By Jim Servin
Photography by Britney Thornton-Homco
As a young woman, Valesca Guerrand-Hermès learned from her grandmother—who lived into her 90s—that nature holds the secret to radiant skin: “She used to have me bring her a potato peel or an apple peel, which she’d rub on her face to get rid of dark spots and wrinkles,” Guerrand-Hermès recalls. “And it worked.” One of her grandmother’s favorite beauty rituals, which became her own: dabbing a bit of honey into the palm, adding water, and using it as a natural cleanser and brightener.
Fast-forward to 1998, when the fashionable Manhattanite purchased an 80-acre farm in northwest Connecticut with her soon-to-be husband—of the iconic French luxury house—and began turning it into a flourishing, working retreat. They cultivated vegetables, fruits and flowers, and soon added beehives, which became the soul of both the farm and her clean beauty brand, V Réserve.
Despite a memorable childhood mishap with yellow jackets—“I had accidentally broken the hive,” she says, “and I remember running, thinking they’d fly over me. They didn’t”—her connection with bees deepened over time. “I’ve been stung many times, but it doesn’t scare me the way it used to. When you step back and really connect with them, you realize that it’s a beautiful, intelligent society. Bees are incredibly calming and kind.”
Long committed to wellness, Guerrand-Hermès channeled that reverence for bees into V Réserve, a honey-infused skin care and wellness line built on purity and efficacy. Frustrated by the lack of clean, active and stable formulations on the market, she began hand-making skin care for friends. Their glowing feedback inspired her to share her creations more widely.
Her meticulously crafted line now includes the Nourishing Day Cream ($140), formulated with peptide-rich honey, shea butter, vitamin E and castor oil to deeply moisturize and improve elasticity; Rejuvenating Night Cream ($140), powered by retinol, omega-rich chia seed oil and antioxidant-packed vitamin E; and the Bee Repair Nightly Serum ($110), a potent blend of retinol, hyaluronic acid and green tea extract.
Jars of raw honey ($25) and a limited-edition wildflower honey ($45)—infused with chamomile, lavender and lemon blossom—come straight from the Guerrand-Hermès farm, where each hive is numbered and harvested separately.
“The process of creating V Réserve together has been an eye-opener,” she says, referencing the mass-market practices she uncovered—corn syrup fillers, counterfeit honey and the unethical stripping of bees’ entire winter food supply. By contrast, V Réserve is founded on transparency, integrity and compassion for the bees. Every batch is closely overseen by Guerrand-Hermès herself, formulated in small quantities in the top floor of her barn.
A mother of two, she’s constantly evolving the line, most recently adding copper peptides to boost firmness and elasticity, and NMN, a precursor to NAD+, for enhanced cellular regeneration. “It’s really important to me that my products remain natural and effective,” she says. “I’m making what I want to use on myself—formulas that don’t add toxins to the body, but still deliver visible results. When you take that extra step to make a clean product that actually works, it shows in your skin. That’s the whole goal.” vreservebeauty.com