GROUND FORCE
With a renewed focus on the superpower of natural ingredients, Jurlique’s latest launch takes seed to skin quite literally. By Remy Rippon.
With a renewed focus on the superpower of natural ingredients, Jurlique’s latest launch takes seed to skin quite literally.
There’s a translation at play. Nikita Soukhov, plant specialist for Jurlique, cherry-picks one of the few remaining floral shoots that’s survived the burly Adelaide winter, and hands it to me. “This one’s Viola,” he says with the admiration of someone who has quite literally nursed the plant from seedling to bloom. “Viola tricolor, otherwise known as pansy, is soothing and great for calming delicate skin conditions, even redness associated with breakouts,” explains Jurlique’s education specialist Danielle Williams, interpreting each plant’s skincare cachet – from David Austin rose (for hydration and soothing) to peppermint leaf (for protecting).
Indeed, the stretch of land in the rolling Adelaide Hills of South Australia is the birthplace of many of Jurlique’s natural ingredients and, unbeknown to them, Soukhov and Williams represent a tidy metaphor for the brand itself, the symbiosis of cutting-edge agricultural knowhow and results-driven skincare. “There is no doubt that our practices are unique in the beauty industry,” says Williams on one of her many visits to the farm. “The time-honoured practices we use to grow, harvest and extract our concentrated botanicals mean that we’re unlike any other natural skincare brand.” This close connection with natural ingredients – we’re talking flowers (including 12 different varieties of rose, no less), medicinal herbs and trees, and root crops straight from the source – has also led to a few ‘aha’ moments in the brand’s history.
The most recent? The newest launch, and perhaps one of the most groundbreaking for Jurlique, is the reformulation of its much-loved Herbal Recovery Signature range. The collection, which includes a serum, mist, eye cream, moisturising cream and lotion, is not only concerned with botanical ingredients like yarrow extract (which targets fine lines) and marshmallow root (for antioxidants) but their potency, too. Notably, and perhaps why Soukhov was so enamoured with the pansy, is the fact that the brand has managed to triple its force in its newest incarnation. Jurlique senior formulator Valérie Laviolette says that a new-found extraction method was at the heart of the reformulation. “In the Herbal Recovery Signature Serum, the concentration was tripled to effectively help minimise the signs of ageing better than ever before,” she says.
Central to this discovery is quashing the notion that to be natural, skincare must forfeit efficacy. Not so, says Williams: “The fusion of breakthrough botanicals and advanced technology, alongside clinically proven results, will redefine what’s possible from natural skincare.” Take, for example, the exclusive Advanced Gel technology (another translation: the seal-like glide of products on the skin that often evades formulas in the natural category), which dials up the skin’s ability to take in those nourishing ingredients. “It improves the absorption of Herbal Recovery Signature Serum ingredients into the skin and creates a protective film on the skin’s surface, enhancing hydration,” says Williams.
The packaging, too, created and parcelled just a 40-minute drive from the farm at the brand’s ‘natural beauty plant’, has also been remastered with striking crimson bottles to mimic the rouge thorns of the farm’s plentiful rose bushes. Particularly, each individual product is branded with a unique number. “To ensure traceability of all plants from the farm to finished product, the herbs are tracked through the corporate inventory system,” says Soukhov. “This enables traceability from seed to a finished Jurlique product.” Seed to skin indeed.