Gold and silver

The No4. Midnight Mineral Pressed Serum contains fine flakes of pure gold and silver. Before anything else is said, this belongs first: it is a sensory element, not an active. We attribute no action on skin to it, and the claims that sometimes attach to gold in skincare — regeneration, penetration into the skin — we do not make, because we have no evidence for them.

What it does is visible. In the dark, petrol-toned balm texture the flakes create a play of light that shifts with the angle it falls from. It is the signature of the product, and it is deliberate.

Whether such an element belongs in skincare at all is a fair question. The answer has two parts. First, gold is an exceptionally inert metal — it does not react or oxidise, and it is among the least troublesome materials that ever reach skin, which is why it is used in jewellery for sensitive ears. Second: a ritual someone keeps up for years has a sensory side, and that side is not frivolous. Care you look forward to in the evening gets done more often than care you hurry through.

The flakes do not affect how the balm spreads or how it absorbs. The texture you feel comes from the oils and the floral waxes of jasmine and damask rose, not from the gold.

The working part of the night serum lies elsewhere: in bakuchiol, the vitamin C ester, gamma oryzanol and rare oils of maqui, Kakadu plum, cacay, pequi, cucumber and prickly pear. Gold and silver were the last thing to enter the formula, and the only thing that could leave it without changing what the product does.