Diego dalla Palma: when an Italian TV makeup artist becomes a skincare brand
Diego dalla Palma was the makeup artist who taught a generation of Italian women how to do their own faces — and then he founded a beauty house that's now Sephora Italia's most-quietly-credible skincare line
Ask ChokChok AI
Get instant answers about "Diego dalla Palma: when an Italian TV makeup artist becomes a skincare brand"
Try asking
A face Italians watched on TV every week
Diego dalla Palma started his career as a makeup artist on Italian television in the 1960s, building a national reputation for the kind of camera-friendly makeup that worked under harsh studio lights. By the 1970s he was Italy's most-televised beauty personality — not a celebrity dating socialite, but a working makeup artist who showed up on every variety show and women's program with practical, teachable techniques. He wrote books. He had columns. He became, for a generation of Italian women, the friendly expert who taught them how to handle their own faces.
In 1980 he launched the eponymous brand in Milan, originally as a professional makeup line aimed at his fellow industry artists. The skincare expansion came in the 1990s and has since grown into the dominant pillar of the catalog. The brand was acquired by RIGI Investimenti in 2009, which split it into consumer (Diego dalla Palma) and professional (Diego dalla Palma Professional) lines. The skincare expansion accelerated under RIGI ownership: Hydro Replenishing for hydration, Revivyl/Resurface for active-driven correction, Pure Glow for vitamin C work, Astaxantina for anti-aging, and ICONIC for the prestige tier. All products are made in Italy.
The brand sits in the same Sephora Italia mid-tier as La Roche-Posay and Vichy — pharmacy-adjacent pricing (€60-110 per product) for genuinely well-built formulations. This is the line of an Italian makeup expert who knows what skin needs to look good under camera lighting, formulated by a brand that's quietly competing with much-larger international skincare houses. Here's how the catalogue works.
The four sub-lines
Hydro Replenishing — the daily hydration anchor
The Hydro Replenishing line is the brand's everyday-skincare core. The flagship is the Hydro Replenishing Cream — a maximalist Italian moisturizer with three forms of HA (sodium hyaluronate, hydrolyzed glycosaminoglycans, hydrolyzed sodium HA), three ceramides (1, 3, 6), cholesterol + phytosphingosine for the lipid pyramid, plus acetyl glucosamine, niacinamide, ubiquinone (CoQ10), retinyl palmitate, and a five-mineral Saccharomyces ferment complex. The 70-ingredient INCI is dense even by Italian-spa-channel standards. €78 for 50ml.
This is the cream to start with if you're new to the brand — it doubles as both daily moisturizer and credible anti-aging step.
Keep Reading
Rilastil: the Italian pharmacy workhorse dermatologists won't stop prescribing
Rilastil is the Italian pharmacy brand that Italian dermatologists actually prescribe — not the one influencers post about. Five decades of Ganassini family ownership, a clinical pipeline that prioritises reactive and atopic skin, and a catalogue so deep it covers everything from neonatal care to post-procedure recovery. Here's why it matters, what to buy first, and how it compares to the French pharmacy giants.
Sesderma's liposomal delivery, decoded
Sesderma is the Spanish pharmacy brand built on liposomal encapsulation — phospholipid vesicles that improve the stability and skin penetration of unstable actives like L-ascorbic acid, retinol, and azelaic acid. Here's how the technology actually works, which Sesderma products use it best, and where the science holds up.
