We’ll admit it: we’re shallow. It matters to us that our beauty products come in beautiful packaging and right now that means apothecary-style glassware - just call it packaging porn. 

Make your bathroom look like a chemist's, all glass bottles and mysterious unguents in screw-top jars lined up against clinical white tiles (very Brooklyn). Of course it’s absolutely crucial that the contents of said bottles and jars are up to scratch – it’s no good having an artisanal flagon or a cool pharmaceutical vial if the stuff inside is below par. 

Luckily some of our favourite beauty brands more than do justice to their excellent balms, oils and lotions by putting them in equally impressive containers. The old-fashioned charm of Aesop’s brown glass bottles hints at the traditional, natural ingredients that go into their products, while Perricone MD’s super-techy skincare is represented perfectly by a lab-style dropper in a futuristic bottle.

Click through the gallery to see some of our favourite apothecary packaging and the cult products they contain