How two novices made Augustinus Bader luxury skincare a must-have by wooing celebrity endorsers like Victoria Beckham and making products whose quality spoke for itself

When Augustinus Bader debuted in 2018, the co-founders sought the endorsement of celebrities despite barely knowing who any of them were
When its products – The Cream and The Rich Cream – launched, word of mouth took over and its rapid rise began. Now it’s looking to expand in Asia-Pacific

Beauty

Vincenzo La Torre

Published: 12:45pm, 15 Feb 2022

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For a company that counts Hollywood A-listers among its backers and fans, skin-care label Augustinus Bader couldn’t be more different from the beauty brands launched by celebrities and influencers on an almost daily basis.

The story of how Bader, a professor of stem-cell biology at Leipzig University in Germany, established his eponymous brand to fund his work helping underprivileged children with burn injuries has been told plenty of times.

Less is known about the man who courted Bader for two years to convince him to start the company, and who helped propel the incredible growth that the brand has experienced since debuting in 2018.

Charles Rosier, the CEO and co-founder of Augustinus Bader, was an investment banker when he met Bader and learned about his research focusing on burn injuries.

Bader (left) and Charles Rosier attend Fashion Group International’s Night of Stars 2021 in New York. Photo: Getty Images

“The technology was there and could prevent physical and psychological suffering so I thought, how can we help him and make this technology available?” says Rosier, speaking from Paris. “If you cure burned skin you can probably create a cream that works, so I suggested to him to do an anti-wrinkle cream.”

Rosier envisioned the company as a way to support Bader’s research at the university, where the professor set out to develop TFC8, a patented technology that helps skin cells regenerate.

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The two were complete novices in the skincare industry, which Rosier believes was an advantage. “The number-one quality at that point was to be naive,” he says. “I was convinced that having a superior product would make it a success and, as an outsider, I underestimated the task – how having a great product wouldn’t be enough.”

It took about 18 months before they could go to market with what have become the brand’s signature items: The Cream and The Rich Cream.

Lacking the marketing budget of big brands, Rosier realised that Hollywood celebrities would be the perfect ambassadors to spread the word thanks to their global reach. So, before the launch in February 2018, Rosier and Bader made a trip to Los Angeles.

“It was a very pragmatic strategy,” Rosier says, explaining that actress Melanie Griffith was the first big name to invest in the brand, followed by her ex-husband Don Johnson, and actress Courtney Cox. Rosier recalls that, during the trip, he and Bader met VIPs such as Brad Pitt, Demi Moore, Kris Jenner and Kim Kardashian.

Bader barely knew who any of them were, and both Rosier and Bader mistook Kardashian for Jenner’s assistant when they had a meeting with the mother-and- daughter team at their home.

Celebrity connections notwithstanding (Victoria Beckham is also a fan), it didn’t take long for accolades to come and for the brand’s two products to become cult items, thanks to in-the-know beauty and fashion editors, including this writer, who – like those Hollywood stars – received samples early on and couldn’t stop raving about them.

Rosier, Augustinus Bader and actress Courtney Cox. Photo: Instagram

For the first two years, the brand relied only on those two key products, staying true to its founders’ belief that one good cream is all you need to achieve great skin.

That approach, which goes hand in hand with the recent rise of trends like skinimalism and the idea of buying less but better, was what made the brand so refreshing to jaded beauty junkies flooded with products and overwhelmed with choices.

While Rosier still believes that using only The Cream or The Rich Cream is enough for optimal results, the brand lately has been on a roll, launching new products including a serum, a face oil, an eye cream and hair care.

“Even if we told people that they could use The Cream or The Rich Cream on their eye area, they didn’t feel comfortable using something not meant for the eyes, so we developed something that had TFC8 and also worked for puffiness and dark circles,” Rosier says. “It’s not that we changed our DNA and completely pivoted the nature of the brand.”

He says it’s hard to justify a counter in department stores like Lane Crawford and Joyce Beauty, where Augustinus Bader is available in Asia, with only two products, so he had to compromise and cater to the needs of the very competitive and fast-moving skincare industry.

The Asia-Pacific region – China in particular – has been the largest market for conglomerates such as L’Oréal and Estée Lauder for more than a decade now, but that’s not the case for Augustinus Bader, which counts the US as its biggest market and still has plenty of room for growth in Asia.

Actress Melanie Griffith (left), Augustinus Bader and lyricist Carole Bayer Sager attend Violet Grey x Victoria Beckham dinner in LA. Griffith was the first big name to invest in the brand. Photo: Getty Images

“The product is about cellular communication; it’s not about specificity of skin or ethnicity so it works for everyone,” says Rosier.

Having until now focused mainly on the still growing US market, he plans to expand Augustinus Bader more in the Asia-Pacific region, where he admits that Western celebrities don’t have the same clout as Asian ones.

At the same time, Rosier explains that ultimately there’s only so much a celebrity endorsement can do. “It’s word of mouth and the consumers becoming ambassadors and telling about the brand to other people,” says Rosier. “People talked about it with passion, even more than in Hollywood, because at the end of the day even if you have celebrities using a product, it’s not just going to sell; it has to work.

“If it’s just a lip product for US$10, celebrity power is very strong, but when it comes to high-end skincare consumers want to know the reason why [it works]. Hollywood is great for awareness but if there’s no substance behind it, people don’t come back.”

Customers have definitely been coming back, even during the Covid-19 pandemic, which has affected the brand’s logistics and supply chains but has not slowed down growth.

Augustinus Bader has been experiencing 100 per cent growth year on year and is going to be profitable this year, says Rosier. Even before it started making profits, the company stuck to its commitment to donate 10 per cent of its turnover to charity (those who buy directly from the company’s website can select a charity of their liking and the company will donate 5 per cent of their order value to it).

As someone who is relatively new to the beauty industry, Rosier finds it dumbfounding that customers can buy a vial of hyaluronic acid for US$7 at The Ordinary or for US$300 if they go to a luxury brand. “For a lot of brands, it’s just different packaging for the same technology and product,” says Rosier.

“The DNA of our brand is science and we want our brand to be known for efficacy and real results.”