9th Annual Meeting of Skin Forum

Back in London and I am just finishing a few days at the 9th Annual Meeting of Skin Forum, a series of academic and research presentations at the School of Pharmacy in the University of London. As a distinctly non-academic, I usually have to ask the lecturers to explain some of their finer points in layman’s language as most of the other delegates are post-grad researchers or senior clinicians (I counted at least 16 Professors in the room). Luckily I’ve had our technical manager Steve with me and he untangles some of the jargon when the physical chemistry flies way over my head.

The presentation where I felt most at home was given by Professor Monique Simmonds, head of the plant research unit at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. We’ve met on a number of occasions as we’ve commissioned the labs here to conduct some independent research for us over the years, notably with aloe identification and also when we started to make our own plant extracts without propylene glycol as a solubiliser (the Kew team were pleasantly surprised at their level of activity).  Prof Simmonds made the point that the correct identification of plant species is vitally important for both cosmetic and drug use. The taxonomy department at Kew is world-class, with over 8 million preserved specimens in their library and around 40,000 living accessions. However, last year, 25% of the plants they were asked to identify were wrongly labelled and out of 1,684 samples 15 of these were extremely toxic. The difficulties are legion – there are over 100 different legal names for Santalam album (sandalwood) so there is plenty of scope for rogue traders. The Prof revealed that of the 29 samples of “Santalam album” sandalwood essential oil supplied, none met the standard and one was actually completely synthetic! This is just one reason why we have our own in-house botanical and ingredient sourcing team as well as very strict measures in place when we buy our raw materials, as so much of what is available on the market to the formulators in our industry is not actually as it appears. We try and buy direct from farmers, growers and co-operatives we know and trust and not from industry wholesalers, as this can be a bit of a grey area.

Another fascinating area of research is nano-technology and much of the discussions focused on the nano and micro- particle size of skincare ingredients and whether these present any potential danger. As regular readers will know, I have previously written on Professor Jonathan Hadgraft et al’s research that de-bunks the beauty myth that 60% of what we put onto our skin is absorbed (it isn’t – the figure is closer to 1 – 2% and even that depends very much on the specific formulation as skincare ingredient molecules are simply too large to ‘slip’ through the stratum corneum of the epidermis, let alone reach the lower basal layer or dermis).  It was interesting to hear presentations from international teams of researchers (notably France, Belgium and the United States) all conclude that even the most microscopically small nano-particle is still too large to penetrate into living tissues below the dead, outer stratum corneum of the skin. Of especial interest was the work looking at titanium dioxide, as we use this in our Sunshade range and are currently working on improved formulations for next year, potentially with higher SPF protection. It seems this ingredient is not only a very good sunscreen, but is also the safest of all to use, having no toxicity even when injected into the body (something only researchers would actually do, of course), making it the very best choice for the sensitive, fair skinned and youngsters. If you’re interested in this field of bio-chemistry, you might like to check out the data on their website - www.skin-forum.eu

Beachlife

It’s been a busy few weeks. Last week we were all on the Island to tape some footage for our QVC shows. The last time we did this was in 2002, so our programme inserts needed a freshening up. We wanted to bring the Island to life in just a few seconds of air-time, so we set up locations around Ryde beach, our original beachfront HQ and all around Kim’s lovely garden (where many of the botanicals for our shows are grown). QVC sent a great production team and the weather was very kind, giving us beautiful sunny days and stunning pinky purple sunsets stretching far across the Solent.These new clips will hopefully be ready for our QVC ‘special day’ (those familiar with QVC-speak will know exactly what this code phrase means!!) which starts at midnight on Saturday 5^th July – do tune in during the day if you can and catch a glimpse of our beautiful beach and Island home.

Unfortunately the great British weather was somewhat less kind earlier this week, when the team and I headed up to the Norfolk coast to stay with my very dear friend Felicity. She’d kindly agreed we could not only come and stay with her but also use her house as a base-camp for a photo shoot on the beaches at Brancaster, (even persuading her eldest son Oli and his uni friend Sam to join us as male models). We’ve only ever taken photos on our own lovely beaches on the Isle of Wight before, so it was interesting to explore another part of the Great British coastline. The great thing about staying with good friends is that their bathrooms are inevitably filled with Liz Earle products and when we realised we’d left the crucial Sunshade behind in London it didn’t matter a bit as Felicity simply opened her bathroom cabinet and voila! Although the thunder clouds ominously loomed over us it managed to stay pretty much dry and it literally was a breath of fresh air to be working in such a stunning environment as the magnificent north Norfolk coastline. We made a date to return for the August bank holiday (along with hundreds of others I should imagine) and I really look forward to taking my two smallest down to this particularly beautiful, sand-duned beach with a bucket and spade or two.

“Are you that ‘polish’ woman?”

One of the most rewarding things about creating the range with Kim all those years ago is hearing what a difference it makes to others as well as ourselves – sometimes when you least expect it. I was in Starbucks the other day, just around the corner from our King’s Road store, ordering my current favourite soya chai latte, when I spied a group of teenage lads huddled in the corner pointing at me. One of the boys finally plucked up the courage and wandered over asking “so, are you that ‘polish’ woman?” He then went on to tell me how he enjoys using our “stuff” – as do his friends. Curious to find out how he first discovered the range he admitted that his mum bought him his first Cleanse & Polish  (UK, US)  and the rest, as they say, is history. From the calls and letters we receive every day, we know that this is how so many of our male customers find out about us. Many mums have bought Cleanse & Polish for their sons as a ‘last resort’ for skin that is spotty and have been simply amazed at the smooth transformation. It’s really quite incredible that one simple product can consistently give such great results – whatever your age and stage in life. One day I’d love to do a clinical trial for acne-prone skins as I’m just so convinced the results would be outstanding. I’d also say to any mother concerned about her teenage son’s (or daughter’s) skin to definitely give it a go. It really can pave the way to smoother, clearer skin in a matter of days.

Over the years, a surprising number of guys have been using our original Cleanse & Polish (even in its first pale pink packaging!) and when we looked into the figures we discovered that in fact 15% of our male customers are already buying Cleanse & Polish.  My husband has long been a Cleanse & Polish devotee. Before we brought out the Sensitive Shave Cream he used it for his daily shave; now he uses it simply as it’s intended: to get his skin really, really clean. My teenage son has more recently become a fan and, so he says, are his friends. So, it’s really exciting to finally be able to give the guys a Cleanse & Polish of their very own… with the debut of Cleanse & Polish For Men (UK, Coming soon in the US) , complete with it’s unique colour-edged cloth and storage bag.

Why make it for men? Well, we know they will benefit from using it. We all want clean, fresh, healthy skin and guy’s faces in particular can get grimy due to their more masculine habits of DIY, car mechanics, playing rugby or football in the mud, or simply trudging home through the urban grime. Our super-rich cream is simply the best way to clean even very dirty facial skin. The beauty therapists I’ve been working with recently (yes, we will have some more exciting news to share with you here soon), recommend that if skin is especially grimy then give it a second application for a really ‘deep cleanse’. A great clean-skin tip. Also, as male skin tends to be both thicker and oilier than ours (great for avoiding early wrinkles but perhaps a little more resistant to cleansing), rinsing the muslin cloth in very hot water before removing the cream can make it extra hard-working as it helps soften pores, drawing out even more grime. Finishing off with a final rinse of bracingly cold water can then help tighten up the feel of the skin again. As men’s skin tends to be more resilient, this slightly ‘rugged’ way of using Cleanse & Polish is probably just one for the boys though. 

The many men I know who have already tested Cleanse & Polish For Men have all commented on its bracing aroma - that potent hit of eucalyptus that whooshes up the nostrils as soon as you squirt some into your hand. The favourite snack-food of the koala, eucalyptus is native to Australia and steam distillation is used to extract the unmistakably aromatic and potent essential oil from the plant’s leaves and twigs. Renowned for its antiseptic and purifying properties, we use Eucalyptus globulus (or blue gum eucalyptus). Cleanse & Polish’s ability to deeply cleanse the skin makes it particularly ideal for guys to use before shaving and it’s brilliant for spot-prone skin as it can help treat breakouts. I’ve always been a great believer in the saying that if something’s good, don’t change it. That’s why even though we considered adapting the original multi-award-winning formula specifically for the men’s market, we couldn’t quite work out how to improve something that’s already considered by so many to be the best. So it’s stayed reassuringly true to the original skincare classic and the only change is its more ‘manly’ identity, teaming well with the rest of the men’s range. If you’re interested, there’s lots more info in our summer newsletter and special men’s brochure, just out now.

No one understands us like you do

Welcome to my first blog. It’s a biggy, as I have a fantastic opportunity for any budding future Liz Earle recruits.

My role is Director of Customer Relations, and each week I work closely with our Customer Centre and Retail stores teams both in the UK and internationally and I’m lucky to hear first hand the passion that you, our customers, have for the products, brand and the services that we offer.

I’d like to invite you to take that passion further...

As many of you will know we have now launched successfully in four John Lewis stores and we have an exciting roll out programme to new stores over the next few months, taking our products to more locations nationwide. Talking with many of you when I am in the stores, I know you love the fact that your favourite products are now available to touch and test, and that importantly there is a friendly Liz Earle Customer Advisor on hand to assist you.

Our Customer Advisors are invaluable in helping us to provide you with everything from botanical ingredients knowledge, product information, details about our philosophy, to where to find information about the next QVC shows, Liz’s talks and finding your way around the John Lewis store where they are based. They really understand what makes our company and products different, and receive full induction and ongoing training from our expert support team.

The only problem we have with our Customer Advisors is we simply don’t have enough!

So, I’m looking to recruit passionate people to become Customer Advisors in the John Lewis stores around the country, and would love to hear from you, your family or friends, or anyone who shares your enthusiasm for Liz Earle Naturally Active Skincare.

We know that no one understands us like you do and that so many of you enjoy talking to others about our “best kept beauty secret”.

If you are interested then please send your CV and details to:

People and Development
Liz Earle Beauty Co. Limited   
The Green House 
Ryde
Isle of Wight
PO33 1BD

Or visit our job pages (on our UK website)

We can’t promise that the John Lewis store nearest to you is next on the list, but we will certainly keep you up to date as we grow.

Sloane in Bloom

The whole of Chelsea is filled with flowers! This is definitely the best week of the year to take a stroll down Sloane Street. So many of the biggest names in the fashion and beauty world have put an enormous amount of time and effort to make beautiful botanical displays to theme with Chelsea Flower Show. I loved British shoe designer Emma Hope’s beach garden shop front (a home from home for us!), which apparently she just “threw together” at the last minute, uprooting plants from her garden, including two impressive 2m high Buddleia set against subtle blue-grey Cornish slate slabs. Perfumer Jo Malone filled her boutique with fabulously scented white and palest pink scented blooms, including an impressive iron bedstead overflowing with exotic varieties, from Casablanca to Tuberose and my May-time English garden favourite Lily of the Valley. Tiffany the jewellers swapped their glass front door for a giant white walk-in birdcage, complete with metal birds. Cartier outlined their world-famous watch shapes with darkly green foliage and French fashion giant Hermes took an Indian theme with arches bedecked with exotic flowers. Even the classic British menswear designers, Hackett, got in on the act with a quintessentially British male gardening theme of the potting shed, principally made with cut box stalks. So very stylish and fun – I have made a diary note to bring the family to London this time next year to marvel at this free display of talent and imagination.

Kim and I were lucky enough to get tickets this year to visit the Chelsea Flower Show today and so we headed off for the first time since my days covering the event as part of the GMTV team. Like so many, we made for the central pavilion as we wanted to catch up with gold medallist Jekka McVicar, who grows her organic herbs to an astonishingly high standard. She was watering her precious plants when we arrived, standing next to her gold medal certificate. This was her 60th gold medal no less and she proudly told us that she was the only certified organic winner too. We spent a while discussing the many botanicals we have in common, including some featured in her display such as comfrey, rosemary and melissa. One of Jekka’s favourite uses of rosemary is to make a fresh herb tea – a simple infusion of a freshly picked rosemary sprig in a jugful of just-boiled water. It sounds delicious and we promised to try it. Outside the pavilion the central avenue was lined with the big display gardens, and I spent longest admiring the ‘best in show’ gold medal winner, the Laurent-Perrier all-green grove designed by Tom Stuart-Smith. His unusual and spectacular display of 30 year-old English hornbeams were especially pruned so that the leaves and branches floated like puffed clouds, seemingly floating in mid-air. Beneath, banks of velvety moss and grasses provided a textured botanical blanket, using texture and form instead of colour for variety. Pale blue-grey zinc tanks filled with overflowing water added to the calm air of tranquillity – a welcome haven for the eyes amongst all the hustle and bustle around us. 

I also enjoyed strolling along the much smaller Eastern walkway, filled with smaller gardens each with their own quirky themes, many of which were built from antique mossy stones that looked as if they’d been there for years. We were just finishing our stroll of these when a call came through on Kim’s mobile – the judging of the Sloane in Bloom competition had just taken place and we’d won second prize!! We were speechless and so very thrilled. The deserving winner was Jo Malone for her magnificent scented arrangements, but we were more than ecstatic to be judged ahead of so many top international designer stores – especially as this was our first attempt. The talented florist Jane Packer did incredibly well with her traditional garden bench surrounded by our skincare botanicals, so we’re delighted for her that we were awarded a prize. We’re already starting to think ahead now for next year, although those perfectly sculpted, cloud-filled hornbeams will definitely be a long way off.