Beauty trends may come and go, but dewy, bouncy skin is forever. It’s a lucky thing for aesthetician Iván Pol, because that’s exactly his specialty. The skin whisperer and founder of skincare brand The Beauty Sandwich has been working his magic on celebrity skin for years. Most recently, his work could be seen on a host of the A-listers who walked the Oscar and Vanity Fair after party red carpets on Sunday night, including Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Anya Taylor-Joy, Kendall Jenner, and Kim Kardashian. But his crown jewel of the award season was the Best Actress winner herself, Emma Stone.
“Truman Capote has his swans. Emma, Anya, those are my swans,” Pol told W over the phone the morning after the 96th Academy Awards. Of course, Pol’s story with Stone ends a lot better than Capote’s with his own swans. For two and a half months the actress and aesthetician worked together so as to make sure that the glow of Stone’s skin matched that of the golden statue she held upon her big win.
When Pol first began working with Stone in the beginning of the year, she shared her skin goals for award season with the aesthetician. “She wanted to feel very natural,” he said. “She is really owning her own skin.” The pair met every two to three weeks (plus three times in the week leading up to the Oscars), so Pol could apply each layer of his famed “Beauty Sandwich”products, using a patented methodology bu the same name. But two products, specifically, bolstered Stone’s dewy skin on Oscar night—Pol’s Amuse Bouche Appetizing Mist, which launches next month, and his Snatching Sauce.
“Amuse Bouche is the secret weapon because it has a magical ingredient of the peony flower,” Poll said. The peony boosts one’s own production of hyaluronic acid, which is important when you’re bouncing from event to event for weeks at a time on little sleep. “You can spritz that on your face when you’re on the plane,” Pol added. “That’s how you stay dewy no matter what.” Likely, Stone treated herself to a few spritzes following the ceremony—which is why she still looked fresh at the after party, late into the night.
The product also has the added ingredient of blue tanzi, which calms the skin. “So if you get nervous, you’re not going to show it on your face,” Pol explained. “What people don’t understand is that your emotions can trigger inflammatory responses in your skin.” Of course, having something to combat that on a stressful night like the Oscars is helpful—but there’s likely no product powerful enough to hide Stone’s already meme’d reaction to her win.
It might seem odd to consider emotions when discussing skincare, but Pol stresses that skin health doesn’t just focus on the face. “It’s about the whole picture,” he said. When planning Stone’s treatment for the Oscars, Pol took everything into consideration, including the actress’ dress for the night. The aesthetician worked with Nicolas Ghesquière—Pol’s “dear friend” and the creative director of Louis Vuitton—to make sure Stone’s skin complemented her pale green custom silk jacquard dress. “Just like Nicolas was designing these beautiful custom gowns for Emma, I was designing her face, and what her face was going to look like with these dresses,” Pol added. “Because you don’t want the skin to compete with that.”
