Plants that survive and flourish in the harshest weather conditions are the basis of a new line of anti-aging treatments. They call to mind Darwin’s natural selection and survival of the fittest.
This February, at the peak of the polar vortex being experienced in the arctic region, Swiss skincare company La Prairie introduces a cream and a dry oil that claim to freeze aging skin’s time in its tracks, just like the three survivalist Swiss Alps plants and algae that they’re made of.
La Prairie Cellular Swiss Ice Crystal Cream and Dry Oil are products of Dr. Daniel Stangl’s relentless pursuit for innovative skin solutions in the Swiss firm, of which he has been a 20-year veteran.
Dr. Stangl, La Prairie’s director of innovation, is a mountaineer who led his R&D team on the discovery of two flowering plants and an algae that thrive in what botanists consider to be the “coldest place on earth.”
Purple saxifrage, or Saxifraga oppositifolia, grows just below the summit of Dom, an ice-covered mountain and one of Switzerland’s highest peaks. The scientists posited there ought to have been something extraordinary with the plant’s cellular makeup that allowed it to not only survive but also to propagate in those extreme environmental conditions. Thus began the team’s search for what they would call the “Swiss Ice Crystal Plants.”
‘Sleeping beauty’
Next they found Soldanella alpina, which grows some 3,000 meters above sea level. It is dormant through the long winter, earning the moniker “sleeping beauty,” but awakens in spring. As the freeze melts, its first bud appears and emerges from under the snow or ice.
These two plants are now grown in a sustainable way in a Swiss nursery where they’re harvested once a year, and then purified and extracted of their vital components.
To these, the R&D team added the Swiss Snow Algae, previously used in another La Prairie line. This algae hibernates in the winter as red spores beneath the snow. It germinates in spring, spreading on the snow’s surface, and creates a crimson blanket on the snow, visible on a Swiss summer.
The Swiss Ice Crystal Complex is awaiting its patent. It’s Darwin’s natural selection—with some modern, scientific intervention.
The resulting duo of cream and dry oil are touted to give the skin the necessary strength and resilience needed to weather environmental stresses wrought by pollution, lack of sleep, frequent air travel, extreme climates and anxiety.
The cream and dry oil, sold separately as a midrange La Prairie collection, will retail in the Philippines, exclusively through Rustan’s, in the low five figures per 50-ml jar for the cream or 30-ml bottle for the dry oil (approximately $300 each in the United States).
Each can be used day and night, or on their own over a serum. For added moisture when skin needs it most, say, after a dermatological procedure or a long flight, it’s suggested to combine the Cellular Swiss Ice Crystal Cream with a drop or two of the Dry Oil before application for added hydration.
Those who are wary about applying oil on the face needn’t worry. La Prairie says that lightweight oils don’t clog pores as previously believed. Science has proved quite the opposite. In the case of the Cellular Swiss Ice Crystal duo, the dry oil actually aids the moisturizer to work better as it holds the water in.
