that is absent from many water-based creams. I love watching this realisation dawn on people when they apply our Rich Face Cream for the first time. First a look of surprise, then ‘wow’, then ‘oh that’s amazing’.
When I set out to make skin care products, I knew I could not make them the ‘normal’ way. Not where ‘normal’ means around 80% water, 20% oil, with preservative, emulsifier and other synthetic ingredients added in varying quantities. As far as I could see, the only beneficial part was the oil. The water evaporates after around 30 minutes. Its primary function was to dilute the oil. The preservative, needed to prevent the growth of microbes in the watery medium, was an evil I didn’t want to deal with. The emulsifier, a detergent, was required to get the oil and water to mix. Unlike water, an emulsifier won’t evaporate. So it’s a detergent that stays on your skin, sometimes creating havoc with your skin’s barrier function.
So when you apply our Rich Face Cream, or any of our creams, you will notice it feels different. It contains no water, preservatives, emulsifiers or synthetic ingredients. Once you understand what it’s about, and how little you need to use (one-fifth the amount you would normally use, by the way), you will understand why we make it this way. Then it becomes a question of ‘why would you ever do it the old way?’
So in what way does the success of our Rich Face Cream epitomise something important? It’s an example of the idea that we need to re-think the way we do many things. Keeping things the same is frequently easy, comfortable, possibly cheaper and more convenient, and we humans do like those things. Even when it means threatening our health and that of our planet, and making life miserable for a lot of people, animals and plants. It’s true that not everyone wants to change. Likewise, not everyone will ‘get’ our Rich Face Cream or our other products. Our products are small things, made differently, that make a small difference. Small, but not unimportant.
Who is it for?
So will everyone like Rich Face Cream? Naturally, it doesn’t suit everyone. If your skin is chronically dry, chances are you’re going to love it. If it’s normal, you’ll probably love it too. If it’s combination, it might work for you, particularly on the drier zones, and if it’s oily, it’s not for you - start with our lighter creams or serums instead. We know that some people will never go with our water-free moisturisers. And that’s fine too.
Alternative creams include the Light Face Cream, which is fragranced with vanilla, and although it’s lighter than our Rich Face Cream, it’s still a lot richer than our serums. If you don’t like fragrances, try our Skin Saviour Cream. This light, readily absorbed cream is free from added fragrances, including essential oils, meaning it can be applied to the delicate skin of the under eye and neck.
What’s in Rich Face Cream?
The key ingredient in all our creams is our unrefined, fair trade, shea butter. Unrefined shea butter is rare in the skin care world because for some reason, people like their moisturisers white - and that means using refined shea butter. Just like white bread, refined shea butter is stripped of some of the valuable phytonutrients that make this product so magical. It has an earthy fragrance and is packed with vitamins, antioxidants and anti-proteases which are known to protect collagen and elastin, with anti-ageing effects (read more about the benefits of unrefined shea butter here).
We blend our shea butter with a selection of nourishing oils that bring a broad array of nutrients to your skin. These include the omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids, vitamin E and pro-vitamin A (beta-carotene), as well as a wide range of antioxidants and other phytonutrients. The oils include jojoba, macadamia, avocado, rosehip, evening primrose, pomegranate, borage, chia seed and prickly pear, and two essential oils - geranium and palmarosa. Basically, it’s a feast for your skin - 100% certified organic, and free of all synthetic ingredients, including palm oil.
How to use Rich Face Cream?
I’m often asked if it’s a night cream. Yes, it can be. It can also be a day cream. It can be a ‘sometimes' cream or an ‘all the time’ cream. Our approach is to use it when your skin feels it needs extra nutrition and extra protection. Personally, with my ‘mature’ combination skin, I use it when my skin feels very dry or a little irritated, and go with a serum when it feels the need for something lighter.
First cleanse the face. Then spray with our Pure Hydrosol Toner or leave a light film of water on the skin after cleansing. Take a half pea-sized amount of Rich Face Cream and rub between the fingers, then dab onto the skin and lightly blend in. The water on your skin will help it spread thinly so you get a light coverage. Done!
The Bigger Picture
Every day we make hundreds, maybe thousands of choices. These different decisions add up to what becomes our life, and collectively, as humans, those decisions create our world. Sometimes it’s important to remember that each day we have the power to recreate the world, starting with our next tiny choice. Choosing skin care that treads extra lightly on the earth may or may not be one of those choices for you. But it is there, in case you do.
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