The words “Swiss beauty” immediately evoke luxurious beauty brands, ingredients sourced from nature and cutting-edge technology. Switzerland is home to skincare brands like Valmont, La Prairie and Alchimie Forever.
Alchimie Forever’s CEO Ada Polla was born and raised in Geneva, Switzerland before moving to the United States for college. She’s called it home ever since, traveling to Switzerland four to five times a year (in pre-COVID times at least). Her own experiences with skincare are deeply rooted in Switzerland where her father, Dr. Luigi Polla is one of the country’s leading dermatologists. It’s also where Alchimie Forever was created and remains headquartered.
100 ML spoke with Polla about the Swiss approach to beauty, how her father’s practice inspired a skincare line, and the ingredients and ethos that set the brand apart from the rest.
Generally speaking, how would you describe the Swiss approach to beauty?
In Switzerland, skincare is almost considered a part of healthcare. To give you an idea, I had my first facial when I was 15-years-old and the experience was what one would call here clinical. The treatment was amazing, but it wasn’t in a luxurious set-up and wasn’t considered pampering. It’s something that you are taught by your mom or your grandma, typically when you are a teenager, and it’s something that you carry into adulthood. Overall, skin takes predominance over hair and makeup. If you look at the average Swiss woman’s bathroom cabinet, the products for face and body are much more numerous than makeup or hair care. Lastly, taking care of your skin doesn’t stop at the chin. You’re taught to put on moisturizer after your shower, to use hand cream, to apply foot products when you’re going to bed—it’s treating the whole person.
From the ten-step beauty routine to a more minimalist approach, where does Swiss beauty fall?
We fall under the effective but minimalist category. There are products for specific areas but on average, we’re not in a 10 or more step routine by any means.
How is the Swiss approach to beauty compared to North America, for example?
We are prevention focused so we start younger—and again these are broad generalizations. My family has a product brand, but they also have medical spas in Switzerland. The approach to professional treatments is very natural-looking. The goal of any patient walking into my dad’s medi spa is to look fresh and her most youthful self, but in a very natural way. If we are 60-years-old, maybe we want to 55 but we don’t want to look 25.
Why do you think Swiss beauty has such global appeal?
If you ask an average consumer what she thinks about Switzerland, some of the things that will come to mind is watches, which are very much about precision manufacturing. Mountains, skiing, nature, pure snow, pure air. People also think of pharmaceuticals. Some of the biggest pharma brands are based in Switzerland. All those general preconceptions people have in their heads about Switzerland all lead to high tech, pure nature, really well-made stuff and very expensive things. Those preconceptions are all pretty positive and if you distill them into the world of beauty, it’s products that are well-formulated, effective and have a luxurious appeal.
Tell me about your brand, Alchimie Forever, which is rooted in dermatology and biomedical research.
The brand is really my father’s brainchild. He is one of the leading dermatologists in Switzerland. He’s originally from Italy, but came to Switzerland when he was about six-years-old for school. He met my mom there who is also an MD. For her post-doctoral thesis, she got an offer from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. He ended up working at Massachusetts General Hospital in the division called Wellman lab between 1984 to 1986. He was there at just the right time when lasers were being created to be used in dermatology. When they moved back to Switzerland, he was the first physician to bring laser technology to Europe.
The reason why we have a skincare brand now is because he was treating port-wine stains, which was one of the first applications of lasers in dermatology, and he wanted to find a product that [his patients] could use post-procedure to heal their skin. He couldn’t find said product so he called a pharmacist friend of his and said, help me make this. That product is our Kantic Brightening Moisture Mask, which was the first product we ever created. The start of our brand was very post-procedure driven. Although now we’re a daily skincare brand, we focus on sensitive and sensitized skin. That is very much a result of our origin story.
The brand has created a synergy between science and botanical ingredients. Are there any botanicals used in the products that are native to Switzerland?
One of which we use is edelweiss. When you say that word, most people [think of] The Sound of Music. It’s an amazing flower that grows above the tree line in the Swiss Alps, doesn’t need a lot of water and can survive crazy shifts of temperature. It has developed these amazing self-protective properties and doesn’t really need anything to survive and thrive in that environment. Those properties are extremely beneficial to the skin, especially when you combine them with sun protection ingredients.
The Kantic Brightening Moisture Mask is one of the brand’s best-selling products. What does it do and why does it remain so popular?
It’s definitely a treatment-oriented mask. You leave on for 15 to 20 minutes, at least two or three times a week. It is full of nutrients and penetrates into your skin. Sensorially, it’s a very pleasing product to put on your face. It either smells like either blueberry yogurt or wine, depending on who you ask. It’s also a universal product with a lot of different ingredients that do a lot of different things from hydrating to quelling inflammation to healing irritation. I think part of the reason why people love it is because everyone can benefit from the product.
Alchimie Forever’s line-up includes:
Kantic Brightening Moisture Mask, $60 USD, alchimie-forever.com
Gentle Refining Scrub, $45 USD, alchimie-forever.com
Protective Day Cream SPF 23, $69 USD, alchimie-forever.com
