The most decadent
trend of the year means
diamonds are now
skincare’s best friendBy LILY WORCESTERTRENDBE AUT YThe rich and famous have
always enjoyed extrava-
gant and daring beauty
regimes. Cleopatra used
to bathe in asses’ milk and honey;
Serena Williams once took a $5,000
Evian bath; Catherine Zeta Jones
washes her hair with caviar; while
Queen Elizabeth I was so determined
to whiten her skin, she indulged in
poisonous lead facials.
Now, a dazzling new craze is
sweeping High Society. Diamonds,
once reserved for adorning wrists,
necks, earlobes and fingers, are being
ground into powder and lathered
onto the faces of the rich.
‘Diamonds are one of the very
best ingredients for skincare on the
market,’ says Harrods’ Head of Beauty,
Mia Collins, who has seen a rush of
customers to the beauty counters in
search of diamond products. ‘They
have the proven benefits of brighten-
ing and generating luminosity in the
skin.’ For some cognoscenti, the real
hero value of diamond powder is its
ability to exfoliate, while others ar-
gue that its pièce de résistance is its
capacity to make the skin glow –
which is why, no doubt, Net-A-Porter,
too, has seen a 40 per cent increase
in the sales of beauty products that
contain diamonds.
Legendary Harley Street surgeon
Dr Yannis Alexandrides is a fan. He
founded 111Skin, the ultra-luxurious
skincare brand adored by the likes of
Margot Robbie and Victoria Beckham.
The star component? Diamond pow-
der. ‘This luxurious ingredient gently
refines the surface of the skin, andtatler.com Tatler August 2019 105facilitates the absorption of ingredients
deep into the layers of the epidermis,’
he explains.
Wonderful – but it comes at a cost.
‘The diamond powder that we use is
extremely rare and expensive,’ says
Alexandrides: a 50ml tub of 111Skin’s
Celestial Black Diamond Cream
retails at an eyebrow-raising £599,
and the ‘diamond facial’ costs a cool
£350 for 90 minutes of heavenly
massage and masking.
But 111Skin is far from the only
brand jumping aboard this sparkling
bandwagon. Rodial, a skincare brand
used by Beyoncé, Elle MacPherson
and, it’s rumoured, the Duchess of
Cambridge, has added two products
to its Pink Diamond collection, a day
and a night gel. ‘Diamond powder
works to reflect and scatter the light
on the skin, resulting in a blurring
and soft-focus effect,’ explains Rodial
founder Maria Hatzistefanis, who
counts Poppy Delevingne and Demi
Moore as fans of the Pink Diamond
Instant Lifting Sheet Mask (Moore
used the mask before the Met Ball.
It costs £85 for eight). ‘It’s also great
for smoothing out fine lines and wrin-
kles – the diamond particles “fill in”
lines resulting in firmer and tighter
skin.’ Luxury natural skincare brand
Tata Harper also optimises the stone’s
radiant qualities with its Illuminating
Moisturiser (£74), as does Ouai hair-
care, founded by Jen Atkins, celebrity
hair stylist and Kardashian confidante,
with its Hair & Body Shine Mist
(£25) – a multipurpose spray that
combines diamond powder with
amaranth oil and squalene to produce
a mirror-gloss effect.
As the toughest naturally occurring
material on Earth, diamonds are
commonly used to make industrial
drills and cutting equipment. It’s
also why myriad aesthetic doctors
opt for diamond-tipped microder-
mabrasion wands as an exfoliating
method. Skincare brands, too, are also
making the most of these properties,
as powdered diamonds can be an
effective and satisfying scrub. Some of
the most brilliantly blingy exfoliators
on the market include La Mer’s The
Body Refiner scrub (£85) and Oribe’s
Côte d’Azur polishing body scrub
(£50). And the divine, rose-scentedSHINE ONGLAM
ROCK
- Blue Diamond Concentrate, £295, by
OMOROVICZA. 2. Pink Diamond Instant
Lifting Face Mask, £85 for eight, by RODIAL. - Hair & Body Shine Mist, £25, by OUAI.
- Cellular Mineral Face Exfoliator, £110, by
LA PRAIRIE. 5. The Body Refiner, £85, by LA
MER. 6. Celestial Black Diamond Cream, £599,
by 111SKIN at Net-A-Porter. 7. Illuminating
Moisturizer, £74, by TATA HARPER
Cellular Mineral Face Exfoliator by
La Prairie (£110) features rounded
diamond and quartz crystals paired
with meteorite dust.
It’s not all about rock-solid results
though: diamonds can also have
more intangible, therapeutic benefits,
according to beauty wellness gurus,
which is why crystal-infused skincare
is a rapidly growing area. Holistic
style brands are leading the charge
with products like Herbivore Botanicals’
Amethyst Exfoliating Body Polish,
with its revitalising benefits (£33.76)
and its Rose Quartz Illuminating
Body Oil, which is said to encourage
compassion and kindness (£36.73),
to masks enhanced with blue sapphire
for extra healing energy – as at Själ
Skincare. According to Själ’s co-
founder, Kristin Petrovich, using
diamonds in skincare is a natural
extension of the trend. In the same
way that amethyst is said to clear
negative thoughts and feelings,
Petrovich describes diamonds as a
‘master healer’ providing strength
and endurance.
Lead facials and milk and honey
baths are so passé. When it comes to
beauty, diamonds are trumps. (12
3456708-19BEAUTY-Diamond.indd 105 11/06/2019 16:00