First introduced back in 1926, Weleda’s original Skin Food product was made using a blend of chamomile, calendula, rosemary and viola tricolor – a formulation that has not been changed since, despite various visual iterations since its inception.

“It’s a gorgeous Weleda story in a tube,” said Jayn Sterland, Country Manager UK & Ireland at Weleda. “It hasn’t changed because everybody overlooked it; because it wasn’t really face, wasn’t really body, you can use it anywhere. It was just known as skin cream in Germany,” Sterland told Premium Beauty News.

And today, the product still serves an array of uses – as a daytime or overnight face moisturiser, a primer, a hand cream, a body cream–because the formulation is “ultra moisturising” and offers good “skin protection”, she said.

Over the years, Weleda has launched a number of iterations and formats targeting specific uses, such as a night cream, shower cream, body lotion, body oil, lip cream and even face serum, and the brand will continue to invest new product development in the coming years, the executive said.

Skin health: Protection and perfection

Most recently, Weleda launched an eye cream variant and the company is currently developing a hand wash and hand lotion range, set to launch across the UK and Ireland in Q1 of 2026 following trials, Sterland said.

And over the next five years, she said there will be even more to come from Skin Food. “We’re doing some work with some leading makeup artists at the moment, to see what products they really want,” she said. “You don’t tend to think about makeup artists as experts in skin, but first and foremost, they are skin experts; they perfect skin.” Interestingly, since the switch to HD, perfecting skin has become even more important for those working in the television, film, fashion, makeup, or advertising industries, she said, and this is an area Weleda is delving into more carefully.

Sterland said the company is also exploring opportunities around products targeting certain skin conditions, like acne, rosacia, eczema and psoriasis – longer-term innovation work set to come to fruition over the next 5-10 years. “Weleda was originally a pharmaceutical company and the active ingredients in Skin Food are traditional herbs. The question is: can we extend Skin Food into these areas?” A lot, she said, will depend on claims the company is able to make in each market. “You have to make sure your claims are robust and legal.”

Looking at UV protection is another area, and challenge, Weleda continues to invest R&D time in too, Sterland said, though finalising formulas and products is “just not there yet”.

Packaging innovation: Back to aluminium

Beyond the formula, Weleda also recently took an important step in packaging – reverting back to Skin Food’s original aluminium tubes, only this time using 100% recycled material.

The brand had experimented with post-consumer waste recycled plastic for a few years as a temporary fix to environmental footprint concerns, but has now been able to revert back to its flagship tube look and feel.

“It’s a huge effort to do this globally,” said Sterland. “But now we can use recycled aluminium, it has a stronger sustainability story.”

Looking ahead, the shift back to recycled aluminium will be an opportunity for the Skin Food brand globally as the rollout continues, she said.

The brand has a huge importance for Weleda worldwide. “Globally, [Skin Food] is about 20% of our turnover – it’s a huge franchise,” Sterland said. The brand has significant traction in “Anglo-Saxon markets”, she said, with the largest markets today being the US, UK and Australia, with a significant presence in Japan and wider Southeast Asia as well.

As interest in the brand continues to pick up online, particularly amongst younger consumers on social media platforms like TikTok, the executive said growth would likely continue for the 100-year-old brand for years to come. “The social media phenomenon has been absolutely essential to introduce us to Gen Zs and Gen Alphas. They don’t shop in-store particularly; they shop online, they follow influencers, they follow trends. And that’s where they get it.”