When Christmas Shopping Took a Strange Turn
I knew my Christmas shopping had taken a turn for the worse when I wandered into one of my favourite clothes shops on Saturday in Brighton and discovered an entire table of skincare staring back at me. Serums in baubles hung next to sequinned dresses and moisturisers and cleanser gift sets had been squeezed into crackers beside the wool coats. I stood there blinking at it all, still clutching the jumper I absolutely did not need but had worked hard for as a treat. Since when did my reliable go to for knitwear also fancy itself a skincare authority, and why is this happening. Why are so many high street clothing shops suddenly jumping on the skincare bandwagon and do they now have their own trusted formulation department.
The short answer is no. These companies, like many others, are simply using white labelling.
What White Labelling Really Is
So what is white labelling. Let me explain the best way I can, through cake. Imagine visiting a friend’s house and being offered a slice of their homemade masterpiece. You ask for the recipe and they smile mysteriously and say it is a family secret. It is only when you are on your way out that you spot the empty supermarket cake box sitting boldly in the recycling bin. Your friend had simply bought a cake and sprinkled a few icing sugar stars on top to make it their own.
That is white labelling in its simplest form. Companies buying ready made formulas, slapping on their branding, inventing a story and selling it as heritage skincare. No formulation. Perhaps a little trusted research. But no history. Just a catalogue, a courier and a printer.
The Roots of Skincare and the Rise of Convenience
The trouble is that white labelling is quietly reshaping the industry and not in a good way. Traditional skincare was built by people who lived and breathed ingredients long before the word formulation even existed. It began with medicine women and men in ancient tribes who crushed leaves and bark and flowers with their hands, trusting the wisdom passed from their ancestors and adding their own along the way. The Romans massaged olive oil into their skin because nature was their cosmetic cupboard. Cleopatra bathed in milk and honey while the rest of the world was still arguing about who invented soap. These methods were born from observation, tradition and a closeness to the earth that most modern brands have forgotten.
As centuries passed, this heritage travelled through apothecaries and kitchen table makers who stirred oils and tinctures with more love than shiny laboratory equipment ever could. Even when the first laboratory formulated skincare appeared in the early twentieth century, long before the hyper marketing of the seventies, it was still rooted in a desire to understand the skin rather than overwhelm it with man made cocktails. Real skincare grew through craft, story and curiosity, not convenience.
Once laboratories grew confident and chemical names grew longer, the industry shifted. Suddenly skincare came with scientific vocabulary that sounded impressive but sat uncomfortably beside the natural wisdom that guided humans for thousands of years. Some chemicals proved useful and stable and effective, but many left their mark on rivers and soil, leaching into ecosystems in ways that would have horrified the people who began this craft. The further the industry drifted from nature, the more detached it became from its original purpose.
And then came the era we now live in. A time where any Tom, Dick or Harry can open a catalogue of pre made skincare, choose a base formula, give it a poetic name, attach a glossy label and suddenly become a skincare brand. No formulation knowledge required. No ingredient study. No appreciation of history. Just a story pasted over the top of something identical to the bottles sold in a sock shop, a supermarket and the gift aisle of your aunt’s favourite bargain store.
It reminds me of a world where ancient bakers spent lifetimes perfecting their dough while the modern neighbour simply buys frozen pastries, heats them in an oven and calls the pastries homemade. You can see the flour on one person’s hands and the barcode on the other’s packaging, yet somehow they stand on the same shelf competing for the same customer.
This is what traditional skincare is facing. The industry built by ancestors who studied plants, by healers who understood seasons and by formulators who learned through years of trial and error is being flattened by mass produced formulas that cost less than a takeaway to manufacture but are sold for luxury prices. People begin to think skincare is interchangeable. They see two creams and assume both required the same labour and learning, even when one was handcrafted with knowledge and the other was chosen from a purchasing order.
The real harm of white labelling is not danger to the skin. Most of these formulas are safe ish. The harm is the erosion of meaning. When everything is branded as unique yet created from the same production line, the customer loses the ability to recognise authenticity. The stories begin to feel artificial and eventually trust slips away like sand through fingers.
A Moment of Clarity Among the Baubles
Which brings me back to my clothes shop bauble lip balm. It sat there proudly, packaged as if it had descended from ancient wisdom rather than arrived on a pallet last Tuesday. And as tempting as it was to buy it, because who does not love convenience, my heart remains loyal to the long line of makers who came before me. The ones who pressed olives under Roman sun. The ones who soaked petals in clay pots. The ones who still hand stir shea butter over open fires in Ghana. The ones who passed down knowledge through generations. The ones who shaped this industry long before convenience tried to claim it.
If you want skincare that has been created with that same intention, skincare that has been formulated by hand, tested on humans and inspired by family, tradition and real people with real stories, then Olive and Joyce is exactly where that journey leads. My brand grows from Welsh natural healers whose knowledge travelled through my grandmothers who lived off the land and made do through the war and to my mum who studied aromatherapy, reflexology, reiki and skincare formulation. I was brought up with skincare that was handmade, skincare that cared for our largest organ and our planet. It is my past that has shaped my brand, my knowledge and the future I want this industry to return to. True skincare comes from hands, hearts and history, not from seasonal shelves of crackers and baubles.
And Yes, I Still Bought the Jumper
And with that reminder echoing quietly in my mind, I bought the jumper instead. I am only human.