Retterspitz

Retterspitz is a German brand of natural remedies, body care, facial care and fragrance, based in Schwaig on the edge of Nuremberg. Its product goes back to a healing water that Margarete Retterspitz made in Würzburg in the 1890s. The company itself was founded in 1902, when the Nuremberg pharmacist Hans Scheck bought her recipe and began producing it under the name "Retterspitzwasser" [2]. More than 120 years later, the business is still independent and owned by the founding family, now in its fourth generation.

Retterspitz grew up as a pharmacy name, built around a remedy for external use and traditional home treatments such as wraps. Over the decades it has added skincare, bath products and scent, and a regional newspaper described in 2025 how the brand had moved beyond its image as something from a grandmother's medicine cabinet [9]. In 2021 the company opened its first shop of its own, a flagship store in Nuremberg.

The story starts before the company. According to Retterspitz, Margarete Riegel, born in 1851, received the recipe for a healing water through her first husband, Georg Weber; it had originally come from a physician. After she remarried, she and her second husband, Friedrich Retterspitz, produced the water together in Würzburg from around 1895. In 1901 the preparation was registered as a trademark under the name "Universal-Heilwickel-Bäder von Margarete Retterspitz", roughly "universal healing wrap baths" [2].

Margarete Retterspitz later moved to Appenzell in Switzerland, and the remedy was no longer available in Germany. This is where Hans Scheck enters. The company's account says the Nuremberg pharmacist had cured a stubborn stomach complaint of his own by trying the water on himself, and that he then bought the recipe from its creator [8]. He sold his pharmacy, set up a small laboratory and in 1902 began making "Retterspitzwasser für äußerliche Heilanwendungen", Retterspitz water for external healing use. The firm he founded in Nuremberg was called Hans Scheck – Retterspitz, and it handled both production and sales of what the company calls a folk remedy.

Retterspitz treats Scheck as its founder: later generations are described in relation to him, while Margarete Retterspitz appears as the originator of the remedy and the source of its name. The dates 1895 and 1901 belong to the remedy's prehistory; the company dates its own founding to 1902.

Scheck did not stay with one product for long. In 1920 the company began producing Retterspitz Innerlich, a preparation taken by mouth that the brand says helps with stomach complaints such as heartburn, a feeling of fullness and bloating. It is still made today, and together with the original external remedy it forms what the company calls its classics.

After Hans Scheck died in 1935, his son Hermann Scheck took over and, in the company's words, expanded the business considerably. The Second World War then brought a break. The production sites in Nuremberg were destroyed, and manufacturing moved to Behringersdorf, a village just outside the city. Since 1961 the company has been based on a single site there, in the municipality of Schwaig [7].

The third generation came from medicine. Dr. Gerhard Valet, a physician and grandson of the founder, widened the range of remedies and care cosmetics from 1966 onward. Among the products he developed, according to the company, were the Vitamin Gelee, a line of care cosmetics, a massage oil and a sauna essence. These took Retterspitz beyond remedies and into everyday body care, a direction it has kept ever since.

Dr. Valet's sons now head the company as its fourth generation. Retterspitz opened its first flagship store on 1 July 2021, in Nuremberg's Augustinerhof; the company notes it was the first shop of its own since the firm was founded. The store went on to win two design awards in 2023. In April 2026 the brand relaunched its medical facial-care line in a new design and added an eye serum, Retterspitz Augenserum [1].

Retterspitz has no corporate parent. The company says it has been in family hands since its founding, now in the fourth generation [2]. The only acquisition in its history is the one that created it: Hans Scheck's purchase of the recipe in 1902. No later sale or takeover of the business is known.

The operating company is Retterspitz GmbH & Co. KG, a German limited partnership registered at the Nuremberg district court, with Retterspitz Verwaltungs GmbH as its general partner [3]. The brothers Markus Valet, a business graduate, and Florian Valet, who leads product development, are named as owners and managing directors.

Retterspitz sums up its purpose in three words that double as its tagline: "Heilen, Pflegen und Wohlfühlen", or healing, caring and feeling well. The company names tradition and innovation as the two forces behind its work. In practice that means pairing old home remedies, such as essential oils, wraps and plant constituents like thymol, with modern scientific testing. Retterspitz says the effect and tolerability of natural, allergen-free ingredients and proven auxiliary substances come first when it develops a product.

The brand describes itself as a pharmacy brand for natural healing, care and well-being, and its identity rests on that link to the pharmacy counter. All of its products are sold without a prescription, and pharmacies are its main channel [8]. According to the company, the brand has been stocked in German pharmacies for more than 120 years.

That long history has also shaped how the brand is seen. The Nürnberger Nachrichten opened its 2025 feature by asking whether readers' grandmothers had once kept Retterspitz in the medicine cabinet, before noting that the brand no longer carries only that image. The paper framed the story as a shift from a grandmother's home remedy to a lifestyle product. The flagship store, the redesigned facial care and the fragrance line all belong to this later chapter.

The range falls into two broad halves. The first is remedies: over-the-counter medicines and medical devices such as Retterspitz Äußerlich, Retterspitz Innerlich and Retterspitz Bronchial, along with ointments, a muscle cream, cold drops and a series of wraps for the calves, shoulders, neck and torso, including so-called wet socks. Retterspitz Äußerlich was, according to the company, its very first product.

The second half is care. Body care covers lotions, skin oil, massage milk and oil, and hand creams. Bath and shower products include herbal shower gels, a herbal bath salt, shampoo and the sauna essence, and there is a small oral-care line with toothpaste and mouthwash. The facial-care line is presented as medical cosmetics and includes day and night creams, a tinted day cream, a hyaluronic gel, a cleansing milk and Retterspitz Hydrogel. The company singles out the Hydrogel as one of its product innovations, together with the Retterspitz Muskelroller, which it says is often used for sports injuries.

Fragrance is the newest area. Retterspitz Eau de Parfum JUNIPER was created by the perfumer Geza Schön, and the brand describes it as a unisex scent of juniper and basil with jasmine and freesia [5]. The name has since grown into a small line with an intense version, a body lotion, a shower gel, room fragrances and a scented candle, alongside a second perfume called JARDIN.

Across the range, the company highlights essential oils and thymol as its core ingredients. Its website also features rosemary, thyme, eucalyptus and juniper among the plants it works with.

Retterspitz develops and makes its products in-house. Its development laboratory, production, quality control and administration share one site in Behringersdorf, where around 70 people work. According to the company, a new product only moves on once it meets internal requirements, and then goes through a test phase of about two years before launch. That phase covers clinical tolerability tests, observation of the product in real use, safety assessments and stability tests [2].

The company says it manufactures to Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), the quality standard used for medicines, as well as to the rules for medical devices and the GMP requirements for cosmetics. No third-party certifications, such as vegan or cruelty-free labels, are documented for the brand.

The recognition Retterspitz has received so far relates to its shop rather than its products. In 2023 the Nuremberg flagship store won a German Design Award, with a Special Mention in the Excellent Architecture category, and an iF Design Award for interior architecture in the Shop / Showroom Interiors category [7].

In the press, the Nürnberger Nachrichten published a business feature on 1 January 2025 about the brand's change of image. It noted that two brothers run the Nuremberg family company in the fourth generation [9].

Retterspitz is active. Its most recent dated announcements, from 27 April 2026, cover the redesigned medical facial-care line and the new eye serum. The company remains independent and family-run, with its headquarters and production in Schwaig-Behringersdorf near Nuremberg. Pharmacies in Germany are its core channel. The flagship store in Nuremberg and the company's own web shops, which deliver to Germany, Austria and many other European countries, add to that. The headquarters has no factory outlet, and no distribution outside Europe is known.