5 new Belgian beauty brands you should know

The Belgian beauty world keeps on expanding and I’m here for it. These five new Belgian beauty brands care for you from head to down there: from multitasking haircare that smells like a tropical holiday over microbiome boosting skincare to a nourishing dry oil for your intimate parts.

Beautical

What? Skincare that promises visible results.

The story. Carmen Cristescu, a real beauty industry veteran with loads of knowledge and a keen interest in skincare, finally launched her own brand this year. Beautical, aka ‘beauty’ meets ‘technical’, offers skincare that promises visible results. Immediately and on the long run. Its cruelty-free formulas contain a high dose of actives like hyaluronic acid and peptides. The range is (still) small but offers trendy products like microneedle eye patches with hyaluronic acid, a nourishing lip plumper and a fizzing peptide serum, the kind that turns into tiny bubbles when you massage it into skin.

Tip. The Eyelash Enhancing Serum (69,95 €) is not the cheapest but its formula with biotin and panthenol promises longer, stronger and fuller lashes. I have been using it since the summer holidays and am under the impression that my lashes really are longer and don’t fall out as much. (You can also use it on your brows by the way.)

Laguune

What? Multitasking haircare.

The story. Busy career woman* Mats Meyer did not have the time for endless haircare routines that ask for twenty different products. She wanted haircare that effortlessly and instantly turned her hair into glamorous Hollywood locks. She could not find those products, so started her own haircare brand with fuss-free, vegan and cruelty-free products that do what they promise. The brand launched in September this year with its leave-in hair mask.

*She lived in New York for years where she worked as a lawyer for a bank and as a consultant in the beauty world.

Tip. The Paradise Found Tropical Leave-in Hair Mask (27,90 €) with coconut oil and tropical fruit extracts from açaí, papaya, goji and pequi smells like a tropical holiday breeze and promises shiny, nourished, frizz-free hair.

A beauty colleague remarked she found the branding a bit too millennial pink meets Kardashian to her taste but I like the idea behind Laguune, that you can achieve a lot with one single haircare product. I could not resist testing the leave-in hair mask even though it contains fragrance and linalool, which I am allergic to. So I tested the product as a regular hair mask that I washed out after 20 minutes. It made my hair feel soft and well nourished. I do use it as it is meant to be used on my stepdaughter’s hair from time to time. The mask makes her hair easy to brush through (she’s 6, some of us know what kind of struggle that can be). And it seems to define her gentle curls a bit better than when I only use conditioner. You have to like its fragrance though, as it is heavily fragranced.

Shinn 

What. V-care aka daily vulva care.

The story. The gynecologists of a Flemish practice noticed a lot of their patients suffered from irritated skin down there after shaving/waxing, itchy and/or dry skin and a burning sensation after swimming or biking. Which led to the idea to develop a nourishing dry oil for daily use that has to tackle those problems. Shinn launched this summer. The team is currently working on other products.

Tip. The Intimate Oil Spray (28 €) with olive oil helps keep the skin of the vulva well nourished, soothes and restores, all while respecting it’s pH and microbiome. (Which cannot be said of every intimate care product out there.) Its fragrance is hypoallergenic. You use the oil daily, as you do with bodylotion.

Super Duper Body

What? CBD skincare for troubled skin.

The Story. Super Duper Body, founded by Laboratoire Polygone, stands for natural skincare withe CBD (cannabidiol), a component of hemp. (No, not the one that can make you hallucinate.) CBD is said to soothe and calm down acne and redness and rebalance skin’s sebum production. (That all sounds very promising and CBD is currently quite a hype in the beauty world but critics point out that more independent research still needs to be done.)

Tip. The brand currently has two skincare products, its Balancing Bliss Revitalising Facial Oil and its Drop the Dirt Gentle Purifying Cleansing Cream (28 €). A beauty colleague tested the cleansing cream and liked it.

Synbiotics by Skincare Boulevard

What? Pre and probiotic skincare.

The story. Kris Schoeters worked for 17 years in a well-known aesthetic clinic before launching her own webshop Skincare Boulevard last year, where she focuses on tailor-made skin advice. During the lockdown she followed a course in cosmetic sciences, which sparked her interest in the microbiome, the army of bacteria and fungi that lives on our skin. The study resulted in her own skin care with synbiotics, the combination of pre- and probiotics. (Prebiotics are the food for the good bacteria on the skin, probiotics are the actual bacteria (or parts of them). 

Synbiotics by Skincare Boulevard offers two products, the Synbiotic Skin Serum and the Synbiotic Skin Spray. They promise to balance out a disturbed microbiome (or to keep a healthy one healthy). Simply put: a balanced microbiome = happy skin. When it is out of balance, you get skin problems like acne, irritations, dry patches, flakes, itching and eczema. 

Tip. The Synbiotic Skin Spray (starting from 12,50 €) is a handy add-on to any skincare routine to give your skin’s microbiome the food and bacteria it needs to stay healthy or become healthy again. Simply spray it on your skin as a last step in your routine.