What’s With All The Milk?

"Milky" beauty is heavy on the marketing, light on the milk.

I wrote this article for NYLON in April 2020. I’m republishing here for its continued relevance!

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In 2016, Glossier launched Milky Jelly Cleanser. Later, Milk Makeup came along with its matching Vegan Milk Cleanser and Vegan Milk Moisturizer. Today, there’s Rhode Glazing Milk and and Good Light Moon Glow Milky Toning Lotion and Moon Juice Milk Cleanse and CoverGirl Skin Milk Foundation and blueberry milk manicures — bottles and bottles of milky beauty products, delivered to customers’ doorsteps by the dozen. What’s with all the milk? It’s kind of a long story, and it starts 4,522 years ago.

via by rosie jane

“The earliest mentions of milk as a beauty treatment are in Egyptian sculptures from 2,500 B.C.,” Gabriela Hernandez, makeup historian and founder of Besame Cosmetics, told me in an interview for NYLON a few years back. “In 1372 B.C., Nefertiti used it in face masks made from ostrich eggs beaten with milk and honey. Cleopatra also used donkey milk to keep her skin soft.” The Egyptians saw that milk made for calmer, more hydrated skin — even if they didn’t know exactly why. 

The Middle Eastern beauty secret eventually made its way to Greece. The Greeks used donkey milk in baths and face masks, sometimes mixing it with mashed berries or honey, Hernandez says. European Kings and nobles bathed in donkey milk throughout the Middle Ages and beyond to “maintain health and beautify the skin.” Non-nobles would occasionally use goat milk since goats were cheaper to maintain — otherwise, “donkey milk was such a commodity that nobles would use the milk, and then sell it to lower classes for them to use, either for bathing, cooking, or making cheese,” according to the historian.

Thanks to the miracle of modern science, today’s experts can confirm what all those second-hand donkey milk bathers knew to be true: Milk did (and still does) offer gentle, nourishing support for the skin barrier. 

“Animal milks contain a lot of vitamins, minerals, proteins, and alpha-hydroxy acids that can work to help hydrate the skin,” said Ron Robinson, cosmetic chemist and founder of BeautyStat Cosmetics.

The most crucial of these are “saturated and unsaturated fats,” said Dr. Devika Icecreamwala, a board-certified dermatologist with Icecreamwala Dermatology, which “provide moisturization to the skin.” (A very quick lesson in skin science: A functional skin barrier — i.e., a skin barrier that is able to effectively seal in hydration in way that provides an ideal environment for the microbiome and protects the body from environmental aggressors — is made up of essential fatty acids. “Essential” means the body can't produce them on its own, and must obtain them from foods. Studies have shown that if the body doesn't absorb enough essential fatty acids via diet, a number of skin issues may manifest. A lack of linoleic [aka, Omega-6] acid has been linked to acne; a lack of linoleic and alpha-linoleic [Omega-3] acids have been associated with dermatitis and chronic dryness. And while nutrient deficiencies are best remedied by ingesting said nutrients over time, deficiencies in the skin barrier — as it’s outermost layer of the body — can also be supplemented topically, at least temporarily. This is partly why I’m such a fan of jojoba oil, which has a fatty acid profile very similar to that of human sebum!)

Beyond fats, the exact chemical composition of milk varies depending on the origin — goat, donkey, camel, or other. Goat milk is rich in antioxidant vitamin A. (Nature’s barrier-friendly retinol, if you will.) “Donkey milk has more vitamin C than cow’s milk, which could lead it to have antioxidant properties when applied to the skin,” said Dr. Icecreamwala. (Consider it an anti-pollution serum, minus the plastic bottle.) Camel milk also has a high concentration of vitamin C, plus skin-healthy minerals like magnesium and zinc. All contain a small amount of lactic acid, a substance that occurs naturally in the skin’s acid mantle to help regulate cell turnover. (The original Babyfacial, anyone?)

No wonder the beauty industry continued to, ahem, milk the ingredient for all it was worth. 

Modern, manufactured face and body creams — crémes, if you’re fancy — entered the space in the 1800s, taking inspiration from the creamy cosmetics of decades past. “In the 1900s, milk was used in massage and ‘rolling’ creams,” Hernandez says. “These creams used the casein from the milk to emulsify the oil and water in the mixture. ‘Complexion milks’ were made in the 1930s and marketed for smoothing skin, closing pores, and erasing lines.” 

By mid-century, though, actual cream had lost some of its cachet. “The concept of vegan beauty started in the 1960s with the beatnik and flower children groups,” Hernandez says. “The concept was a movement against government and authority that sought to go back to nature and natural practices, including living off the land and using products made from the earth.” Of course, many beauty brands did and still do use real milk — see: Kate Somerville Goat Milk Moisturizing Cream, Beekman 1802 Triple Milk Retinol Bar, Korres Donkey Milk Miracle Serum — but the meaning of “milk” was forever changed. 

“The same way many people are looking for dairy milk alternatives in their foods, beauty manufacturers have begun using non-dairy based milks in skin care,” Robinson says. “Brands are instead using plant-based milks, including those from nuts, seeds, and grains.” Milk Makeup features fig, oat, and argan milks in its Vegan Milk line; Erborian’s Milk & Peel Cleansing Balm relies on sesame seed milk; Chillhouse’s ALT Milk Bathing Cream blends oat, pistachio, and coconut milks.

Here’s the thing: Almost none of the “milky” beauty on the market today contains any kind of milk at all — dairy, vegan, or otherwise. 

“Some brands take the liberty of calling their products ‘Milk’ or ‘Milky’ if they resemble the look of real milk, with a white, watery, semi-translucent look,” Robinson explains.

Why? Well, bolstered by the iconic “Got Milk?” ads of the 1990s, milk has maintained an almost-impeccable reputation over the past four centuries. It brings to mind the life-giving power of “mother’s milk” — and if there’s one thing Western culture loves more than commodifying women, it’s consuming them. It recalls essential nutrients, like protein. It’s thought of as equal parts effective and luxurious (I mean, it was good enough for Cleopatra, a literal Queen of renowned beauty, right?). Milk is considered to be natural, wholesome, and healthy. “It’s associated with youth, since that is what we drink as babies and children,” Hernandez points out, “and youth will always be an attractive concept in beauty.” It’s also associated with whiteness, the bedrock of Eurocentric appearance ideals. The brand equity built up in the word “milk” is enough to evoke all of the above, even if the headlining ingredient is missing. 

In the case of Moon Juice Milk Cleanse, a milk-esque effect is achieved with coconut water, oil extracts, and emulsifiers. “It’s milky in color, creamy in texture, and leaves skin nourished and soft as you might expect milk on skin to do,” said Moon Juice founder Amanda Chantal Bacon. Rhode’s Glazing Milk is more of a petrochemical-and-glycerin soup. For Glossier Milky Jelly and Milky Oil, the “milk” in question is pumped full of PEGs and plastic-like polymers, among other ingredients. CoverGirl Skin Milk Foundation doesn’t look or feel like milk at all — it just cashes in on the connotation.

“The word ‘milk’ is usually used to describe products that are calming and gentle,” offered Priscilla Tsai, founder of clean beauty brand Cocokind, which sells a non-milk Oil to Milk Cleanser. Devon Hopp, the Brand and Education Director of Versed, told NYLON that Versed landed on the product name Baby Cheeks All In One Hydrating Milk because “milk calls to mind adjectives like nourishing and soothing — essentially, all the things you want out of a hydrating product.” The brand is vegan, so its own “milk” is actually coconut water.

via Good Light

“For a lot of people, there's a nostalgia factor with milk,” Hopp added. “It evokes memories of simpler times and may even take you back to your grandmother's home remedy for soothing burns with a milk-soaked cold compress.” She puts it perfectly: Today’s beauty au lait (beauty faux lait?) is merely meant to make you feel — to long for a moment that’s long gone, to crave the comfort of it, to lap up a cheap imitation instead.

If you’re curious about the real thing — the simple, skin-supportive nutrients at the heart of milk’s enduring appeal, the ingredient that inspired all this milkless milky beauty — may I suggest skipping the cosmetic industrialization and unnecessary additives? Order a pouch of powdered camel milk or a canister of powdered goat milk. (Powdered version are best in terms of shelf-stability and safety.) Mix it with water. Make a face mask.¹ (You can add honey or mashed berries if you want to, but that’s not necessary.) Slather it on your skin. Leave it on for 20 minutes, then rinse. See what all the hype is about.

1. I relied on a weekly DIY mask made with goat or camel milk + water when I was dealing with dermatitis and going through topical steroid withdrawal! It’s up there with Mānuka honey in terms of near-immediate calming/healing effects on a compromised skin barrier.