Sunday Riley: Why Everyone Is So Obsessed with the Skin-Care Brand Right Now

The other night, I was out to dinner with a friend. We'll call her Brittany. While I was busy stealing handfuls of crispy fries off her plate, she waxed poetic about the skin-care brand Sunday Riley. "I love Sunday Riley,” she said. "I’m a sucker for the packaging. It makes it less scary."

“What do you mean?”

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"So retinol is an intimidating ingredient," explained Brittany, trying to get a fry for herself. Retinol is an intimidating ingredient, since if it’s not used correctly, the vitamin A derivative is as good at making your skin red and raw as it is at boosting collagen. "When I see a clinical retinol tube, I think, 'Ooh, my face is literally going to flake off.' But when you offer it as blue oil and give it a fun name like Luna, I want it." (I know. Our conversations are riveting.)

She was talking about Sunday Riley’s Luna Sleeping Night Oil, a potent treatment that’s a rich, inky blue. (It gets that color from an anti-inflammatory ingredient called blue tansy oil. If you’re curious, we did a little investigating on it last year.) And Brittany wasn't kidding: The bottle is as far as you can get from the sometimes fugly, super-functional packaging of certain skin-care products. The font, minimalist and sophisticated. The name, whimsical! The formula itself, packed with retinol to smooth skin and boost collagen.

Last but not least: The price. It's as high as you might think. (A one ounce bottle of the Luna oil retails for $105, which means you’d better not drop any on your bathroom counter, or drizzle any on the front of your shirt.) But this doesn’t stop fans from hoarding bottles by the Houston-based brand. “You pay for what you get,” says Brandy, a makeup artist from Ridgefield, CT. In addition to Luna, she owns Good Genes All-in-One Lactic Acid Treatment, Tidal Brightening Enzyme Water Cream, Blue Moon Tranquility Cleansing Balm, and U.F.O. Ultra-Clarifying Face Oil. If you’re counting, this regimen clocks in at $405 for a total of five full-size products. It’s worth every penny to Brandy. "I used to wear so much foundation because I hated my large pores and dark spots," she says. "Sunday Riley has given me back my confidence. I don’t know what I would do without it."

Before you weep into your wallet, know that the cost is high for good reason. Sunday Riley herself is a trained chemist, and after working to formulate skin-care products for several years, she became jaded with the ineffective formulations. "People are very frustrated with skin care,” Riley tells Allure. "There’s disdain and a lack of distrust about products." So she took matters into her own hands, developing formulas that only included high-quality actives—which, naturally, come at a price. The reason that Sunday Riley products don’t cost even more is because of Riley. "We have an unlimited research and development budget because I’m the formulator, and I do it for free,” she explains. Keeping the products at an affordable level is a priority for her—and even though $100 a pop may seem like a splurge, some skin-care products can cost a month’s rent. (See: The $1,400 face cream infused with your own blood.) "I’m not into aspirational luxury," she says. "I think a lot of luxury skincare brands are very glossy and about buying into the brand, and we’re the opposite of that. We’re selling something that works."

Riley knew she was onto something when, in 2009 (the year she launched the brand), Barneys New York showed interest in the line before it was even an IRL brand. "We went in, presented a concept, and they took it," Riley recalls. She only had a few prototypes—one of which was Good Genes—on hand for the line, which at that point had no name. The lead buyer insisted that Riley use her own name, but she was hesitant. "When something has your name, it stands for who you are so you can’t hide behind anything,” says Riley. "That’s a direct reflection of me. It kind of mortified me at first." But, you know: Barneys. So the name stuck.

Seems like a dreamy start, right? (It was.) But despite the real estate in Barneys locations in New York, Chicago, and Beverly Hills, the brand didn’t have a giant budget for advertising. The solution: social media. "We put products in the hands of social influencers," says Riley. She didn't stop at the Hudas and Deepicas of the world. (Both are big fans.) She found that sharing product samples with smaller fish—think those with a few hundred followers, tops—still made an impact. "They tell their friends, and that’s very powerful." Brandy received the Luna oil as a gift from a client. And Samya, a 35-year-old publicist based in San Diego, has converted her friends. "Two other friends of mine use it, too," she says. "Whenever any of us knows about a new Sunday Riley product, we’ll text each other about it."

Another part of the equation is that Riley is unflinching in her commitment to making the best and nothing but the best. So if something isn’t working or she thinks she could do better, it’s out. That’s why you can find Sunday Riley eye shadows on resale websites, but nowhere in legit retailers. In 2011, the brand launched a huge array of cosmetics, from mascara to foundation to pressed powder. "The only thing we were missing was eyeliner," she adds. But Riley found that the extension diluted the brand’s focus on skin care and never gained traction with their clientele. After two years, she made the decision to pull it off the shelves. "I’m not sentimental,” says Riley. "I only want the best available to people."

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More on Sunday Riley:

1. The Sunday Riley C.E.O. Protect + Repair Moisturizer Will Be Your New Favorite Winter Cream
2. This Allure Editor Swears By Sunday Riley's Eye Cream
3. This Clay Cleanser by Sunday Riley Is Great for Dry Skin Types

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Of course, Riley still gets people searching for their beloved pressed powders. But her hardball approach guarantees that what is still available meets her sky-high standards. So she relies on her friends and families to test-drive products. "If enough people say it doesn’t work, it’s like, 'Let's go back to the drawing board on that one,'" she says. She recounts how for an upcoming vitamin C serum, one friend asked her to make it even stronger. So she did—and she loved it.

If you’re a Sunday Riley diehard, you might guess that this vitamin C serum in question is part of a large, vitamin C-focused collection. You’d be right. The new Sunday Riley C.E.O. Protect + Repair Moisturizer is just the first to debut and, like last year’s Martian Mattifying Melting Water-Gel Toner, is bound to be a bestseller. And if you loved Sunday Riley’s short-lived makeup line, we’ll leave you with this: While Riley is focusing on skin-care launches in the immediate future, she sees the brand eventually growing into something bigger. When it does, we’ll be there.

Now, find out how to treat your skin in your 30s: