The moisturizer, in the sense we now use the word, is a recent invention. The word itself dates to the 1930s. The category it names — a product that is applied to the face to add water to the skin or to prevent water from leaving it — is younger still.
What existed before the moisturizer was, in the Western tradition, the cold cream. The cold cream is older. The cold cream is, in its modern form, recognisably the same preparation it was in the 1840s. The cold cream is, in many ways, the first product category of skin care.
It is also, in 2026, the most overlooked. The contemporary skin care shelf has, in most cases, no cold cream on it. The contemporary moisturizer is, in most cases, a water-based emulsion with a long ingredient list. The cold cream has been, in effect, displaced — by the moisturizer, by the serum, by the essence, by the active.
This essay is, in part, an attempt to put the cold cream back on the shelf. It is also a short history of a formula that has survived, in some form, for almost two thousand years.
Galen, 2nd century — ceratum refrigerans
The earliest formula we have on record for what we would now call a cold cream is from Galen, the second-century Greek physician working in Rome. Galen’s formula — known as ceratum refrigerans, the cooling wax — was a preparation of beeswax, olive oil, and water, whisked together until they formed a thick, white, cooling emulsion. The emulsion was applied to the skin to soothe, to clean, to soften.
The ceratum refrigerans is, in formulation terms, almost identical to the modern cold cream. Beeswax, a plant oil, water, whisked to an emulsion. The whisk does the work. The emulsion is the product. The cooling is the sensation — water evaporating from the surface of the skin, drawing heat with it.
Galen’s formula is, in fact, so durable that it is still being manufactured, in some form, today. There are cold creams on pharmacy shelves in 2026 that are recognisable descendants of the ceratum refrigerans. The proportions have been adjusted. The preservatives have been added. The basic architecture — wax, oil, water, whisked — is two thousand years old.
The medieval and Renaissance — the ceratum persists
Throughout the medieval and Renaissance periods, the ceratum refrigerans remained the standard preparation for skin care. The Arabic physicians of the eleventh and twelfth centuries — Avicenna, al-Razi — wrote about it. The monastic pharmacopoeias of the same period copied out the formula. The Renaissance materiae medicae — the herbals, the compound books — listed the ceratum under both the cosmetic and the medical headings, because the categories were not yet fully separated.
What changed, in the medieval and Renaissance periods, was the oil that went into the formula. The Greek olive oil was, in northern Europe, often replaced by almond oil or by rose oil. The rose oil, in particular, became fashionable in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries — partly because the rose was available, partly because the rose was thought to have therapeutic properties of its own, partly because the rose-scented cold cream was, by the standards of the day, a luxury.
The cold cream was, in this period, a pharmaceutical. It was sold by apothecaries. It was prescribed by physicians. It was, in effect, the only moisturizer available. The category had not yet fragmented.
1782 — the cérat cosmétique and the French refinement
The next major moment in the cold cream’s history is the late eighteenth century, in France. The cérat cosmétique of the period — described in the Codex pharmaceutique of 1782 — is recognisably the modern cold cream. Beeswax, almond oil, rose water, sometimes a small amount of borax to help the emulsion hold. Whisked in a marble mortar. Packaged in porcelain jars with matching lids.
The French cérat was, in formulation terms, slightly more sophisticated than Galen’s original. The borax was new. The rose water was, by the late eighteenth century, a more carefully produced ingredient — distilled, standardised, available in commercial quantities. The packaging was new — the porcelain jar, with its painted lid, was a luxury object in its own right.
The French cérat was also, in cultural terms, the moment the cold cream became fashionable. The cold cream was, in 1782, no longer just a pharmaceutical. It was a beauty product. The category was beginning to split.
1846 — Pond’s
The American moment for the cold cream arrived in 1846, with the founding of the Pond’s company. Pond’s Vanishing Cream — the name is misleading; the product did not vanish, but it was marketed as a lighter alternative to the heavier cold creams of the period — was a cold cream in all but name. The Pond’s cream was, in fact, a fairly standard beeswax-and-mineral-oil emulsion, with a small amount of water and a little borax. It was sold in small glass jars. It was advertised, in the 1880s and 1890s, as a beauty product for the modern American woman.
Pond’s is, in several ways, the founding text of the American skin care industry. Pond’s is also, in formulation terms, the first major mass-market cold cream. The Pond’s cream was sold, by the 1890s, in train stations, in department stores, in pharmacies. The Pond’s cream was, by 1900, the cold cream that most American women had on the bathroom shelf.
The Pond’s cream has been reformulated, repeatedly, over the last 150 years. The mineral oil has, in some formulations, replaced the almond oil. The borax has, in most formulations, been removed. The basic architecture — wax, oil, water, whisked — is still recognisable.
1890s — the apothecary cold cream
The late nineteenth century was, in many ways, the high point of the cold cream. The apothecary, in any major European or American city, would stock three or four cold creams, in porcelain or glass jars, each with a slightly different formulation. The cold cream was, in this period, available in every price range, from the cheapest pharmacy preparation to the most elaborate French luxury.
The cold cream was, in this period, used for almost everything. It was used as a cleanser. It was used as a moisturiser. It was used as a makeup base. It was used as a night cream. It was used, in some cases, as a hair pomade. The cold cream was, in effect, the only skin care product available.
The category fragmentation that we now take for granted — the cleanser, the moisturiser, the serum, the active — had not yet happened. The cold cream was doing all the work.
1930s — the word moisturizer
The word moisturizer, in the sense we now use it, dates to the 1930s. The word was, in its first uses, a marketing term — a way of describing a new class of products that were, in formulation terms, water-in-oil emulsions, with a higher water content than the traditional cold cream.
The 1930s moisturiser was, in fact, a cold cream with more water and less wax. The new formulation was lighter, less occlusive, more easily absorbed. The new formulation was marketed as a scientific alternative to the traditional cold cream. The marketing worked. The moisturizer displaced the cold cream.
The cold cream did not, in this period, disappear. The cold cream remained, particularly in Europe, on the pharmacy shelf, in its porcelain jar, doing the work it had always done. But the moisturizer had arrived. The moisturizer was, in many ways, a descendant of the cold cream that had been re-marketed for the modern age.
2026 — the cold cream today
The cold cream, in 2026, is a niche product. The cold cream is sold, in most markets, by a handful of heritage brands — Pond’s in the United States, Pears in the United Kingdom, several French pharmacy lines, several Korean heritage lines. The cold cream is, in most cases, sold to an older customer than the modern moisturizer. The cold cream is, in most cases, sold in a jar that has not changed in fifty years.
The cold cream is also, in 2026, quietly returning. There is a small but growing market in cold creams as a makeup primer. There is a small market in cold creams as a barrier cream for sensitive skin. There is a small market in cold creams as a night treatment, in the way that occlusive balms are marketed.
The cold cream’s return is, in our view, overdue. The cold cream is, in formulation terms, a remarkably durable product. The cold cream is also, in cultural terms, a useful reminder: the moisturizer is not, as the contemporary shelf suggests, a new invention. The moisturizer is a descendant. The cold cream is the ancestor.
The cold cream, in sum, is two thousand years old. The cold cream is, in 2026, mostly gone. The cold cream is, in 2026, quietly returning. The cold cream is also, we would argue, worth knowing about — if only to remember that the moisturizer you have on your shelf is the descendant of a preparation that Galen would have recognised.
The cold cream is, finally, the formula that taught the skin to be dressed. The skin is still being dressed. The dressing has changed, in many ways. The basic architecture has not. Beeswax, oil, water, whisked to a cooling white. Two thousand years. Still on the shelf.