Beauty: The Ordinary range of skincare

It’s unlike me to devote a column to one brand, but in this case I feel it’s entirely warranted. The Ordinary range of skincare seems, to me at least, to be based on the concept of generic pharma. This is an industry that, after a drug company’s legal monopoly on its expensive medicine expires, produces generic drugs using the original recipe, minus any marketing frills, and sells it at a much lower price (hence paracetamol at 19p a pack), saving consumers and the health service fortunes on what is essentially the same product. What we have in The Ordinary is a cosmetic skincare company, namely Deciem, that follows similar principles by stripping back unnecessary scent, packaging and fancy-sounding but unproven ingredients, leaving behind only the things that acutally work – active ingredients such as retinol (anti-wrinkle), vitamin C (brightening), hyaluronic acid (plumping, hydrating) and zinc (anti-inflammatory) – and flogging each product for less than a tenner.

After three weeks of using the products pretty diligently, it’s still too soon to review the efficacy of any of them, except perhaps the Hyaluronic Acid 2% + B5 serum (£5.90), which works instantaneously and well, but isn’t quite humectant enough for my taste. (If you’re a user of Vichy’s Aqualia Thermal or Clarins HydraQuench, for example, you may find this lacking in slip). But the level of actives is clinically sound, so there’s no reason they shouldn’t work: vitamin C, for example, is proven beneficial only in concentrations of 20% and above, a fact ignored by many brands, which use its stingy inclusion as a selling point. In Vitamin C Suspension, it’s clearly labelled as 23% and sold for only £4.90.

I can also say, much to my surprise, that unlike with so much of Deciem’s output, I do like the textures. The gloopy, silicone-heavy consistency of many of the products is mercifully dialled down in this range. Buffet Serum (£12.90, the collection’s highest price point) is a tad sticky (normal in a peptide serum), but plumps, smooths and doesn’t interfere with makeup application. Overall, The Ordinary is a solid range, and I’m not surprised it’s causing such a stir in the beauty industry. What it perhaps lacks in luxury and elegance, it delivers in transparency, realism and affordability. I can’t help thinking this is how all modern skincare should be sold.