The Extended Essay

A longer form, for the reader who has gone past the product pages and still wants to know why.

On the decision to build the house

Most skincare businesses are launched because the founder saw a gap in the market. ENGEL LOEWE was launched because I saw a contradiction I could no longer ignore: the industry that sells the promise of care was producing the highest rate of ingredient-related irritation, barrier disruption, and cosmetic-related dermatitis of any consumer category.

I had seen this first-hand, across the skin of people I loved. The brands marketed as gentle were not gentle. The brands marketed as clinical were not always clean. The brands marketed as clean were not always effective. Somewhere between those three categories, there was space for a house whose honesty extended to every layer — the formulation, the packaging, the pricing, the voice, the pace of the conversation.

On the refusal to discount

ENGEL LOEWE will not run seasonal sales. Not because of pride — because of arithmetic. A brand that discounts 30% in November has to bake 30% into the non-November price to keep its margin. The result is that every customer who does not buy at the sale subsidises the customer who does, and the brand is pretending that its everyday price is real.

We do the opposite. The price is the price. It is the lowest sustainable price at which we can make the product at the standard we committed to. Every customer pays it. The only thing we do with the saving from not running sales is reinvest it into the formulas.

On manufacturing in Europe

Our formulas are made in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, depending on the specialty of the lab. We chose European manufacture for three reasons: the regulatory environment is stricter than any other market we sell into; the labour conditions are monitored; the carbon cost of shipping within the EU is lower than the equivalent transatlantic route.

Everything is declared. The jar in your hand can be traced to the batch, the lab, the certifications held by that lab at the time of manufacture. If you want the paperwork, write to us.

On the ten-product limit

Discussed elsewhere in the journal. The short version: we arrived at ten by starting at five and asking which five absences the skin genuinely needs filled. The next product, if it is ever made, clears the same three-question test. If it does not, it does not get made.

On what the house is for

A skincare house is not a lifestyle brand. We do not sell candles, or scarves, or seasonal collaborations. We sell ten formulas, two bundles, a body oil, and a weekly treatment. The aesthetic that surrounds them is in service to them — not the other way around.

If the house ever expands into anything else, it will be because the discipline of ten has taught us something new worth making. Not because the brand decided to grow.

— Merlin Dragutinovic