Plant Doctor

Olivia ChantecaillePhoto: Michael Murphree

Leave it to Olivia Chantecaille,who hails from a family of cosmetic innovators, to come up with “plant Botox.” It’s in her new Biodynamic Lifting Cream, set to hit stores in January, and it contains something called phyto hexapeptide, which the maker claims “releases facial contractions” and also prevents future wrinkles by “acting on the ‘message of contraction.’ ” (A message we’re just as happy not to receive.) The eldest daughter of Sylvie Chantecaille—who, at Estée Lauder, was the first to develop foundations for different races—Olivia grew up surrounded by makeup. “I was always coloring with product samples,” she says, “and my mother would be like, ‘Those are lab samples!’ ” So it’s no surprise that when Chantecaille mère decided to strike out on her own, she asked Olivia, now 30, to join her. Eight years since its inception, their line includes all sorts of color (this season’s new shades include “Olivia in Bangkok”), perfume, and a range of facial washes and moisturizers. But about that organic Botox … how, exactly, does it work again? Olivia wipes a bit of the cream on her hand. “It plumps,” she says gnomically. “It’s just charged with energy!”

Plant Doctor