PARIS — Darphin Paris has named Olivia Szmidt its first global facialist in residence.
She has been signed on to conceive protocols with the brand that involve manual and noninvasive face-lifting techniques using Darphin products.
Her appointment comes as the Estée Lauder Cos.-owned brand mines its roots while paving the way for the future.
Pierre Darphin founded his namesake brand in 1958, in Paris, based on two pillars. One was kinesitherapy, which is a set of manual techniques combining massage and movements to help sculpt the face. That’s done by promoting the activation of blood circulation, reviving muscle movement and toning texture.
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“Pierre Darphin was a pioneer in this field,” said Pierre-Olivier Garcin, senior vice president, general manager of Darphin Paris and Lab Series. “He got his diploma in 1952, so six years before creating his brand, from the French Ministry of Public Health.”
Garcin called Darphin “the original facialist.”
“The second pillar for Darphin Paris is the formulation,” Garcin continued. “Pierre Darphin was deeply interested in how to maximize the effect of [cosmetics active] ingredients by delivering the exact quantity of ingredients where they are the most efficient. That’s what we call the delivery systems.”
Each Darphin delivery system is unique and patented.
“Fast forward to today, and Darphin Paris still upholds these two pillars,” said Garcin, adding when kinesitherapy is used with the right products, the technique is able to bolster skin radiance, strength and lifting. “It can really empower each of our formulas. So that’s why we’re announcing today this facialist in residence. It is to revive our kinesitherapy heritage that was the signature of Pierre Darphin.”
It’s a signature of Szmidt, as well.
“To me, the hand is the most innovative and powerful technology that has ever existed, and I believe the work Darphin Paris and I will undertake together is precisely what the founder Pierre Darphin would have envisioned to carry his expertise into the next century,” Szmidt said in a statement.
“Olivia is an expert in deep muscle stimulation,” Garcin said.
She is the founder of Get Face Fit, a massage academy.
“It was really a match made in heaven,” Garcin said. “We want to collaborate with Olivia to develop new protocols that will be exclusive to the brand, and that will blend our manual and noninvasive face-lifting techniques in combination with Darphin’s high-performance skin care formulas.”
The aim, he explained, is to achieve transformative skin results.
The tie-in with Szmidt allows Darphin Paris to reintroduce its founder’s pioneering work to today’s consumer in a relevant and not-too-serious manner, according to Garcin.
The massage techniques created with Szmidt are to be introduced at the end of November on Darphin’s social media platforms.
“We’re also launching a new [global] education platform, called the Face Etiquette by Darphin,” Garcin said. That is to include information on the massage protocol and will launch on Darphin’s e-commerce sites worldwide in January.
The massage protocol will roll out to Darphin institutes in South Korea and the brand’s treatment rooms in European department stores in the first half of 2024.
“I firmly believe that knowledge is power,” Szmidt said. “Understanding your inner self, how skin tissues, muscles and cells are all interconnected and can be stimulated to unlock visible youth — that’s true power, and it’s something I want to share with all women.”
Darphin Paris’ largest markets are Europe and China, where its recently launched Éclat Sublime serum is the brand’s bestselling product.
Lauder acquired the brand in 2003.
