If you’re familiar with Charlotte Tilbury and her eponymous make-up brand, you probably know it all started with Magic Cream – the little jar she mixed up backstage between fashion shows with the words “Charlotte’s Secret Cream” scribbled on it, the one models raved about for saving their skin amid constant make-up applications and removals, over and over.
“I created it to repair the skin barrier, before skin barriers were a thing,” she tells The Irish Times. “With celebrities and models, we were doing 40 fashion shows a season – they were using baby wipes, darling. Their skin was so red, so inflamed. So much make-up was going on and off. That’s why I created it, because it repairs, hydrates, adds a dewy glow. It immediately plumps out and smooths the skin. It’s like magic, which is why I called it Magic Cream.”
When the product first went on sale, not everyone was convinced. “People said to me, ‘It’s a bit of a thick cream. This is not really what people want.’ And I thought, I don’t care,” she says. “They didn’t understand what I meant by glow either. ‘Why are you talking about glow?’ they would say. I definitely had some naysayers, but I knew what I was doing.”
Magic Cream isn’t a secret any more. It’s a global phenomenon. According to the brand, one pot is sold every two minutes worldwide, and it has since spawned an entire “Magic” family, including Magic Serum, Magic Night Cream and other iterations.
A few months ago, the brand announced it was reformulating Magic Cream. Why reformulate something so beloved? It’s a risky move.
Look at Givenchy’s Prisme Libre Loose Powder – a hero product for the house – reformulated in 2024 to improve the finish and remove the talc (an ingredient many brands have moved away from, primarily over concerns about asbestos contamination). The packaging remained much the same, but the performance changed, and the backlash was swift.
Even when the science is stronger, and the upgrades are objectively better, there’s often resistance to reformulations, because people love the original.
“The reasons I created Magic Cream back in the day are more prevalent now,” says Tilbury. “We’re living in generation exhaustion. We’re getting less sleep than ever. We’re exposed to more pollution, more blue light. Our skin barriers are really going through it. And I have always said that I will never touch an iconic product – especially one with such an enormous customer base like Magic Cream – unless I can improve it and ensure people are going to love it even more, while addressing what our skin needs. And that’s what I’ve done.”
Charlotte Tilbury Magic Cream – Reformulated (charlottetilbury.com) 
Charlotte Tilbury Magic Cream: The signature glow remains
Few founders can sell a product quite like Tilbury. But she also appears to take the science seriously. This isn’t a superficial revamp with new packaging and a handful of trendy ingredients; the jar looks almost identical – deliberately so, to avoid confusing loyal customers. What’s changed is inside.
She says the “breakthrough ingredient” in the new formulation is “recoverstem peptide”, a blend of more than 100 peptides that targets visible signs of ageing and help with skin recovery; hence the name.
[ Charlotte Tilbury’s new cream blush is summer skin, bottledOpens in new window ]
“Peptides are the building blocks of proteins – they act as signals, telling the skin what to do, what to produce more of,” she says. Tilbury claims this particular complex is designed to support repair and resilience. The new formula also contains NAD, growth factors and Pro-Collagen 1.
Having used it myself for several weeks, there are two key things to note. Firstly, I could not distinguish it from the original, to the point that I double-checked the packaging. Secondly, the signature glow remains. It’s soothing, and rich without being heavy.
That said, this is a reformulation, not a reinvention (and the price point remains the same, at around €66 for 30ml). If you’ve tried Magic Cream in the past and found it wasn’t for you, the new version is unlikely to change your mind.
What will Magic Cream’s upgrade mean for the rest of the “Magic” line? Tilbury smiles. “You’ll have to wait and see, darling.”
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