Our thinking

Skin peace

23 September, 2022

There have been many notable examples of beauty brands working to redefine negative attitudes and perceptions around beauty in the past few years. Dove is the obvious example, with its global mission to redefine beauty, but there have also been notable efforts to make beauty more inclusive and positive.  

However one area has received less focus than others, and that is age. While some brands have made moves to take on the anti-ageing mantra that runs through the industry, it is still very much the dominant stance. 

Enter B-Corp certified Body Shop company with a move which shows they will put their money where their mouth is. The Body Shop sells a bottle of the “Drops of youth” skincare serum every 20 minutes throughout the world. But the success of the product did not prevent the company from rebranding it to “Edelweiss” and changing both the narrative, and the formulation. The relaunch comes with messaging around resilience and strength, stemming directly from the principal natural ingredient – the acid produced by Edelweiss flowers, a hardy specie, growing on top of Swiss mountains which resists all kinds of wind and extreme temperatures. So much more progressive than “eradicating fine lines.” And the Body Shop has said it will remove this anti-ageing focus from across its range. 

Not only is this laudable from a body image perspective, we also think there’s a broader positive message at play. If we want to live in a more sustainable world, we need to stop being at war with natural processes and start thinking about our own resilience. As small as it may appear, shifting from an “anti-ageing” product to a “pro-resilience” cream is embedded in a decisive philosophical position towards a more sustainable world. Resilience and empowerment are what society needs to face sustainability challenges, and so does our skin. 

By Flora Gicquel