Napoleon Perdis has just launched Your Golden Ritual, a quarterly subscription built around your shade, your coverage and your colour preferences. Eleven seasonally curated products, matched to you, chosen for the Australian climate you are actually living in. It is $182.50 a quarter for more than $730 worth of product, with five Camera Finish brushes in the welcome box and the option to pause, skip or update whenever you like.

The surprise is the part they have thought hardest about. You choose the match, they choose the season. Which is how you end up with the product you would never have reached for yourself and then cannot do without.

You choose the match. They choose the season.

It lands alongside a fully rebuilt skincare range, and the two are designed to work as one. The brief there was beautifully simple. Skincare that works for makeup. Ask any artist what matters most in a routine and they will say skin prep, every single time.

We sat down with the Napoleon Team to talk customisation, discovery, what thirty years earns you, and why five minutes counts every bit as much as an hour.

 

What was the brief when you started work on the skincare revamp?

The brief was simple: a skincare range that works for makeup. Ask any artist what the most important step of a makeup routine is and they’ll tell you it all starts from good skin prep. We wanted to create a skincare range that complemented and created the foundation for our makeup range.

From there it came down to ingredients we knew were tried and tested. In a crowded market where there seems to be a new launch every week, we weren’t interested in chasing the newest trend. We wanted products that perform and earn their place in our customer’s routine rather than asking her to build a new one.

What did you want to keep from the original Napoleon Perdis identity, and what were you ready to let go of?

We kept the brand’s heritage of artistry and education. That’s what made us and what we’re known for. Our reputation for product quality comes out of it and it’s what our customers keep coming back to us for.

What we let go of was the idea of a single Napoleon Perdis look. Beauty was never one look and it certainly isn’t now. For a long time we spoke to editorial: the big transformation and the runway. But our customer has evolved, and so have we. She still wants a little glamour when the moment calls for it, but she isn’t doing editorial makeup at seven on a Tuesday morning. So the shift was from one look to hers.

She isn’t doing editorial makeup at seven on a Tuesday morning. So the shift was from one look to hers.

Napoleon Perdis is a brand a lot of Australian women grew up with. How do you speak to them and to someone discovering it for the first time?

The beauty of this brand is how it moves across generations. There’s something so genuine and personal when talking to adult customers who’ve had an emotional connection with us since their teens. Just last weekend a hairstylist told us she’d met Napoleon himself, years ago, and still remembers it clearly with fond joy. Another friend brought up the blue eyeshadow she wore to her formal like it was yesterday. We hear stories like that constantly, and we’ll never tire of them. That kind of memory is worth more than any campaigns we could run. Napoleon Perdis is built on nostalgia and thirty years of a promise we’ve never broken: quality you can trust.

What’s changed is life itself. Routines are more streamlined now, everything is more considered, and beauty has had to keep up. Our customers deserve and expect better ingredients and more thought behind every product, and so do we. So when we speak to the women who’ve loved us for decades, we’re not asking them to add more to their day. We’re giving them fewer, better products they can rely on for years, not just seasons.

To them, we’re the brand they already trust, refined. To someone meeting us for the first time, we’re a brand that’s done the growing up already. Our newest products are proof of that: better ingredients, longer wear, made for the way people actually live now. They’re not discovering a legacy brand playing catch up. They’re discovering us at our best.

They’re not discovering a legacy brand playing catch up. They’re discovering us at our best.

Where did the visual direction come from, and what was the first thing you locked in?

For the women who’ve known us since their teenage years, we wanted them to feel that we’ve grown up alongside them: still here, just refined, more considered, more assured. That idea, of growing up rather than starting over, is what we locked in first, and it’s what carries through every touchpoint.

The heritage angle we have fused with this feeling was the most common sense. We always knew we wanted to celebrate our land, beyond just its incredible ingredients you’ll find in our products. Visually honouring this positions us clearly to our market: we are an Australian brand for everyday Australians. We prioritised making sure we looked current, clean and premium. Refined and upgraded rather than a start over.

Discovery and replenishment pull in different directions. How did you balance the two?

Discovery and replenishment ask for different things, and we treat that as a balance rather than a conflict. Discovery is about reach, meeting people who don’t know us yet. Replenishment is about depth, looking after the people who already do. We don’t rank one above the other. We know we’re a trusted, proven brand to the women who’ve grown up with us, and we’ll always be showing up for them.

At the same time, we know there are women who haven’t found us yet, and they deserve the same quality of product and attention. Beauty is one of the most crowded categories there is, and we back our ingredients and our standards to earn attention on their own terms. So the balance comes down to this: we nurture the customers who return to us, and we invest just as seriously in the ones who are still on their way.

How much can a subscriber customise, and how much do you want to surprise them?

We customise the box based on her shade, her coverage and her colour preferences. We want to make sure these are products that genuinely suit her complexion and her routine.

The season is where we thread the element of surprise into Your Golden Ritual. We curate each box to the seasonal needs of the Australian climate. This is where she might discover a new routine, a product she wouldn’t have picked up herself or a surprising new way to use a product. We want her to feel the value of what’s in the box, and we want it to be a bit of a moment when she opens it. It’s about discovery and trial as much as anything else.

What’s your own definition of a beauty ritual?

We find beauty rituals become overcomplicated really quickly, like a sudden to-do list you must complete in order to feel complete. But the reality is, there shouldn’t be any rules to it. Whilst we don’t think there’s one right definition, we think five minutes and out the door counts as much as an hour of utter indulgence. Rather than how long it took, what matters most is whether you were present for that moment, and how connected you felt to yourself while you were doing it.

Feeling good in your own skin, even from just having a few minutes that belong to you before the day starts, can really make the world of difference to your day. That’s a beauty ritual to us. A simple connection with yourself. There’s enough out there already telling women they’re not enough as they are, we’re not interested in adding to that pile. Did you get to connect with yourself today?

There’s enough out there already telling women they’re not enough as they are. We’re not interested in adding to that pile.

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Five minutes and out the door, then. Consider that permission.

Your Golden Ritual is available now at napoleonperdis.com, $182.50 per quarter, with the option to pause, skip or update at any time.