ilon

ilon is a German skin-care and dermatology brand sold through pharmacies, made by Cesra Arzneimittel GmbH & Co. KG in Baden-Baden. The brand dates itself to 1929 [2], the year its parent company was founded, and it has served as Cesra's pharmacy brand for skin conditions ever since. Its best-known product is ilon Salbe classic, a green herbal ointment for inflamed skin built around the resin of the larch tree.

What sets ilon apart from most skin-care brands is less its formulas than its ownership. Cesra belongs entirely to the Redel Stiftung, a charitable foundation, and the company says that all earnings not needed for reinvestment go to the foundation's aid projects [2]. The brand is active, with a packaging redesign rolling out across the range.

The company behind ilon, the Cesra Arzneimittelfabrik, was founded in 1929 in Rastatt, a town in south-west Germany [8]. Its name is an abbreviation: according to Cesra, "Cesra" stands for "Corpus Sanum Rastatt", Latin for "healthy body", combined with the name of the town. The company says the name was meant from the start to express both its purpose, summed up in the phrase "to help people", and its roots in the south-west of the country.

Cesra's own history does not name its founder. The founder appears only indirectly, through the descendants who later handed the company over to a foundation. Cesra describes itself as a long-standing maker of plant-based medicines and medical cosmetics, and ilon has been its dermatology line from the beginning.

Cesra stayed in Rastatt for its first 35 years. In 1964 growing space needs led the company to move to its current site in Haueneberstein, a district of Baden-Baden [8]. The legal entity behind ilon, Cesra Arzneimittel GmbH & Co. KG, is based in Baden-Baden and is represented by Redel Pharma GmbH [3].

Over the following decades Cesra built a small group of health brands around ilon. In 2018 ocean pharma, a company from Reinbek near Hamburg that makes products for podiatrists and medical beauty salons under the names Spirularin and skinicer, became part of Cesra. The acquisition later mattered for ilon itself, because ocean pharma's microalgae active ingredient, Spiralin, went on to be used in one of ilon's lip products.

In October 2022 Cesra took over two further brands, the sleep aid Lioran and the digestive remedy Gasteo, from Niehaus Pharma of Ingelheim. Two years later the group moved in the other direction: in 2024 Cesra spun off its pharmaceutical production and the vein medicine Aescuven into a separate company, Aescuven Pharma Deutschland. Through all of these changes ilon remained the dermatology brand of the group.

ilon has never been sold. Its ownership story is instead one of a family giving up its stake. In the mid-1980s the descendants of Cesra's founder decided to renounce their shares and to direct the company's future earnings to social causes. To do this, the Redel Stiftung was founded in 1988 as a charitable foundation linked to the firm [8].

Today the foundation owns 100 per cent of Cesra [2]. Since 1988, according to the company, its earnings either go through the foundation to social projects or are reinvested in the business to secure future income. Cesra says that, to its knowledge, this arrangement is unique in the pharmaceutical industry.

The foundation works under the motto "to help people". It supports long-term aid projects in Asia, Africa and South America as well as in its home region, and also provides emergency help such as medical supplies after natural disasters. ilon's own website gives concrete examples of where the money goes: wells with clean drinking water, access to education and medical help for clinics.

ilon shares its parent with Lioran and Gasteo, and with the ocean pharma brands Spirularin and skinicer.

ilon's tagline is "Mit der Intelligenz der Natur", or "with the intelligence of nature". The brand argues that nature has developed its own wisdom over millions of years and knows how to protect, strengthen and regenerate. Its focus is on plant-based and natural substances, above all the resin of conifer trees. The idea, as ilon puts it, is that resin should strengthen and protect the skin in the same way it protects the trees that produce it.

The company frames this as a meeting of tradition and modern research. It points out that the antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties of tree resin have long been known in folk medicine, and says that ongoing innovation keeps the brand up to date. ilon sums up its values as naturalness with tradition, combined with social commitment, and uses the line "ilon bewirkt mehr" ("ilon achieves more") to link its products with the foundation's work.

The range sits between medicine and skin care. Cesra describes its products as herbal medicines, medical devices and medical cosmetics, and says it works closely with doctors, alternative-medicine practitioners and pharmacists, supplying them with professional information and training material. The brand's website also runs an advice section on skin problems, with guides to wounds, abscesses, cold sores, and piercing and tattoo care.

The core of the range is ilon Salbe classic, known in German as the "grüne Zugsalbe", or green drawing ointment. A drawing ointment is a traditional remedy applied to boils, pimples and similar spots to help the inflammation come to a head. The product contains three active ingredients: larch turpentine, turpentine oil from the maritime pine, and eucalyptus oil. According to ilon, rosemary and thyme oils are included only as supporting ingredients rather than actives.

The ointment is classed as a traditional herbal medicinal product. Its approved use is the treatment of mild, localised, pus-forming skin inflammations such as pustules, inflamed hair follicles and inflamed sweat glands, based solely on long-standing use [1]. The medical information portal Dr. Gumpert describes it as the most frequently bought product in the ilon line, used for pimples, small abscesses under the skin, nail-bed inflammations and carbuncles [10]. Cesra says the ointment helps through all five stages of inflamed skin: redness, tightness, swelling, pain and pus.

The key ingredient is larch balsam, also called larch turpentine, the resin of the European larch. ilon notes that the tree grows best at altitudes between 800 and 1,200 metres, where it grows slowly, and it calls the resin "the gold of the forest". The company cites a study in which ilon Salbe classic relieved folliculitis, an inflammation of the hair follicles, faster and clearly reduced lesions while being well tolerated. It also reports that users preferred the ointment's colour and smell. In laboratory tests, according to ilon, the ingredient combination showed strong anti-inflammatory effects and antibacterial activity, including against selected antibiotic-resistant strains of MRSA [5]. These are the company's own descriptions of the research; independent confirmation is not documented.

Around this product the brand has built a small family of ointments and creams:

- ilon WundXtra Salbe, a wound-healing ointment based on Nordic spruce resin. According to Cesra, it forms a fine, water-repellent film that protects the wound and helps the skin to regenerate. - ilon Protect-Salbe, described by the brand as breathable protection against moisture, pressure and friction. - ilon Wundpflege-Salbe, a care ointment for stressed and sore skin. - ilon Lippencreme HS, a lip cream for lips prone to cold sores. - ilon Insektenschutzspray, a repellent against mosquitoes and ticks.

The lip cream is where ilon's resin tradition meets newer science. It uses Spiralin, an active ingredient made from the microalga Spirulina platensis. ilon says it supports the skin's natural protective barrier, aids regeneration and helps fend off outside influences. The ingredient comes from ocean pharma, which patented its production process in 2014; Cesra says the patented process enhances the active's germ-reducing, regenerating and moisturising effects [9].

Across the care ointments, Dr. Gumpert notes that the products rely on other ingredients than the classic ointment, with certain oils and zinc oxide used for skin and wound care. The portal advises testing the products on a small patch of skin first to rule out allergic reactions.

According to the company, most ilon products are made in Germany. The rest are produced only in Europe, in close cooperation with partners that share its standards for quality, safety and effectiveness. No third-party certifications are documented for the range.

The awards connected with ilon have gone to its parent company rather than to individual products. Cesra received the Baden-Württemberg Mittelstandspreis for social responsibility, in the "Sozial Engagiert" category, in both 2023 and 2024, in recognition of its foundation model [8]. The company has also been awarded the BSFZ seal, a German government mark for firms that carry out qualifying research and development projects, for the second time in a row.

ilon is an active brand. Cesra says that ilon Salbe classic has made it one of the established suppliers in its market segment and that the ointment is stocked in nearly every pharmacy in Germany [8]. The brand's website is published in German and is updated regularly; its skin journal carried new articles through the spring of 2026, the most recent dated 9 June 2026 [1].

The range is also being repackaged. ilon says its products are gradually appearing in a new, fresher design, and that shoppers may still receive the older packaging during the changeover while the contents stay unchanged. With the brand tracing its roots to 1929, its centenary falls in 2029.