The ‘Miracle Cream’ Victoria Beckham Swears by Is on Sale

The most raved-about secret in beauty this year wasn’t a magic facialist or a Real Housewife–lauded injection—it was Augustinus Bader The Cream, an unassuming moisturizer made by a 60-year-old German scientist who’d never worked in the industry, let alone had an Instagram following. And yet despite having none of the traditional resources that make a beauty brand an overnight success—like paid celebrity spokespeople, million-dollar ad campaigns, or millennial-pink packaging—Augustinus Bader became a sleeper hit purely through word of mouth.

In the two years since it launched, AB’s “miracle cream” has gotten accolades from Ashley Graham, Kate Bosworth, and Victoria Beckham (who’s since launched a moisturizing primer with the brand). Glamour even gave it a Beauty Award for Best Moisturizer, a highly competitive category, as you can surely imagine. So before I even uncapped the weighty blue-and-copper tube of its famed Cream, which costs a cool $265 for 50 ml, I was basically set to fall in love with it—price tag be damned.

But the only kind of hype I pay real attention to is beauty-editor hype; if my product-inundated colleagues are raving about it, I figure it has to stand out from the pack. And for weeks every single editor I knew had told me about the cream in a tone I can only describe as reverent. I was ready to experience my own Bader-sparked miracle.

Augustinus Bader The Cream

Bizarrely, I didn’t immediately fall head over heels for it (don’t worry, a second plot twist will follow shortly). Sure, it was a good face cream. The light texture absorbed quickly and my skin looked decent, but it didn’t exactly wow me. I felt like a thin layer just wasn’t doing much in the moisturizing department—which, apparently, I later learned, isn’t even what The Cream claims to do. It’s more of an overall skin rejuvenator; the brand also sells a Rich Cream for dry skin, with additions like avocado and argan oil to aid with extra hydration. But I began with the original, thinking it’d be enough.

In order to get maximum effectiveness from the active ingredients, I did what a few other friends and makeup artists had advised and skipped all other products, except face wash. The Bader formula is based on TFC8 (Trigger Factor Complex 8), a proprietary cocktail of more than 40 different ingredients, including vitamins and amino acids. It’s meant to encourage regeneration and healing—Professor Bader actually discovered the formula while looking for solutions to help burn survivors heal quicker—and TFC8 is supposed to activate your stem cells, which go to work to repair fine lines, dark spots, and visible pores. I had heard that the ingredients within were enough to replace all other skin care, so I devoted myself to a one-step kind of lifestyle and waited for my skin to start looking like I had just walked out of a spa. And then I waited some more….

“I don’t understand why I’m not being blown away by AB, is something wrong with me?!” I texted a friend. Such was my level of confusion in the face of everyone else’s level of obsession. “I love it,” she told me, delicately choosing not to answer the second part of my question. Something was clearly wrong with me.

I needed to rethink my strategy. In hindsight, after my skin was so used to being sandwiched in so many layers—I was very much an 11-step-skin-care kind of person—it stands to reason that it wouldn’t take kindly to a single-step makeover. After further research, I learned that there was really no need for me to ditch my other products completely. The Augustinus Bader creams are formulated to target a lot of things: fine lines, wrinkles, dehydration, redness, loss of elasticity, and pore size. Theoretically, you can use them alone, as an all-in-one. But the only important part is that TFC8 touches your face first so it can penetrate. What you add on top is entirely up to you.