The big man behind Skins Cosmetics

When I ask Philip Hilege how many Skins branches there are in the Netherlands, he has to think about it for a moment. “Oh dear, that’s terrible, I don’t know the exact number right now. But I do know how many stores there are in total, including Cape Town, Hamburg, and soon Frankfurt. That makes it 31!”

Just back from Hamburg, where a new branch was opened and Philip was again ‘working on the floor’, we video call to discuss the victorious journey of Skins Cosmetics. “If I had known what a success it would become, I would have taken more risks.”

Skins Cosmetics, the favorite perfumery of women who love care beyond the comma, is on a roll, to put it in good Dutch. “There is a period before and after Vendis,” Philip explains. “When we started Skins 25 years ago, we had one branch, in the Amsterdam Nine Streets. We alternated working on Sundays, and sometimes nothing happened for six hours. We cautiously opened other branches over time, but it wasn’t easy. Finding a suitable property is difficult, and I often worried whether I would be able to pay the staff at the end of the month.”

By now, Skins Cosmetics is a phenomenon with 31 stores, two of which are in Cape Town, and others in Brussels, Hamburg, and Frankfurt. “Germany is an interesting market, but we need to fully introduce the German clientele to what Skins can mean for them.” Philip, just back from the opening in Hamburg, finds that fantastic. “It reminds me of the early days of Skins in the Netherlands. Working on the floor, rolling up my sleeves. I always want to keep doing that because that’s ultimately what I enjoy the most.”

Philip founded Skins 25 years ago together with Michiel Poelmans, with the idea of starting a high-end, exclusive perfumery with niche brands. By now, Skins Cosmetics has become an adjective, where a special perfume is called a ‘Skins scent’. “I’m proud of that and we work hard on it. As soon as a brand goes mass-market in distribution to the big chains, like was the case with Philosophy, we let it go.”

Every month, about thirty new brands are on Philip’s desk hoping to be included in the assortment. Of those, at most three make it to the sales floor, and usually, those are the brands where the creator is closely involved with the final product. “You can feel that love, and it translates into the product. Take Fugazzi, a Dutch guy who created a perfume and has since achieved international success. I think it’s amazing to have contributed to that from the beginning,” Philip shares.

By now, Skins Cosmetics has even launched its own product: Layer +, which serves as an extra layer to give your scent a personal twist. “We had a number of collaborations with Skins, such as Skins x Bibi, Skins x Juliette Has a Gun, and Skins x Fugazzi. I enjoyed sitting at the table with the creators so much that it whetted my appetite for more. At the same time, I didn’t want to compete with our own brands; that would be crazy. So we came up with Layer + as an extra product. Moreover, we created it with the big perfume houses that make most of the perfumes for our stores. So it was made together with them to deepen the assortment even more. People want to layer, to make a perfume even more personal. That’s a nightmare for perfumers because they find their perfume perfect as it is. But people want something unique, so we found a way to make that possible while still allowing the perfumers to maintain the leading hand.”

Michiel followed love to America years ago and has distanced himself from Skins. Meanwhile, Vendis is the driving force behind the expansion of Skins. But there are moments — for example, when the 31st branch was opened — when Philip really has to call Michiel. Like, wow, who would have thought that.