Rihanna reveals the personal tie she has to Fenty Skin's star ingredient

If we’re completely honest, Rihanna could have bottled up tap water, and we’d still have shelled out our cash – the wait was long, the hype was real, and by the time the July 31st launch rolled around we would have been happy to stock our shelves with anything boasting that Fenty Skin label.

But, because she’s Rihanna and ‘real’ is practically her middle name, her approach was all about incorporating ingredients that she knew, from personal experience, worked, especially considering it was results she wouldn’t compromise on with the range. “Skin care, it's the truth. It either works or it doesn't. There's nowhere to hide," she told British Vogue back in March.

Considering her ideas are generally as revolutionary as she is real, the ingredient she chose to hero in her very first Fenty Skin drop is one that’s fairly fresh to the game. It also happens to hail from her home island of Barbados, so it's safe to say that Ri was the perfect person to introduce it to our faces. Meet the Bajan cherry, the star of Fenty Skin’s covetable cleanser and must-try toner-serum.

"The Bajan cherry is something I grew up stealing from neighbours' trees,” Rihanna revealed via a digital launch event, as reported by The Zoe Report. “My mum's cousin had a cherry tree in her backyard, and we used to have to run past the dogs to get to them.” From the looks of the post-cleanse selfies gracing Fenty Skin’s tagged section, though, it appears the glow-levels are well worth a risky run past the local canine pack.

“I thought I was just eating a good little cherry, [but] then I started to find out the benefits,” she explained. “The first thing you do when you have a cold is drink a Bajan cherry juice because it has so much vitamin C in it, even more than an orange. You get better in less than 24 hours, it feels like. I wanted to implement that into skin care, since I know vitamin C is a key part of good skin." Facts; few topicals get the skin glistening like a hit of brightening, tone-evening vit-C, and we’re always up to embrace a new source of the stuff, particularly if it's extra potent.

It was important to Rihanna to pull from nature during the formulation process, too, and so she chose to shine the spotlight on some of the same ingredients she turned to growing up in Barbados (FYI, the Bajan cherry is actually nicknamed the ‘Barbados cherry’ given its native homeland). “As an Island girl, fortunately I've had lots of access to key ingredients that work really well for your skin,” she shared. “These things that we have access to every day implement great results on your skin. I tried to keep that a huge part of the process with ingredients.”

This sentiment was echoed by @fentyskin's strong caption game: "@badgalriri wanted to source the best ingredients from all over the world, including ones that are personal to her, like the Barbados cherry 🍒 When Rihanna’s home, she loves a Barbados cherry soda for an energising pick-me-up. Every one of these tropical cherries is loaded with more vitamin C than an orange and helps brighten skin!"

Main image credit: @fentyskin

Want to know more about vitamin C? Here's all the info...