Priestess skincare (history carried through into contemporary skincare)
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Priestess skincare enters skincare from a different place, shaped by founder Ricardo Amaro’s background in Classical Studies. Using the lens of antiquity and how beauty was perceived across history, culture and society, Portuguese, London based Ricardo Amaro launched Priestess skincare with a desire to ‘bring some of that seriousness into contemporary skincare through formulas held to rigour and efficacy, and through a continued respect for the oils, waxes, resins, botanicals, and minerals that once formed much of cosmetic life.’ I caught up with Ricardo Amaro to talk about Umberto Eco’s On Beauty, antiquity, material culture, and how history can be carried through contemporary skincare.
‘What interested me during my Classical studies was not only the written accounts but the vessels, substances, and gestures through which beauty was actually lived, especially where women become more legible through material life than through literary voices alone.’ Ricardo muses, ‘that was the seed of the idea for Priestess skincare. In antiquity beauty carried social, cultural weight, tied to presentation, status and the ordering of the self.’
As an Umberto Eco fan with On Beauty on my bookshelf as a reference point, I wonder how Ricardo aims to understand how antiquity shaped Priestess® without treating it as a lost ideal? ‘As Eco understood, beauty isn’t singular or fixed across history, likewise with Priestess skincare, it is not drawn to antiquity as a lost ideal,’ he reflects. So, Priestess skincare is inspired by the ‘repeated acts of bathing, anointing, preparing the skin and using oils and unguents as part of daily life in ancient Greek and Roman culture using daily oils cited in ancient Roman and Grecian culture and carries those habits into the house through principle, material and standard.’
The first product is suitably named Aurum Lustrum: a daily fluid serum with 24 karat gold held in suspension. ‘Aurum Lustrum felt like the right place to begin because it allowed Priestess skincare to open with a product that is fundamental, daily and immediately legible as belonging to the house. Hydration is also one of the skin’s first requirements and I wanted the first product to feel fluid and easy to live with.’
So, what are the ancient properties of 24K gold and how do they translate into the serum? ‘In ancient writing, gold was understood as a material of light, rarity and visible presence, particularly in ancient Egyptian culture, while Roman writer Pliny remarks on its exceptional permanence as a material.’ In Aurum Lustrum, gold contributes luminosity and visible presence, while the formula’s performance rests on the composition as a whole: ‘low molecular weight hyaluronic acid and glycerin help draw and retain water. Ceramide 3 supports the barrier and keeps skin less easily unsettled, Centella asiatica and allantoin help keep the skin comfortable and acetyl hexapeptide 8 supports the appearance of the skin surface.’ The formulation also includes Spirulina Maxima Extract, Ascorbic Acid, Tocopherol and Zanthoxylum Bungeanum Fruit Extract, all listed transparently within the product’s ingredient documentation. Aurum Lustrum is Formula III within the Domina Collection, a nine formula system to be introduced gradually.
As a sensitive skin sufferer who also suffers from highly de-hydrated skin, I find serums are either too heavily textured sitting on the skin surface or so ‘natural’ they have little efficacy. Aurum Lustrum is a joy to use daily: indeed, embarking on a mini morning and evening ritual with the serum luminously seeping into the skin feels like a connection to female ancestors and warriors as we navigate modern womanhood. ‘Priestess takes its language from the longer female history of cosmetic life, visible in jars, oils, mirrors, combs, bathing spaces, and the repeated act of preparing the face before entering the world.’
Priestess® works with specialist UK formulation and manufacturing partners with suppliers able to provide documented provenance and consistency: botanical oils and extracts sit alongside lab derived materials to create the best ingredients with ingredients selected for performance, stability, tolerance, barrier support and finish.’
I note to Ricardo that with each use of the visibly gold coloured serum, I feel skin luminosity and an ability to face the challenges of everyday life, Ricardo considers, ‘for me, Priestess® should return a woman to her own authority over appearance. The face ought to belong fully to the woman who lives behind it before it enters the world. Priestess® belongs to that interval before public image, where awareness begins in possession, in readiness, and in meeting the world on one’s own terms.’