Of all the luxurious skincare products we have sampled at WAG, few have been more sumptuous than Valmont’s L’Elixir des Glaciers line. Its scent, sweet but not cloying, is intoxicating, while its texture is rich but supple.
The line began 20 years ago with its Précieux skincare and cosmetic products for smoothing and beautifying the skin, made from Valmont’s triple patented salmon DNA as well as the glacial waters and rare plants of Switzerland — where the company is based in Morges, a city on Lake Geneva. Valmont followed up with its Majestuex products, designed to nourish and repair the skin using a beehive of ingredients — honey, propolis and royal jelly.
Now as the company looks to make L’Elixir a standalone brand — the way La Mer is independent of Estée Lauder, Valmont CEO Sophie Vann Guillon said in a recent Zoom meeting from Valmont’s headquarters — it has introduced its most luxe collection to date, Essence of Gold Sturgeon, using the minerals magnesium, manganese and selenium, along with DNA from the milt, or semen, of three species of sturgeon — the diamond, Siberian and white sturgeons.
The sturgeon is a fish that dates from roughly 30 million years ago, with some 24 species today. Since 2010, they have been protected and the males are rare, so the only way to acquire sturgeon milt is by breeding the fish. L’Elixir des Glaciers partners with a sturgeon farm in the Dordogne region of southwest France that breeds the fish “sustainably and ethically,” the company’s press materials state.
There is, however, nothing “fishy” about the resulting products Fluide Merveilleux and Crème Merveilleuse. With woody/floral base notes of rose, cedar and lily of the valley powdered by vanilla and amber, the products have a heavenly scent that foreshadows a texture that lies between a serum and a cream. (Indeed, you can use Fluide Merveilleux before you apply your serum or in place of it.)
Use both morning and night, lightly massaging them into the face and neck to add radiance to the skin.
All this marvelousness comes with a hefty price tag — $360 for Fluide Merveilleux and $1,000 for Crème Merveilleuse. But Valmont is betting that for a thousand bucks you’ll feel and look like a million.
L’Elixir des Glaciers’ Essence of Gold Sturgeon, is available April 4 at lamaisonvalmont.com.
