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Beauty
Pudderdåserne jumps on the Vitamin C bandwagon — and explains what’s behind it
This lightweight cream with a special type of the popular ingredient is also locally produced, co-founder Helene Randløv explains in a rather unusually transparent way.
By JOHAN MAGNUSSON
6 Sep 2023

Helene Randløv and Katja Moikjær have run Denmark’s leading skincare blog Pudderdåserne for many years, guiding their readers in the jungle of beauty launches.

— The blog started out with me using 21 products daily — one cream for my nose, one for my eyes, another for the decolletage, one for the lips, and more, Randløv remembers. It was so extensive, and insane. At one point, I was brushing my teeth and looking at the my products — when I had to put them back, they all fell, and I asked myself: ’Do I really need all of this?’ Now, if people ask us what they need, it’s three products and that’s it.

In a respond to the mentioned bathroom shelter, the duo founded their own skincare brand, carrying the same name as the blog, and focusing on delivering maximum effect with selective ingredients. ’Not overdoing it’, as Randløv puts it.

— We started out with five products, a cleansing product that is still our most recommended today. We also launched two peeling products, BHA and AHA, plus an anti-age cream — I hate the term but that’s what it’s called — and a hydration cream. That was it. Then, when you start adding products, you just want more and more, because there are new ingredients, new science, and new trials released. You also find new ways of using things with better and often milder versions.

— It was very important for us to launch our latest release, Acealic Acid. It’s the most common problem for young and also older women today, and so many suffer very badly from perioral dermatitis. You usually get it when you have used too many products, destroying your skin barrier, and it really, really hurts their self-esteem. I’ve never had deep issues with my skin and it has really surprised me how affected people actually get.

In an otherwise secretive sector, Pudderdåserne has always been open with their partners, formulators, and manufacturers.

— There are so many places where you can have your production. In Denmark, I think it’s two or three places. We have always been open about who our manufacturer is. We are proud of it. It’s Danish and we have a very close relationship. We chose them, but they chose us as well, say Randløv.

This week, Pudderdåserne launches Vitamin C + TXA, working against hyperpigmentation. 

— We wanted a special kind of Vitamin C, a stabilised one. It’s a tad better than the other ones on hyperpigmentation and is for post-traumatic pigmentation from acne and works on scarring issues and redness. It’s quite light as all our products and also gives glow. We have tested it with some of our readers and they were really happy — it’s shown some amazing results. It’s a lightweight cream and we pick creamy products over thin serums. It’s not about efficiency but people tend to use it better when it’s thicker consistency.

— Vitamin C is the one product we’ve gotten the most requests to do. It’s really difficult, at least in Denmark, to find efficient products without perfume. Brands might say they are fragrance-free, but then they have a lot of lemon peel oil with Vitamin C… If you don’t tolerate perfume, you don’t tolerate perfume.

What’s the reason behind this rise of Vitamin C in the last few years?

— Because glow is such a big thing, says Randløv. And AHA acids can be quite harsh, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing, and since it’s gotten much more accessible, people have really, really bad reactions. We see that all the time when I answer our customers and readers. It’s also very interesting to see what they struggle with and what they seek in their regimen. Most women actually don’t want that much. But, they feel that they need a lot, just because they’ve passed 40. And then, there’s the other group that never did anything and now wants to start doing something but it’s so overwhelming because the market is just so many beauty products and it all sounds like you need all of them.

What’s your next step? And which ingredients are you looking for now?

— We want to update our anti-age cream. Now, there are a lot of very interesting peptides and oligopeptides, a kind of EGF-like ingredient that is accessible now, which it wasn’t in the beginning, so that’s what we are trying. On our to-do is also intimate care. We are very much into figuring out how to formulate it with probiotics. That’s something we believe a lot in but it’s difficult because it can’t be wet. We always have a list of things we want to do — including those that we haven’t even started formulating but just collecting knowledge about.