What does one expect when meeting the managing director of French cosmetics company Clarins? A mild-mannered man who, perhaps, prefers his teas herbal and his handkerchiefs monogrammed. Certainly not an ex-orthopaedic surgeon who flies helicopters in his spare time and has a penchant for late-night clubbing.
Make no mistake, Olivier Courtin-Clarins is a gentleman. The man behind one of the biggest names in the cosmetics industry is soft-spoken, well-dressed and impeccably groomed down to the last manicured detail. Looking out at the view of Victoria Harbour from his 23rd-floor hotel room at the Four Seasons Hong Kong, the second son of Clarins founder Jacques Courtin-Clarins talks about how he came into contact with the company's products.
'My father would always bring home product trials from work - jars and jars of creams that he lined up in the family bathroom. When I was younger, I liked to experiment with the products. I would take a few jars into my room and start mixing. It was different each time - I mixed by colour, smell and sometimes texture, testing them on myself afterwards. All I knew was that I wanted to create a masterpiece.'
Given his early interest in dermatology, it may come as a surprise that Courtin-Clarins later went on to become an orthopaedic surgeon at the Foch Hospital in Paris. At the time, there were few effective skincare medications, and the young doctor found more professional satisfaction in seeing his patients literally get back on their feet. 'To me, it was all about the science,' he says. 'I like seeing concrete, visible results.'
He soon began using Clarins products on his patients. Not unlike his earlier experiments, he blended the cream with other ingredients and extracts, and applied the mixture to their scars in the hope that it would help with fading. He found that each of his patients, who were mainly women, required different concoctions depending on their condition and skin type. These experiences later inspired him to create MyBlend by Dr Olivier Courtin, a product line launched exclusively in Saks Fifth Avenue in October 2007, but now also available in Zurich and Le Bon March? in Paris. The line allows women to choose between different components for a custom-blended cream tailor-made to their skin's needs.
The cream consists of a base chosen according to the woman's age and skin type, plus one or two emergency boosters suited to her lifestyle needs. 'My usual cream contains the antioxidant booster, but I use the jet lag booster now,' laughs Courtin-Clarins, who had arrived in Hong Kong three days earlier and was scheduled to fly back to Paris the next day. It doesn't help that the esteemed doctor is a party animal, having already hit one of the city's top nightclubs during his short stay here. 'I had a late night last night,' he grins.
In addition to the Anti-Jet Lag Relief and Antioxidant Surge emergency boosters, there are also eight other boosters ranging from the soothing Redness Rescue to the energising Radiant Burst, each designed to target a specific skin problem. There are about 300 combinations of MyBlend creams, and Courtin-Clarins says that, nowadays, it is more important than ever to make sure that products adapt to each woman's needs as closely as possible.