EXCLUSIVE: Estée Lauder Focuses on Beauty Rest With Appointment of First Global Sleep Adviser, Dr. Matthew Walker

Estée Lauder is ready for its beauty sleep.

The company, known for its many nighttime skin care products, on Monday is announcing the appointment of its first global sleep adviser, Dr. Matthew Walker, who is an author, sleep scientist and professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. In his role, Walker will provide educational content both internally and externally, employ his expertise for press opportunities and share his findings and knowledge in the field for Estée Lauder to expand and enhance its sleep-related skin care offerings. 

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“To see a brand that is trying to actually invest in the notion of the science of sleep, to me, was very appealing,” Walker said of the partnership. “I’m excited to get involved with the science, because there’s so much more that we want to know and can be doing, but the second component is education.” 

For Estée Lauder, the appointment is an evolution of the brand’s ongoing commitment to the category, which includes fan favorites like the Advanced Night Repair Serum (Walker’s go-to), $128, and Advanced Night Cleansing Balm, $49.

“The Lauder brand has been all about night, researching night, obsessed with night for more than 40 years,” said Jennifer Palmer, Estée Lauder’s senior vice president, global innovation development and science leadership. “We launched the first night repair serum back in 1982 and have built that into such a powerhouse for our brand….We have undergone many years of research and learnings into understanding how skin is biologically, fundamentally different at night.” 

Specifically, in 2013, the company released findings of a study done in collaboration with Case Western that showed a link between sleep deprivation and skin aging.

“We uncovered, sadly, that chronic poor sleep or [poor] quality of sleep ages your skin by two times,” Palmer said. 

It’s this conversation that the brand is looking to expand by bringing Walker onboard.

“We are excited to have Matt start to advise and inform on upcoming research, upcoming new initiatives, as we think about the future of continuing to develop new studies and new research,” Palmer said. 

To kickstart his position, the brand will be releasing an array of educational, short videos across its platforms featuring Walker discussing different sleep subjects — for example, he’ll define what good sleep really is, how it impacts the body and skin in particular and of course, share tips for better beauty rest. In addition, the brand has internal and external events planned where Walker will be featured. 

“Sleep is the single most effective thing that you can do each and every day to reset your brain and body health, but skin is the very same thing under that rubric, too, that gets restored,” Walker said. 

While the team didn’t share specifics, they said there is more coming when it comes to nighttime innovations. 

“Lauder is incredibly committed to night. It’s in our DNA….This will absolutely continue to feed our innovation pipeline,” Palmer said. “This type of partnership with Dr. Matt Walker will help to guide, inform and strengthen the research and new pipeline of products that are to come.”