Tom Ford Wants Skin Care to Be Stimulating

“You can’t trust a dermatologist who says you have to come in for Botox every three months,” Tom Ford declares on an early summer morning in Los Angeles, referring to his staunchly held belief that it’s required only every eight. “I need to be able to move my face!” insists the designer, who has been interested in skin care since, as a teenager, he watched the legendary talk-show host Merv Griffin discuss his collagen injections on air. Ford has other strong feelings about the state of beauty. Bewilderment at these “pumped-up butt implants”; curiosity about how one can be aroused by breasts that are essentially “two bags of saline”; and a blunt meditation on hyper-manicured eyebrows: “Personally, I find it a little frightening,” the 57-year-old says, sipping a half-decaf, half-caf iced coffee out of a matte black travel mug with a matching straw—one of four he’ll consume that day.

A work-obsessed vegan who doesn’t drink or smoke, Ford is fueled largely by caffeine. “You need caffeine as a stimulant—it wakes you up,” he explains, detailing the hero ingredient around which he has developed his first skin-care line, Tom Ford Research. “It’s a stimulant for your face in the same way that it is for your body.” The fashion luminary turned Oscar-nominated filmmaker turned beauty mogul is something of a poster boy for constant stimulation, a multitasker nonpareil who recently added chairman of the CFDA to his illustrious list of titles. Debuting a range of complexion products, however, was not a process he rushed. “I’m not impressed by the creams and serums on the luxury market,” he says with his signature blend of candor and politesse. “So I thought, Why can’t someone combine a prescription-level product with the delivery system of a luxury one?”

Years ago, a dermatologist suggested Ford depuff his eyes by pressing wet tea bags over the lids. “It’s an amazing old trick,” he confirms. So he asked a team of scientists at Estée Lauder, which produces his popular makeup brand, to figure out exactly how the magic happened. For three years, they investigated, testing 75 caffeine-focused skin-care formulations and eventually publishing research with the American Academy of Dermatology in 2018 that explores how caffeine increases energy on a cellular and molecular level, which can have an effect on skin brightness and hydration.

Using the same discernment with which he pinpoints wrinkles (he has very few), Ford’s edited two-piece skin-care line—a fast-absorbing Serum and rich Crème Concentrate, out this month—was formulated with potent and highly scrutinized ingredients: Pure caffeine is combined with a rare strain of Peruvian white porcelain cacao that contains polyphenols, the compound that defends the skin against free-radical damage, and a prized Japanese green tea. “What we’re actually doing is accelerating cell turnover—not just on the surface but on a deeper level,” the designer explains, throwing out words like “glycolic acid,” an exfoliating ingredient in the serum, and “hyaluronic acid,” a hydrating ingredient in the cream, like a seasoned pro. “The cream also has the highest level of retinol possible that doesn’t make your skin turn red,” Ford reveals of the collagen and elastin building powerhouse.

He uses the cream daily after cleansing and before applying Tom Ford Men’s Bronzing Gel atop an SPF 30 he is currently developing to round out the line, which is proudly unisex. “There are cultures now where men are not even remotely ashamed of wearing makeup,” notes Ford, whose line of men’s eyebrow gels, concealers, and his signature bronzer predates the current cachet for gender-fluid marketing. Good skin, he suggests, is just good skin. And who doesn’t want that?

Originally Appeared on Vogue