Hands lie at the heart of the Hermes story. It is hands that painstakingly transform luxurious leathers into priceless handbags, or precious silks into coveted scarves. It is hands that assemble the saddles upon which Hermes built its name, or perform the intricate enamel work that adorns the maison’s cuff-like bracelets.
And for a house that started out in 1837 crafting harnesses for horses, and has paid tribute to its relationship with these majestic creatures ever since, the hands take on even greater symbolic value. For it is hands that guide the horse and act as a connecting point between animal and rider.
So it is only fitting that the latest launch from Hermes Beauty focuses on the hands. Le Mains Hermes is a holistic hand care range that includes a hand cream, a nourishing oil for the nails and cuticles, a protective base coat, a collection of 24 nail enamels, a top coat and a set of nail files.
“It was very obvious to us that the hands are an integral part of what we do, because hands are about craftsmanship, and objects are handmade at Hermes,” says Agnes de Villers, chief executive of Hermes Perfume & Beauty.
To create this latest offering, the team drew on the age-old expertise of several Hermes metiers – from silk and leather to enamel and ready-to-wear.
“Usually at Hermes, we say the answer is in the room, because we have a huge amount of things that we can draw on. For instance, we’ve got the whole colour palette from silk, with 75,000 colours to choose from, and we’ve got the colour palette from leather, which is 900 colours. And likewise for enamel, there are about 180 colours. So we decided to work on a kind of edit.”
The end result is 24 nail enamels that range in colour from Imperial yellow, a dominant feature of the brand’s clothing collections, to Violet Byzantin, which takes it cues from the leather metier, and Rouge H, a bold red that works as well on leather as it does for lipsticks, enamel and now nails.
For the nail care products, the team developed its own formulas in house, working with natural ingredients and securing Cosmos Natural certification from Ecocert.
For the cream, which carries a specially formulated scent of patchouli, sandalwood, arnica and rose water, the aim was to create something that was, above all else, efficient.
“This is why we chose a lot of powerful active ingredients,” explains Laurence Robbe Tomine, director of research and development at Hermes Perfume & Beauty.
“We’ve used white mulberry extract, which is drawn from roots that we grow with aeroponics, which allows us to have a renewable extract. What we didn’t want to do is pull the plant out of the ground and destroy it.
“It’s an active ingredient that smoothes out the skin. Hands are extremely exposed, especially in recent times, with all the sanitisers we are using. We used hyaluronic acid and its derivatives to improve moisturising and protection, and then Passiflora oil to repair the skin. We also have natural moss extract that is very good at protecting the skin from the environment, and to complete the formula we used an extract of precious mastic resin tears, which have a nourishing and hydrating effect on the nails.”
The quality of the hand cream hints at a move into skincare, although de Villers is careful to neither confirm nor deny that this is on the cards.
“It’s true that this hand care product has been developed to the same standard as if it were for the face,” she acknowledges. But it also builds on an ethos that has been integral since Hermes Beauty was launched last year with a line of lipsticks and, just as importantly, a lip balm, which has since proven to be a bestseller.
Beauty is more than skin deep at Hermes, a company that has long prided itself on imbuing aesthetics with substance.
“At Hermes, there is always a lot of depth to what we do, because we work with natural, raw materials and we glorify them, we transform them, and we have a lot of respects for materials. Whether it is leather or people’s skin, we know that colour always looks more beautiful when you put it on a material that has been properly cared for. For us, it was obvious that we couldn’t enter the world of beauty just with colour.”
Having only launched its beauty division in 2020, Hermes is, as de Villers acknowledges, pretty late to the game, especially when you consider that the maison has been around for nearly two centuries. But as with all other aspects of the business, it was happy to take its time getting it right, developing in-house expertise and a proposition that would set it apart.
“It is true that because we arrived very late to the beauty segment, we are pretty much the last of the luxury houses to have beauty ranges. For me, it’s a completely different journey because at Hermes we want to develop the metier inside the house and have our own specific know-how. So the challenge was to start from this blank page of paper and to realise that we have been around for some 200 years, but we needed to come up with a proposal for the beauty segment for the future.
“And that’s where the whole ethical, responsible side of things became a top priority. Because for us it is not conceivable to do what has always been done, we have to bring something new. Hence why, for the care products, we have also worked alongside experts to create the right natural formulas. This was extremely demanding and is brand new for the industry. Everybody is talking about it, of course, but it’s quite difficult to achieve.”
Beyond colour and care, there is the idea of gesture, and of objects that are beautiful in and of themselves.
“Everybody has their own little rituals and their own gestures that we make every single day, which we often inherit from previous generations. If these rituals can be performed with beautiful objects, they become like companions, and they speak to an art of living beauty. And these gestures that are essentially very simple become extraordinary, because of these precious objects.”
Like the brand’s lipstick cases and blush compartments before them, the nail products come in beautiful sculptural containers designed by Pierre Hardy, creative director of Hermes shoes and jewellery.
“What we’ve brought to the tables is these objects that you can just look at and enjoy, before you even start using them,” says de Villers.
“Pierre Hardy has this desire to work on sustainable objects – objects that will have a long-lasting life or have many different lives. That was important for us from the very beginning with the lipstick, to have an object that you could refill. Likewise, the case for the Rose Hermes blusher can be refilled. For the nail enamel, we have tried to use as little plastic as possible – we’ve used glass and metal, which can be recycled indefinitely.”
“At Hermes we believe we are both artists and craftspeople – two concepts that tie in with one another. Here, everyone is the craftsman of their own beauty.”
'The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure'
Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, Penguin Randomhouse
Rankings
ATP: 1. Novak Djokovic (SRB) 10,955 pts; 2. Rafael Nadal (ESP) 8,320; 3. Alexander Zverev (GER) 6,475 ( 1); 5. Juan Martin Del Potro (ARG) 5,060 ( 1); 6. Kevin Anderson (RSA) 4,845 ( 1); 6. Roger Federer (SUI) 4,600 (-3); 7. Kei Nishikori (JPN) 4,110 ( 2); 8. Dominic Thiem (AUT) 3,960; 9. John Isner (USA) 3,155 ( 1); 10. Marin Cilic (CRO) 3,140 (-3)
WTA: 1. Naomi Osaka (JPN) 7,030 pts ( 3); 2. Petra Kvitova (CZE) 6,290 ( 4); 3. Simona Halep (ROM) 5,582 (-2); 4. Sloane Stephens (USA) 5,307 ( 1); 5. Karolina Pliskova (CZE) 5,100 ( 3); 6. Angelique Kerber (GER) 4,965 (-4); 7. Elina Svitolina (UKR) 4,940; 8. Kiki Bertens (NED) 4,430 ( 1); 9. Caroline Wozniacki (DEN) 3,566 (-6); 10. Aryna Sabalenka (BLR) 3,485 ( 1)
Innotech Profile
Date started: 2013
Founder/CEO: Othman Al Mandhari
Based: Muscat, Oman
Sector: Additive manufacturing, 3D printing technologies
Size: 15 full-time employees
Stage: Seed stage and seeking Series A round of financing
Investors: Oman Technology Fund from 2017 to 2019, exited through an agreement with a new investor to secure new funding that it under negotiation right now.
MATCH INFO
Arsenal 1 (Aubameyang 12’) Liverpool 1 (Minamino 73’)
Arsenal win 5-4 on penalties
Man of the Match: Ainsley Maitland-Niles (Arsenal)
Scores
Day 2
New Zealand 153 & 56-1
Pakistan 227
New Zealand trail by 18 runs with nine wickets remaining
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN MARITIME DISPUTE
2000: Israel withdraws from Lebanon after nearly 30 years without an officially demarcated border. The UN establishes the Blue Line to act as the frontier.
2007: Lebanon and Cyprus define their respective exclusive economic zones to facilitate oil and gas exploration. Israel uses this to define its EEZ with Cyprus
2011: Lebanon disputes Israeli-proposed line and submits documents to UN showing different EEZ. Cyprus offers to mediate without much progress.
2018: Lebanon signs first offshore oil and gas licencing deal with consortium of France’s Total, Italy’s Eni and Russia’s Novatek.
2018-2019: US seeks to mediate between Israel and Lebanon to prevent clashes over oil and gas resources.
Company Profile
Founder: Omar Onsi
Launched: 2018
Employees: 35
Financing stage: Seed round ($12 million)
Investors: B&Y, Phoenician Funds, M1 Group, Shorooq Partners
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
Williams at Wimbledon
Venus Williams - 5 titles (2000, 2001, 2005, 2007 and 2008)
Serena Williams - 7 titles (2002, 2003, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2016)
Profile Periscope Media
Founder: Smeetha Ghosh, one co-founder (anonymous)
Launch year: 2020
Employees: four – plans to add another 10 by July 2021
Financing stage: $250,000 bootstrap funding, approaching VC firms this year
Investors: Co-founders
WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
The specs
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Transmission: ten-speed
Power: 420bhp
Torque: 624Nm
Price: Dh325,125
On sale: Now
Timeline
1947
Ferrari’s road-car company is formed and its first badged car, the 125 S, rolls off the assembly line
1962
250 GTO is unveiled
1969
Fiat becomes a Ferrari shareholder, acquiring 50 per cent of the company
1972
The Fiorano circuit, Ferrari’s racetrack for development and testing, opens
1976
First automatic Ferrari, the 400 Automatic, is made
1987
F40 launched
1988
Enzo Ferrari dies; Fiat expands its stake in the company to 90 per cent
2002
The Enzo model is announced
2010
Ferrari World opens in Abu Dhabi
2011
First four-wheel drive Ferrari, the FF, is unveiled
2013
LaFerrari, the first Ferrari hybrid, arrives
2014
Fiat Chrysler announces the split of Ferrari from the parent company
2015
Ferrari launches on Wall Street
2017
812 Superfast unveiled; Ferrari celebrates its 70th anniversary
Winners
Best Men's Player of the Year: Kylian Mbappe (PSG)
Maradona Award for Best Goal Scorer of the Year: Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich)
TikTok Fans’ Player of the Year: Robert Lewandowski
Top Goal Scorer of All Time: Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United)
Best Women's Player of the Year: Alexia Putellas (Barcelona)
Best Men's Club of the Year: Chelsea
Best Women's Club of the Year: Barcelona
Best Defender of the Year: Leonardo Bonucci (Juventus/Italy)
Best Goalkeeper of the Year: Gianluigi Donnarumma (PSG/Italy)
Best Coach of the Year: Roberto Mancini (Italy)
Best National Team of the Year: Italy
Best Agent of the Year: Federico Pastorello
Best Sporting Director of the Year: Txiki Begiristain (Manchester City)
Player Career Award: Ronaldinho
How to apply for a drone permit
- Individuals must register on UAE Drone app or website using their UAE Pass
- Add all their personal details, including name, nationality, passport number, Emiratis ID, email and phone number
- Upload the training certificate from a centre accredited by the GCAA
- Submit their request
What are the regulations?
- Fly it within visual line of sight
- Never over populated areas
- Ensure maximum flying height of 400 feet (122 metres) above ground level is not crossed
- Users must avoid flying over restricted areas listed on the UAE Drone app
- Only fly the drone during the day, and never at night
- Should have a live feed of the drone flight
- Drones must weigh 5 kg or less
Janet Yellen's Firsts
- In 2014, she became the first woman to lead the US Federal Reserve
- In 1999, she became the first female chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers
Not Dark Yet
Shelby Lynne and Allison Moorer
Four stars
MATCH DETAILS
Chelsea 4
Jorginho (4 pen, 71 pen), Azpilicueta (63), James (74)
Ajax 4
Abraham (2 og), Promes (20). Kepa (35 og), van de Beek (55)
PREMIER LEAGUE RESULTS
Bournemouth 1 Manchester City 2
Watford 0 Brighton and Hove Albion 0
Newcastle United 3 West Ham United 0
Huddersfield Town 0 Southampton 0
Crystal Palace 0 Swansea City 2
Manchester United 2 Leicester City 0
West Bromwich Albion 1 Stoke City 1
Chelsea 2 Everton 0
Tottenham Hotspur 1 Burnley 1
Liverpool 4 Arsenal 0
Keep it fun and engaging
Stuart Ritchie, director of wealth advice at AES International, says children cannot learn something overnight, so it helps to have a fun routine that keeps them engaged and interested.
“I explain to my daughter that the money I draw from an ATM or the money on my bank card doesn’t just magically appear – it’s money I have earned from my job. I show her how this works by giving her little chores around the house so she can earn pocket money,” says Mr Ritchie.
His daughter is allowed to spend half of her pocket money, while the other half goes into a bank account. When this money hits a certain milestone, Mr Ritchie rewards his daughter with a small lump sum.
He also recommends books that teach the importance of money management for children, such as The Squirrel Manifesto by Ric Edelman and Jean Edelman.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Joker: Folie a Deux
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson
Director: Todd Phillips
Rating: 2/5
HIJRA
Starring: Lamar Faden, Khairiah Nathmy, Nawaf Al-Dhufairy
Director: Shahad Ameen
Rating: 3/5
