APM-Creme

APM-Creme is a massage cream made in Heyen, Germany, by the Europäische Penzel-Akademie, the training institute for AKUPUNKT-MASSAGE nach Penzel (APM). Rather than a standalone cosmetics label, it is a companion product to a massage technique: the academy describes it as an ointment base intended for use in Penzel therapy, applied to larger areas of skin and to scars [8].

The cream sits inside a small ecosystem built around one method and one founder, the masseur Willy Penzel. The academy he founded in 1971 still trains therapists, sells the cream through its own webshop, and supplies it to therapists and resellers. No launch year for the cream itself has been published. The brand remains active, with a classic version and an organic variant, APM-Creme green, currently on sale.

The story of APM-Creme begins with the method it was made for. Akupunkt-Massage nach Penzel is a treatment technique loosely based on Chinese tuina massage. Unlike acupuncture, it uses no needles and does not break the skin. Instead, the therapist strokes along the so-called acupuncture meridians (the energy pathways of traditional Chinese medicine) with a small metal stylus, and can also press individual acupuncture points directly, much as in acupressure [11].

According to German Wikipedia, Willy Penzel promoted the technique from the 1950s onward. He worked as a masseur and bath attendant. Because the method does not pierce the skin, it is open in many countries to non-doctors, including physiotherapists, massage therapists, midwives, nursing staff and laypeople. Its supporters use it for pain, for problems with organ function and for disorders of the muscles and joints, and they also apply it to animals, particularly horses and dogs.

Penzel was born in Wattenscheid on 14 October 1918 and died in Heyen on 13 April 1985 [2]. Before settling in Heyen, the Penzel family lived for many years in the spa town of Bad Pyrmont, about half an hour's drive away. In the spring of 1971 he founded the APM school that became the Europäische Penzel-Akademie, described on its website as a teaching institute for APM [1]. The cream is the academy's product. The founding year and founder of the academy should therefore not be read as the launch date or creator of the cream, which the sources do not name.

Since 1983, teaching has taken place in a building called the "Pyramide" in Heyen, in Lower Saxony [3]. The academy presents itself as the worldwide centre of APM training. It says it has trained more than 25,000 students, receives students from all five continents each year, and organises up to 100 courses a year in Germany and abroad. It also runs guest houses and apartments for course participants, which it says are furnished according to feng shui principles.

A professional body grew up alongside the school. The Internationaler Therapeutenverband für Akupunktmassage nach Penzel, founded in 1978 and based in Heyen near Bodenwerder, reports around 4,000 members from 25 countries, most of them from Germany, Austria and Switzerland [11]. The academy's website links to APM websites with Australian, Canadian, Czech, Hungarian and Austrian domains.

Penzel's centenary in October 2018 was marked by a memorial ceremony in Heyen and Bad Pyrmont. A plaque was unveiled at the family's former home in Bad Pyrmont in the presence of the town's mayor, and the local newspaper Dewezet reported on it. At the event, the mayor described Penzel as a pioneer of physical medicine.

The school's 50th anniversary fell in 2021. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was marked only on 21 June 2021, with a small gathering at the academy [2]. In a speech, the chair of the therapists' association placed APM within physical medicine in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and said it is recognised in some countries.

Teaching has since spread to new locations. In March 2023, the academy ran its first A-course split across two consecutive weekends in Leipzig, and it has added further courses in that format [5]. The same year it offered an A-course for the first time in Düsseldorf-Benrath, at the offices of an association of naturopathic practitioners.

APM-Creme is made and sold by APM-Akademie GmbH & Co. KG, a German limited partnership registered at Willy-Penzel-Platz in Heyen. Its legal notice names a management company, Europäische Penzel-Akademie Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, as the general partner, with Matthias Wiemann as managing director [4]. The same company operates the webshop that sells the cream.

At the academy's 50th anniversary in 2021, Karin Köhls was named as its owner [2]. The therapists' association shares the Heyen address. In 2021 it was chaired by Andreas Mühle; the current legal notice lists Sven Bartelt as its first chairman. The academy describes the association as one of its most important partners. No acquisitions or sister cosmetics brands are documented.

The cream is positioned around the massage rather than around beauty. The academy presents it as a working tool of the method: therapists are encouraged to use it in practice, and patients to apply it at home for self-massage. It is described as especially suited to Penzel therapy and is recommended for massaging larger areas of skin and scars.

The academy's wider mission frames the product. Its guiding statement says it follows Penzel's ideas, aiming to keep developing a helpful link between two systems of medicine while keeping the method easy to learn. It adds that complementary therapies are taken up when they fit a holistic view of medicine. The company says its task is to work with its therapists on lasting quality in German and European healthcare, and to set new impulses for the benefit of patients. These are statements about the academy as a whole, not claims about the cream.

The core product is APM-Creme in a 60 ml tube. The maker describes its formula as a "Salbengrundlage", an ointment base: the neutral carrier substance on which ointments are built. A German online pharmacy that lists the cream names APM-Akademie as its manufacturer [12]. Its product description says the cream does not smear or leave a greasy film, and that it first forms a soap-like coating on the skin that is absorbed within a few minutes. For larger areas, it suggests dampening the skin with water first, so the cream spreads more easily and less is needed.

The second product is APM-Creme green, also in 60 ml. According to the maker, it is made entirely with ingredients from controlled organic cultivation, known in German as "kbA" [9]. No certification body is named for this claim. The company also describes the green version as free of mineral-oil-based raw materials and as dermatologically tested, without giving details of any study. It presents the variant as sharing the properties of the classic cream, which it calls proven over decades.

A third listing reflects the method's use on animals. The webshop offers a 1,000 ml size of APM-Creme labelled as intended for animals only [6]. This matches the wider APM tradition of treating horses and dogs.

Distribution runs through several channels. The academy sells the cream in its own webshop and supplies therapists and resellers on existing trade terms. The classic cream is also sold through online pharmacies, where it is listed with a German pharmacy product number. The key ingredients of either formula are not published beyond the organic and mineral-oil-free claims for the green version, and no third-party certifications are documented.

The main point of criticism concerns the method rather than the cream. German Wikipedia states that the effectiveness of Akupunkt-Massage nach Penzel, an alternative-medicine treatment, has not been scientifically demonstrated. It also notes that the acupuncture meridians along which therapists work cannot be shown to exist by scientific means [11]. The academy, by contrast, describes APM as one of the established energy-based therapies for pain and regulation. No criticism aimed specifically at APM-Creme is documented.

APM-Creme is active. As of September 2026, both APM-Creme and APM-Creme green were listed as available to order in the maker's webshop, and the classic cream was stocked by online pharmacies. The product remains a small specialist line tied to a massage-therapy academy, sold mainly in Germany through its own shop, therapists, resellers and pharmacies.