Cool cosmetics: why you should store your make-up in the fridge

Beauty begins in the kitchen. This isn’t another article about clean eating, or the Aga in your second kitchen, but rather where you put the arsenal of tools that keep you looking on form. For model and presenter Alexa Chung, the oven is a place to keep shoes, and in London fridges are now for storing make-up. The logic behind this is that heat and light can weaken active ingredients, so chilling products protects them and makes them stay potent for longer.

This is so common that people are investing in second fridges for their beauty products — no more accidentally pouring cleansing milk onto your corn flakes. The Candy Brothers say they are receiving more requests for make-up fridges in their new developments, and according to the FT, at Rathbone Square in the West End it was part of the brief that master bathrooms had a cooler for cosmetics. Kalliopi Kousouri, a partner at Make architects who worked on the design, says: “People in these properties will have expensive cosmetics; keeping them in the fridge is good for longer shelf life.”

These fridges are usually discreet, hidden behind panels, although there are bright ones, too. Odacité sells a fridge for its goods. Its temperature is between eight and 12 degrees centigrade — warmer than food fridges, which should be around four degrees centigrade.

They work well as kohl storage units — the temperature stops eye pencils cracking when you sharpen them and keeps them firm, which helps with accurate application. Refrigerating nail varnish means it stays smooth and shiny for longer because high temperatures activate gooey solvents, and if your favourite magic balm contains essential oils such as rosewater, cold ensures they stay active. Vitamins C and A become unstable in the heat so creams containing them work best in the fridge, as do anti-puff gels and serums.

When Edition de Parfums opens in Burlington Arcade this month, scents will be stored in cool cabinets. Perfumes contain alcohol so putting them somewhere with a stable temperature like a cellar or fridge slows down molecular changes.

These fridges are part of the trend for spending hundreds of pounds on face cream and then having to take care of it. John Lewis is stocking three times more face creams selling at more than £200 than it did five years ago, with sales up by 120 per cent, while at Fortnum & Mason sales of expensive creams has gone up by a third in a year. But there are exceptions to the cool rule: Crème de la Mer moisturiser works best warmer and putting it in the fridge can cause it to separate. Not ideal when it starts at £108.

Best of all, having a make-up cooler means you can reclaim your fridge and not worry about knocking over the body butter when you reach for the yoghurt.