After 15 years as the ‘face’ of SK-II, Cate Blanchett has taken on the role of global beauty ambassador for Giorgio Armani.
In her new role the Academy Award winning actress, who has been the face of Armani’s Si fragrance since its creation in 2013, will now also represent the brand’s skincare and makeup lines.
Announcing Cate’s appointment, Giorgio Armani said she is everything the Giorgio Armani woman stands for.
“Luminous and sophisticated, her natural elegance and distinguished beauty are striking,” he said.
“I am pleased to deepen our longstanding relationship.”
Although Cate has made no official statement on the matter, her new ambassadorship seems to signify the official end of her relationship with SK-II.
Currently there is no mention of Cate on the Japanese brand’s website and she was notably absent in its new ‘Expiry Date’ campaign which has just been launched following the success of #IneverExpireCampaign last year (which she also wasn’t in).
Indeed it appears that Cate’s last major campaign for the brand was #ChangeDestiny in 2015. She has however publicly praised SK-II’s products many times since.
In October last year she told Instyle magazine that she became ambassador for the brand because she tried its products and “was really blown away” by “the shift in texture and tone and the brightness” of her skin.
Launched 37 years ago, all SK-II products contain Pitera, a yeast discovered in a Japanese sake brewery where “the faces of the elderly workers showed signs of ageing, but their hands (which were submerged in sake yeast for long periods of time) did not.”
“It [the SK range] was so unusual. A lot of people had serums and liquid moisturisers but at that time there wasn’t anything like it. So I thought I’ll just stick with this for a while, and I just didn’t look back.”
She even revealed that she loves to wear the brand’s masks when flying.
“I’m on long haul flights unfortunately a bit more than I’d care for, so I will put two or three on. Like one dries out and you put the next one on. Or I’d put one on, and two hours later put another one on. And I just talk to everyone with them on. I don’t know if that’s weird, but I just, I don’t care. I have no shame.”
And three months earlier, in July, she told Woman’s Day, that her favourite SK-II product was the brand’s hero product, Facial Treatment Essence.
“I’m very interested in fashion, but not when it comes to skincare. Each month, there seems to be a new product or a new theory − new this, a new that. Find something that works and stick to it. For me it’s been the Facial Treatment Essence, and I’ve been using it for 15 years.”
However clues to Cate’s move away from the brand appeared earlier this year when she told Vogue that she and Sandra Bullock had a ‘penis facial’ at Georgia Louise Atelier in New York
Officially named The Hollywood EGF Facial, the treatment is often referred to as ‘the penis facial as the EGF (Epidermal Growth Factor) serum used during the facial is created from the cells of the human fibroblast taken from Korean newborn baby foreskin.