The Making Of Crème De La Mer

People always ask me what makes La Mer special and that they don't actually have a special process on making of the cream. Well, here is the article to show you all how it's made! The article was originally published by Refinery29, the link to their website is at the end. 

Photographed by Jer Crowle/Courtesy of La Mer

 Photographed by Jer Crowle/Courtesy of La Mer
The area in British Columbia where this kelp comes from — off the coast of Vancouver Island — is very remote, accessible only by air or sea.

Photographed by Jer Crowle/Courtesy of La Mer

Andy Bevacqua, chief scientist for La Mer's Max Huber Research labs, is the man responsible for unlocking the great scientists' notes for recreating the top-secret formula. Huber, who created the Creme almost a half a century ago as a remedy for his severely burned skin, left the formula to his children when he died, but none of them were able to precisely replicate the process.

Bevacqua, a scientist for Estée Lauder, which purchased the brand back in 1995, set to work deciphering the code. It took him years, but he finally mastered the tricky process, which involves combining sea kelp, vitamins and minerals, citrus oil, eucalyptus, wheat germ, alfalfa, and sunflower in a biofermentation process.

Simple enough, right? Not so much: Huber also would blast his so-called Miracle Broth with sound waves, a branch of science called sonochemistry, in which certain wavelengths of sound can actually affect or even cause chemical reactions. This integral step was the magic key that made everything click together to create the Miracle Broth.

Photographed by Jer Crowle/Courtesy of La Mer

This is what $8,000 of Miracle Broth looks like.

Photographed by Jer Crowle/Courtesy of La Mer

 The land is owned by Canada's First Nations People, who harvest and then sell the kelp to the company. The kelp grows on long stems that reach to the ocean floor. The two-man team takes their boat out and hand cuts the kelp off, leaving the stalks intact so that they stay alive and can continue to produce more kelp leaves.

While it would be easier and more cost-efficient to just drag up the kelp stalks and remove the leaves that way, this would cause the kelp not to grow back and basically destroy an entire eco-system — myriad sea creature depend on this plant for survival.

This eco-friendly method of hand-harvesting, along with the complex biofermentation process, and the hand-packaging of the product, are just a few of the reasons Creme de La Mer carries that hefty price tag.

Photographed by Jer Crowle/Courtesy of La Mer

 

So what's so special about this seaweed? According to Bevacqua, you need to think of your skin like a battery: It has positively- and negatively-charged ions, which get depleted over time. The negative ions gravitate toward the surface, while the positive ones remain deeper in the skin. The movement of these ions creates a type of electrical energy, which the skin needs to perform its daily reparative and protective functions.

As we age, get stressed out, or damage our skin, the ions lose their charge and the energy becomes stagnant, meaning our skin can't optimally function. The kelp-based Miracle Broth acts as a charging station, re-establishing the correct circuits so that these positive and negative ions continue to flow where they are meant to, helping the skin to better perform its duties of hydrating and healing.

The kelp we got the chance to handle had been harvested a few days earlier and as such, the nutrients had started to leach out, creating a slimy residue that Bevacqua lovingly referred to as kelp snot. Our senior beauty editor daringly rubbed a bit of this slick stuff on the back of her hands and immediately noticed a difference in her skin. The residue sunk into the skin on the back of her hand instantly and made it look brighter and feel baby-soft to the touch. She tried to convince Bevacqua to let her have a few stalks to wrap herself up in, mummy-style, but he sadly quashed her DIY spa dreams, on the spot.

Article was taken from http://www.refinery29.com/la-mer written by Megan McIntyre