Where German mastery meets timeless minimalism

Artsem Kruk's path to Plainly began with travel and a long-held passion for design and aesthetics. Across markets and categories, the same pattern kept repeating: beautifully designed products that lacked high-quality ingredients, and clean beauty products that lacked any real sophistication in their design.

Hand care, in particular, felt overlooked. In Germany alone, 25 million people use hand cream every day, often several times a day — it is the largest category in cosmetics by turnover, yet one of the least considered. An underserved niche, hiding in plain sight. It took a pandemic to condense the idea into a single overlooked category — the hands.

"Your hands tell your life story. They're the most important tool we have — and yet we barely care for them. We wanted to reinvent that, with the most superior ingredients and a design worth keeping on the shelf."

Artsem Kruk, Founder · Monocle Radio, Eureka

Every Plainly product takes one to two years to develop, in close collaboration with leading German cosmetics laboratories. The nourishing nail oil — now one of the line's most loved pieces — was reworked around a simple, on-the-go roller, because the existing applicators on the market quietly assumed you'd always be at a vanity. Details like this run through the catalogue.

The visual identity, developed with Winkreative — Monocle's sister agency — won the iF Design Award for packaging. Bavarian references run quietly through the work: the diamond motif on the back of the box nods to the Rautenflagge of Bavaria; the outer carton uses Gmund paper, made an hour from Munich. White space, one or two descriptive sentences, nothing loud.

Today Plainly sits on shelves chosen with the same care as the products themselves: Ludwig Beck in Munich, Andreas Murkudis in Berlin, Manufactum across Germany, and the Monocle Shops from London and Zürich to Tokyo and Hong Kong — alongside a growing roster of design-led retailers across Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

In parallel, Plainly runs a quietly successful hospitality programme — custom amenity lines made in small batches in Germany for design-led hotels, beginning with Cortiina in Munich, and now extending to a wider circle of houses chosen for their taste.