When I say Switzerland, you probably think of at least one of these things: chocolate, fancy watches, and beautiful snowy alps. However, there’s one more thing you should think of: a luxury beauty brand called La Prairie. La Prairie has beginnings in Montreux, Switzerland as a high-end health & beauty clinic that serviced celebrities, world leaders, and even religious leaders. Fun fact, Pope Pius XII once received treatment there! You can actually still go to the clinic today – or, you can let the clinic come to you in the form of La Prairie skincare.
The story of La Prairie starts in 1931 when Dr Paul Niehans joined Clinique La Prairie, an exclusive spa and laboratory based in Montreux, a resort town on the shores of Lac Leman. At the time, Clinique La Praire was already an established health spa – however, Dr Niehans’ work is what put it on the world map.
By the time Dr Niehans joined Clinique La Prairie, he was already a well-known medical professional who was willing to try the newest and latest treatments to improve his patients’ well-being.
He developed treatments based on cellular therapy, and this treatment method became the backbone of almost all Clinique La Prairie treatments. At first, Dr Niehans didn’t have much support for his methods until he was able to dramatically increase one of his patient’s lifespans. By dramatically increase, I mean that she lived for another happy and healthy 40 years when other medical professionals agreed that she didn’t have much time left!
This was a big deal and created support for Dr Niehans’ approach – he would then go on to pioneer the cellular therapy treatment at Clinique La Prairie. At first, these therapies were meant to just improve patients’ health, but over time, realised that more and more were seeking anti-ageing benefits.
Exclusive cellular complex
The focus shifted to developing more techniques and products that slowed down the anti-ageing process, and from this, La Prairie’s proprietary Exclusive Cellular Complex was born. Now, they keep the actual formula and development of this ingredient under wraps to ensure exclusivity, but here are the major benefits of the Exclusive Cellular Complex:
- Enhance the skin’s renewal process
- Improve skin’s ability to retain moisture
- Boost skin’s repair processes
- Strengthen skin’s natural defences
Now, clients of the Clinique La Prairie were so happy with the results that they were getting from the clinic treatments, that they asked if there was a way for them to maintain these results at home. From that, the La Prairie brand that we know today was born. The current La Prairie logo is actually an image of the original Clinique La Prairie location!
La prairie skincare
While the Exclusive Cellular Complex is *still* a closely held secret, the team at La Prairie kept Dr Niehans’ innovation and pioneering spirit at heart – in 1987, they developed the now-iconic Skin Caviar line. This was a game-changer when it came to cosmetics! Before this, the thought of skincare in an encapsulated delivery system was practically science fiction.
The Skin Caviar line is named for two things: actually containing caviar extract, and for the unique skincare spheres’ resemblance to caviar. The scientists working on this product were said to be inspired by the perfectly round fish roe, and wanted to incorporate the rounded shape as an homage to the original ingredient. This wasn’t any ordinary caviar, either – these eggs were harvested from sturgeon raised in the pure and clean Swiss waters.
Now, caviar might seem pretty normal to us now as a luxury skincare ingredient – but these days, we owe that entirely to La Prairie and their willingness to innovate with the best quality ingredients they could find – something that the La Prairie brand still does to this day! The Skin Cavier is just one of many skincare lines that contain luxurious ingredients, such as gold and platinum, all formulated with Exclusive Cellular Complex for that unique La Prairie touch.
