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Your first car probably cost a few thousand dollars, had a tape deck, and smelled faintly of french fries. It got you everywhere.
These face creams cost about the same, come in jars the size of a hockey puck, and get you exactly nowhere. But they do it with such a glow.
We ranked the most expensive face creams in the world not by price, not by science, but by glow: how radiant you will look, and how radiant you will feel telling people what you paid. Every one of them is rated the same: Necessity: 0%.
The Ranking
1. The One Made With Platinum
La Prairie Platinum Rare Haute-Rejuvenation Protocol $2,310
La Prairie’s Platinum Rare line is made with platinum. The metal. It is not technically a cream, it is a “protocol,” which is what skincare calls itself once it costs more than a used Honda Civic did in 1998.
Necessity: 0%
Verdict: Your face is now worth more per ounce than your jewelry.
2. The One the Physicist Made
La Mer Crème de la Mer Moisturizer $3,030
An aerospace physicist spent 12 years perfecting this after a lab accident burned his face. This is the 16.5-ounce jar, which is technically the most expensive thing on the list. It ranks second because you will never, ever finish it.
Necessity: 0%
Verdict: Face cream priced like rent. Your face is the tenant.
3. The One Made With Actual Gold
La Prairie Pure Gold Radiance Cream $1,010
A face cream made with real gold, in a gold jar, from the same brand that made the platinum one. La Prairie has clearly decided the periodic table is a shopping list.
Necessity: 0%
Verdict: The glow is real. So is the invoice.
4. The Key to the Skin
Clé de Peau Beauté La Crème $870
Shiseido’s most luxurious line. The name is French for “key to the skin.” At this price, a locksmith would be cheaper.
Necessity: 0%
Verdict: One tiny jar. One tiny spatula. One very large number.
5. The Aristocrat
Sisley Paris Sisleÿa L’Intégral Anti-Age Cream $700
Sisley is a family-owned French house founded in 1976 by Count Hubert d’Ornano. Yes, an actual count. This is also the one most likely to end up in a man’s dopp kit, where it will be described as “just lotion.”
Necessity: 0%
Verdict: Aristocratic moisturizer. Your pores will start calling you “madame.” His will start calling him “sir.”
6. The One Your Husband Keeps “Borrowing”
Augustinus Bader The Rich Cream 100ml $565
Created by a German stem-cell scientist best known for research on healing burns. It is the rare luxury cream men will use without being asked, mostly because the bottle looks like it came from a lab.
Necessity: 0%
Verdict: Buy two. You will not get the first one back.
7. The Rose Garden
Dior Prestige La Crème Texture Essentielle $480
Built around the Rose de Granville, grown in Dior’s own gardens in Granville, Normandy, the town where Christian Dior grew up.
Necessity: 0%
Verdict: A rose garden in a jar. The garden is still not in your name.
8. The Caviar You Don’t Eat
La Prairie Skin Caviar Luxe Cream $385
Made with caviar extract, which means somewhere a sturgeon is very confused about where its eggs went. La Prairie’s third appearance on this list. They are not sorry.
Necessity: 0%
Verdict: Caviar on your face instead of a blini. Both are a choice.
The Gauche on a Budget Version
The Blue Tin
Nivea Creme 13.5 oz $13.37
The blue tin has been around since 1911. Thirteen and a half ounces of it costs less than a single scoop of anything above. Dermatologists love it. Grandmothers swear by it. It has never once called itself a protocol.
Necessity: 0%
Verdict: Your grandmother used it. Your grandmother looked great.
The Bottom Line
Every cream on this list moisturizes your face. So does the $13 one. The difference is that the expensive ones also moisturize your sense of self, and that, frankly, is priceless. Except it isn’t. It’s $3,030.
For more things that cost too much and do too little, see Things You Can Buy in Gold, or keep it sensible with Gauche on a Budget.
Prices and availability are as reported by the linked retailers and may have changed. The Gauche’s first car did not have a tape deck. It had a cassette adapter.
