Babette Switzerland

Babette Switzerland is a Swiss skincare-accessory brand built around a single product: a reusable microfiber glove used to cleanse the face and body, remove makeup and exfoliate with water alone. It was founded in 2018 by entrepreneur Babette Keller Liechti, who developed the first glove — the DémaquiGant — and launched it as a consumer brand [8]. The company is based in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland, and sits within KT Home SA, part of Keller Liechti's earlier microfiber business.

The brand grew out of an industrial speciality rather than a cosmetics background. Keller Liechti had spent decades making technical microfiber cloths for Swiss watchmakers and jewellers, and the gloves apply that material expertise to a personal-care routine. Since February 2024 the gloves have been used in Dior Spas worldwide as a white-label product, and they are also sold directly online and through Sephora and spa partners.

Babette Keller Liechti is a Swiss entrepreneur and the founder of Keller Trading SA, a microfiber manufacturer she started in 1989 in Biel/Bienne to supply high-end watchmaking and jewellery brands [10]. According to ELLE Suisse, she began the business in her kitchen, sewing at night, producing polishing cloths for watchmakers. The about-page describes "nearly four decades" of fibre-development experience behind the later beauty line.

The glove itself came from a personal need. Keller Liechti has said she suffers from cluster headaches, a condition that makes her eyes water, and that she "was looking for a way to wipe them away without chemicals" [8]. That search led to the soft microfiber glove she later turned into the Babette range. Biographical accounts of the founder differ on one minor detail: the brand's about-page describes her as a mother of four [2], while an ELLE Suisse profile reports three children [9].

The Babette consumer brand and the older parent company have separate starting points. Keller Trading SA was established in 1989, working in microfiber for the Swiss watch and jewellery sectors [10]. In 2009 Keller Liechti received the Veuve Clicquot Prize for Swiss Businesswomen — a Bold Woman Award given for corporate social responsibility — and the company began developing eco-friendly packaging. The makeup-removal glove, the DémaquiGant, was developed in 2018, and it is this launch that marks the founding of Babette Switzerland as a beauty brand [8].

Because of this two-stage history, sources cite different founding years: 2018 for the Babette beauty brand, and 1989 for the parent manufacturer Keller Trading SA [8][10]. The most recent milestone is the Dior partnership, in place since February 2024.

Babette Switzerland is structured under KT Home SA, which forms part of Keller Liechti's Keller Trading SA group [8]. No outside acquisition or change of ownership is recorded in the available sources.

The brand frames its product as a "Routine Pure" — a pure routine that cleanses, removes makeup and exfoliates using only water and a soft glove. Its stated pillars are minimal product use, gentleness toward the skin's natural balance, and reduced waste, summed up in the tagline "60 secondes. Un gant. De l'eau." ("60 seconds. One glove. Water."). The company positions the glove as a replacement for disposable cotton pads and wipes, and describes its mission, in the context of the Dior collaboration, as an intent to "change the skincare ritual of millions of women."

The core range is a family of washable microfiber gloves and mitts aimed at different skin types and uses, including the FluffyMini for sensitive skin, the exfoliating FluffyNude, the more abrasive NudeMini and NudeLarge, and the FluffyMoufle mitt. A newer "gant seconde peau" (second-skin glove) is made from 88% recycled polyester, according to ELLE Suisse [9].

The gloves work mechanically rather than chemically. The company says each loop of a Nude glove contains 440 microfilaments that "act like little brushes" entering the pore to lift away makeup and impurities, removing them in about 60 seconds with water alone. The Nude glove's fibre composition is given as 62% polyester, 30% nylon, 6% rubber and 2% spandex; it is machine-washable at 60°C and rated for a two-year lifespan. The gloves are designed in Switzerland and manufactured in South Korea, which Keller Liechti has said allows the company to "control expertise" over production [8].

Reuse is central to how the brand describes its products. Babette states that one glove replaces more than 3,000 disposable cotton pads and saves up to 12,000 litres of water over its life [1]. The company traces its environmental work to 2009, when it began developing eco-friendly packaging, and presents the choice of a reusable glove as "a definitive farewell" to the cotton rounds and disposable wipes that accumulate over time. Specific third-party certifications are not stated in the available sources.

In 2009 Keller Liechti was awarded the Veuve Clicquot Prize for Swiss Businesswomen for corporate social responsibility, described as the first laureate from the watchmaking sector [10]. The Babette glove has since drawn coverage in the Swiss and luxury press, including a 2024 ELLE Suisse profile of the founder and a Formes de Luxe trade report on the brand's move into Dior Spas.

Babette Switzerland is active. It operates a live direct-to-consumer e-commerce site, supplies gloves to Dior Spas worldwide under a white-label arrangement begun in February 2024, and was the subject of several press mentions through 2024, the most recent recorded being an ELLE item dated 15 May 2024 [8]. The brand remains a single-product-category business centred on its microfiber gloves, sold internationally through its own store, Sephora and spa partners.