Wellness-Driven Luxury: How Formulae Prescott Made Skincare Smarter
- Anna Grinsvall
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
Luxury skincare in 2025 is shifting away from excess and toward purposeful efficiency. As consumers gravitate to routines that are cleaner, faster and grounded in wellness, a new interpretation of premium is taking hold. Formulae Prescott has emerged as one of the clearest expressions of this shift, driven by founder Pauline Prescott’s belief that modern luxury is defined not by more steps, but by smarter ones. Prescott’s entry into beauty was shaped by necessity rather than industry tradition. Years spent travelling between Hong Kong, New York and London left her carrying an unwieldy pouch of creams, toners and exfoliators that frequently leaked, broke or were confiscated in transit. The inefficiency eventually became a turning point.
“Travelling with day cream, night cream, toner, exfoliator… I thought, this is so inefficient,” she recalls. That realisation became the foundation of a new approach.
Formulae Prescott’s philosophy centres on the idea:
“Our skincare is topical nutrition. It’s food for the skin.”
The brand formulates with ninety-five percent food-based ingredients including wheat germ, rice bran, safflower and carrot tissue oils, avoiding synthetics, silicones and fillers entirely. This thinking is embodied in the brand’s signature Tri-Balm, a solid stick that cleanses, exfoliates, moisturises and hydrates in one step. Rather than offering a lengthy routine, Prescott focuses on intelligent formulation: multiple functions designed to work together seamlessly.
This perspective resonates strongly with today’s consumers, who increasingly associate luxury with efficacy, convenience and responsible formulation. The brand’s food-first approach also extends to its environmental logic. Prescott frequently highlights the impact of rinsing synthetic compounds into waterways compared with the biodegradability of food-based ingredients. As she puts it:
“We are the electric car of the skincare industry. We don’t have a combustion engine in us. Everything we do is current.”
The brand’s momentum accelerated after a Sunday Times beauty editor named Tri-Balm one of the best travel products to own. Airlines including British Airways and Norwegian quickly reached out, and demand surged. Yet the brand did not remain confined to travel retail. “Most of our clients are not travel clients anymore. They may discover us in the air, but they rebuy every two months,” Prescott says. The Middle East is now one of Formulae Prescott’s strongest regions, while Europe is a rising priority with launches in Italy and Germany through QVC. Scandinavia, with its cultural affinity for simplicity and clean formulations, is an especially strong fit. The hotel sector is also becoming an increasingly important channel as wellness-driven hospitality expands.
Coming from a background in health and wellness, Prescott is outspoken about the beauty industry’s longstanding fixation on narrow ideals. She challenges the emphasis on youth and uniformity that still dominates much of luxury advertising. “If you open any beauty magazine, you see pictures of really young women… and this is what a beautiful person looks like,” she says. “In any other industry, this kind of advertising would be considered misrepresentation.” For her, real beauty is rooted in skin health—hydration, nourishment and resilience—rather than the pursuit of flawlessness. That philosophy underpins another of her principles:
“If an ingredient doesn’t have a skincare benefit, it doesn’t go into our products.”
As luxury continues its transition toward purpose, wellness and ingredient integrity, Formulae Prescott offers a compelling view of where the category is moving: streamlined but sophisticated, grounded in science and driven by the needs of modern life. In a market seeking substance over spectacle, Prescott’s vision feels distinctly of this moment.
About Pauline Prescott
Pauline Prescott is the Founder and CEO of Formulae Prescott International, the multitasking skincare brand built on food-based formulations and a wellness-first philosophy. With a global background in finance and health, she leads the brand’s expansion across the Middle East, Europe and travel retail while advocating for a more responsible and realistic definition of modern luxury skincare.
