Simple and VR are skincare lines offering distinct daily remedies. The British brand, founded in 1960 and owned by Unilever PLC since 2011, is beloved for gentle moisturizers, makeup removers, cleansers, and toners crafted with niacinamide and glycerin, suiting acne-prone skin and skin with dark spots best. Conversely, enthusiasts deeply appreciate the sensory pleasure of moisturizers and considered design from VR, whose offerings suit combination, sensitive, and dry skin best. While both cater to daily needs, Simple relies on niacinamide to reduce hyperpigmentation and improve aging signs and glycerin to improve hydration and barrier function, whereas the latter continually refines its formulations for varied skin types, including the PDRN CREAM for acne-prone skin.
Simple is a British skincare brand founded in 1960 and owned by Unilever PLC since 2011.
This page compares some of the most popular Simple and VR products; for every product of both brands, with a fit score for your own skin, use the Lovi app.
Simple is the better choice on this page because it offers a much wider selection of skincare products, whereas VR features only a single cream. Furthermore, the products on this page for Simple include key ingredients like glycerin, which helps maintain skin hydration.
Simple offers a broad range of fragrance-free cleansers, toners, and moisturizers featuring niacinamide and glycerin, with Lovi fit levels reaching High for sensitive skin on select products. In contrast, VR is a newer independent brand with a single moisturizer on the page that has a High fit level for sensitive skin.
Simple offers a wider variety of value-friendly moisturisers on this page with average Lovi fit levels across skin types, while VR features a single moisturiser that is rated High for sensitive skin and Low for oily skin. Glycerin helps provide skin hydration in the products on this page.
Simple features lightweight, value-friendly moisturizers among the products on this page, whereas VR offers only a single cream without price mentions here.
Which causes fewer breakouts, Simple or VR?
Simple features products on this page with varying fit levels for acne-prone skin, while VR lists only a PDRN Cream whose fit level for acne-prone skin is average. Reviewers note that Simple products may sometimes cause breakouts or irritations.
Which brand offers fragrance-free products?
Both Simple and VR offer fragrance-free products, as every item on this page lists no fragrance in its ingredients.
Which brand was founded earlier and in what country?
Simple was founded earlier in 1960 in the United Kingdom, whereas VR was founded in 2018.
What are the key ingredients found across Simple products?
Simple features niacinamide and glycerin as key ingredients across the products on this page. Niacinamide helps reduce cutaneous pigmentation and controls skin aging, while glycerin aids in skin hydration and barrier function.
5-ceramide complex · Skin Pharmacology and Physiology, 2026
Behind this comparison
Lovi compares products by their fit scores, calculated from the full ingredient list with brand-independent rules our dermatologists and cosmetic chemists build and review, and personalizes every pick with AI trained on the real results of millions of users. Lovi trains its fit score models on a proprietary dataset built from more than 10,000 expert-labeled products and more than 100,000 simulated examples, following an internally consistent methodology presented at Cosmoprof, AMWC, and Skin of Color Update.
