Aesop Paddington

Established in Melbourne in 1987, Aesop's reputation is built upon using the best plant based ingredients combined with non-botanical elements like antioxidants, to give your skin its best look in as natural a way as possible.

Even if you don’t own any of Aesop’s botanical-scented, handsomely packaged products, chances are you’ve perused its beautiful stores, their individual designs one of the brand’s signatures. This one, on Paddington’s Glenmore Road in Sydney’s east, is yet another eye-pleasing haven.

The store (which until May 2019 used to be on Oxford Street) has been designed to reflect Sydney’s passion for water. It takes inspiration from iconic swimming spots, including Bondi Icebergs and Andrew “Boy” Charlton Pool, and the city’s famous ocean baths.

The store is inside a slate-grey terrace and its interior walls and ceiling are studded with grey-green resin-bonded pebbles, as though customers are in an upside-down pool. Steel shelves, upon which sit hand creams, cleansers and face oils, have been designed to mirror the rungs of a pool ladder, and greenery sprouts from benches that curve along the sides of the store like pool steps.

A standalone basin in the middle of the store, in textured sandy hues with mineral layers, rises from the ground like a cliff. Upstairs is a treatment room, where customers can book 60-minute facials adapted to their skin and issues. Aesop’s aestheticians combine ingredients on the spot to address the problems they identify, rather than using products straight from the bottle.