Plainly

Munich's Plainly closes the oldest gap in beauty: the one between what works and what looks the part. Now it is moving from the basin to the bath, and into the bedroom.

Most beauty stories begin with a problem nobody quite admits to. For Artsem Kruk, it was the one staring back from his own bathroom shelf. The beautifully designed products tended to be thin on ingredients; the clean, effective formulations tended to lack the aesthetics and design. “Honest care, beautiful design,” is how he frames the brand he built in Munich in 2019 to close that gap. Plainly does exactly what its name promises, and not a great deal more, which is rather the point.

The approach Kruk calls Biotech Beauty marries science to nature without favouring either. Formulations are developed with leading German cosmetics laboratories drawing on three decades of experience and over 350 patents, then made in Germany in small batches with regional suppliers. Products are up to 98% natural, dermatologist-tested, vegan and cruelty-free. Ingredients usually reserved for the most coddled facial care, cacay oil and astaxanthin among them, are put to work on hands and bodies, while the fragrances are composed like fine perfume, with base, middle and top notes drawn entirely from natural scents.

Then there is the look, which is what stops you in a shop. The identity was developed with Winkreative, Monocle's sister agency led by Tyler Brûlé, and took the iF Design Award in 2023. Sand-blasted glass bottles are screen-printed rather than labelled and sized to sit comfortably in the hand. The outer boxes use CO₂-neutral, Cradle to Cradle Certified Silver Gmund paper from the heart of Bavaria, printed by Munich's master printers at Seismografics. “Every element of our packaging is imbued with meaning,” says Kruk, the diamond motif a nod to those Bavarian roots.

Customers who fell for the hand creams kept asking for more, so Plainly jumped at the challenge, moving along the body. A new body lotion and a hand and body wash, nourished with rosemary leaf extract and sweet almond oil. The same logic informs a new hotel amenities line, born of Kruk's irritation at a familiar oversight. “Amenities are the most intimate product in a hotel room, they go on and into your skin,” he says. “I believe it deserves the same attention as every other detail of the hotel.” His five-piece collection refuses the usual fudge: hand and body wash, body lotion, bath salt, and crucially a separate shampoo and conditioner, “because hair and skin are fundamentally different and shouldn't share a bottle.”

You will find Plainly online and at stores like Ludwig Beck in Munich, Andreas Murkudis in Berlin and Monocle Shops worldwide, the latter home to an exclusive Plainly x Monocle collection. It has shown at Paris Fashion Week and earned admiring notes from Monocle, GQ, Vogue and Süddeutsche Zeitung. A hidden secret no longer, then, but still the most quietly handsome thing on the basin.

Possibly one of the best recent discoveries, the hand-loving brand Plainly is not only the most stylish-looking hand-care product we’ve tried and tested but also incredibly effective. Made in Germany.