Interview: Made-to-measure
Dr Pauline Burgener, the current driving force behind the eponymous swiss skincare line tells Fiona Vlemmiks about her venture into haute couture products.
Imagine skincare products made exclusively for the client, based on her skincare needs. Although there has been a huge shift towards tailormade treatments in spas, such a concept in skincare has not yet been realised, on a large scale … until now in the launch of Dr Burgener’s Couture range. The skincare line Dr Burgener Switzerland was founded in Lausanne in 1955 by plastic surgeon and skincare expert Dr Marc Burgener.
Lebanese born Dr Pauline, his daughter-in-law, took the helm in the 1980s and presides over a comprehensive range of face and body skincare products, available professionally and for retail. I meet her in the VIP lounge at The Professional Beauty GCC 2016 exhibition where Dr Pauline has been exhibiting her line and attending the Dubai Professional Spa and Wellness Conference. The brand is available in the Four Season’s Pearl Spa Dubai where the Precious Pearl Serum, a product made exclusively for the spa is available. And it is customisation, specifically the line’s Haute Couture range of products, set to launch this month, that I’m here to discuss. “Haute couture is a term used for clothes, not cosmetics,” says Dr Pauline with a smile, “but I call it this because the line comprises made-to-measure products created specifically for each client. “I developed this concept three years ago with doctors and dermatologists.
Customisation is the future of skincare – we need products that answer to our needs.” In it’s regular spa line of products, Dr Burgener combines the best of science with the best of nature, and is free from parabens and other artificial additives. Great care has been taken to ensure the line is eco friendly and exclusive ingredients include royal jelly, green caviar and collagen. Professional treatments utilise the latest technology with several machines created exclusively for the line. The Haute Couture line will be created on the same principles. Dr Pauline goes on to explain how the line will work. After an in-depth skin analysis using the brand’s skin machines and software, the results will be sent to the brand’s Swiss laboratories and tailormade skincare products will be created specifically for the client – and delivered to them in a therapy box.
“We will look at things such as the hydration of the skin, the lipid of the skin and assess the depth of the wrinkles. Our technology is very sophisticated so from the results, we can then produce products for the client containing the ingredients, which will give her exactly what she needs. It’s a new way of beauty.” The spa or centre that performed the analysis will also receive the same therapy box as the client so that they can perform monthly treatments on the client. The therapy box will comprise one eye contour product, a lip product, a base moisturising cream and two active products that are “very rich in high quality ingredients such as a serum”, depending on the client’s skin. Clients will be reassessed every three months to gauge whether her needs have changed. The select few “We are not interested in spreading this concept everywhere, explains Dr Pauline. “Like with our spas, we prefer exclusivity. For this new line, it is more important for us to have this in selected places only. “Initially we weren’t looking to launch this in spas,” she continues. “We envisaged having specific centres offering this but then we saw that the spas were very interested. They want results and differentiation. “However, it is a highly technological way of working so we can offer this is every normal spa, we need specialist places with very well trained therapists who can use our technology. The therapist would need to be trained by us in Switzerland and the training will need to be updated ever few month to ensure that the concept works.” Those client’s lucky enough to live near a venue offering the Haute Couture line will receive a skin identity card so she can go to any of the centre offering the line, internationally, for a treatment. “So if you are from New York for instance, you can take your therapy box with your skin ID and connect to the centre in, say, Dubai where they will have all your skincare results and information,” Dr Pauline explains. The first centre to offer the Haute Couture line will be in Switzerland and Dr Pauline confides that there will “probably be only 10 places in the world offering the Haute Couture line”. And will this include Dubai? Dr Pauline smiles at me. “We can’t reveal too much now, but soon…”
Read the full interview in the March issue of the magazine here
