The water-free skincare revolution

Most high street creams and lotions contain up to 80% water and petrochemical-derived emollients. These watery concoctions then need preservatives and emulsifiers to stabilise them, just the sort of thing sensitive skin finds intolerable. So do we.

Our range is made with 100% active ingredients, everything playing a role in improving your skin. They're used in their most unprocessed state, bursting with vitamins and antioxidants, and blended at the lowest temperature possible to preserve beneficial compounds. Our products contain:

• naturally nourishing plant oils
• organic beeswax
• minerals
• home-grown herbal extracts
• nothing else

We believe this water-free approach offers genuinely superior hydration and protection, for everyone, including those with sensitive and chronic skin conditions. For the science behind why, read on, or see our How Your Skin Works page for the full picture of your skin's structure.

Because we work closely with a growing collective of trusted local growers, alongside herbs we still grow ourselves, we keep close control over how our native herbs like calendula are grown and harvested, getting flowers processed while they're fresh rather than after months in storage losing their potency. Where we use more exotic herbs, like amla, that can't be grown locally, we source them from a reputable organic supplier we trust. You can read more about this journey on our About Us page.

Why the Skin Barrier Needs This Approach

Your stratum corneum, the outer layer of your epidermis, is your skin's first line of defence against the outside world. Maintaining it well matters for everyone, but it's especially critical if you live with a chronic skin condition. Even in between flare-ups, when skin looks calm and settled, that barrier needs consistent care to stay that way.

When the barrier weakens, moisture escapes, cracks appear at a microscopic level (rather like a dried-up river bed), and the drier, more damaged skin becomes more prone to irritation, allergens, and pathogens getting in. Scratching in response causes further damage, and the cycle continues. Reseal that barrier, and moisture stays where it belongs.

Healthy skin naturally produces a mix of lipids, roughly ceramides, free fatty acids, and cholesterol, that seal the stratum corneum, keeping moisture in and pathogens out. Research backs this up directly: plant oils containing linoleic acid, linolenic acid, and lauric acid have been shown to improve skin barrier function and even reduce inflammation without side effects.

This is exactly why we formulate the way we do. The oils we use are rich in those very fatty acids, especially linoleic acid, an essential fatty acid your body can't produce itself. Linoleic acid must be acquired from diet or topical application. Your skin uses linoleic acid to help synthesise ceramides, the "cement" that keeps the stratum corneum's "brick wall" intact. When ceramide levels drop, that cement starts to crumble.

Shea butter and calendula go a step further: they contain plant compounds (triterpenes, tocopherol, phenols, sterols) that act as ceramide precursors, meaning your body can use them as raw material to build its own ceramides. Borage oil is particularly rich in GLA (gamma-linolenic acid), which is useful because people with atopic skin conditions are often deficient in the enzyme needed to convert ordinary linoleic acid into GLA themselves, making an external source vital rather than just a nice-to-have.

Ceramide levels also naturally decline with age and in colder months, and this drop is linked to falling oestrogen levels during and after menopause, since oestrogen plays a role in both sebum production and skin lubrication. This is one of the reasons mature skin often becomes drier and more delicate over time, and why consistent barrier support matters more, not less, as skin ages.

Inflammation is a normal, necessary part of your immune response, but like most things, too much becomes a problem. Chronic inflammation leaves skin stuck in a cycle of firefighting rather than settling into normal, healthy function. Linoleic acid has a genuine anti-inflammatory effect on skin, which is part of why we lean on it so heavily across our formulas.

Our day and night facial skincare system is built around this fatty acid science specifically: daytime products favour saturated fats that don't oxidise in sunlight, while night-time products contain the more potent, less sun-stable polyunsaturated fatty acids best used when skin isn't exposed to UV.

Why We Avoid Emulsifiers

Emulsifiers let oil and water blend without separating, useful in a lab, less useful on your face. On skin, emulsifiers cause the protective lipids in your stratum corneum to mix too freely with water, weakening the barrier by depleting its lipid content. This leaves the stratum corneum prone to drying out and more vulnerable to pathogens and allergens getting in.

Soap, detergents, and bubble baths all contain emulsifiers. They're also typically alkaline, which disrupts the skin's naturally acidic protective film as well as its lipid balance (more on this below). Research supports switching to soap-free cleansers instead, which is part of why we recommend the Oil Cleansing Method so strongly, particularly for anyone managing eczema or another chronic skin condition naturally.

What's Really in Most Moisturisers

Water-based creams need an antimicrobial preservative to stop bacteria growing in that watery element, common examples include parabens, formaldehyde, methylisothiazolinone (MI), phenoxyethanol, and potassium sorbate. Many of these have been linked to skin reactions. They are, by their nature, harsh. Preservatives are ingredients designed to kill microbial cells, so they are harsh on skin cells too.

The skin's microbiome, when healthy and in balance, keeps bad bacteria in check (for example the ones that cause acne). It's protected in large part by the skin's acid mantle, a thin, naturally acidic film (around pH 4.5–5.5) sitting on the stratum corneum, which creates exactly the environment your resident microbiome favours while keeping many harmful microorganisms out. Antimicrobial preservatives don't stop killing bacteria once they leave the jar, and because they can't tell good bacteria from bad, they disrupt the microbiome directly. Many conventional cleansers and soaps compound this by being alkaline, pushing skin pH away from its natural acidity and weakening the acid mantle itself. See our How Your Skin Works page for more on how this ties into overall barrier function.

Petrochemical-derived mineral oils are also common, since they're cheap and endlessly stable, they never go rancid because the organic matter they came from died millions of years ago, but that stability comes at a cost. They sit on skin as a purely occlusive layer, blocking pores and preventing skin from regulating itself. Synthetic emollients in particular have been linked to perioral dermatitis, the lumpy spots that often appear around the mouth.

Even "natural" plant oils aren't always what they seem. Many are refined using solvents, heat, bleaching, or deodorising to extract and process them cheaply, and this processing can strip out the very beneficial compounds that made the oil worth using in the first place, sometimes leaving trace residues behind. We use unrefined and cold-pressed wherever possible, for exactly this reason. We use a very high percentage of organic oils in all our formulations too.

No Humectant? Here's Why That's Not a Gap

You'll often see moisturisers described as needing three ingredient types: humectants (which attract water from the air, like glycerin), emollients (which soften skin), and occlusives (which seal moisture in). Our balms are rich in emollients and occlusives, beeswax and plant butters, but we don't add humectants, and that's a deliberate choice, not an oversight.

Humectants work by pulling water from the surrounding air into your skin. That's genuinely useful in humid conditions, but unreliable in dry air, air conditioning, heating, or winter, exactly when your skin needs help most. Worse, in very low humidity, a humectant sitting in the epidermis can end up pulling water from your own dermis below instead of the air, effectively borrowing from one part of your skin to plump another.

Our approach sidesteps this altogether: apply your balm to slightly damp skin, straight after cleansing, rather than waiting until it's completely dry. Dermatologists widely recommend exactly this technique, since emollients and occlusives work by sealing in whatever moisture is already on the skin's surface. Supply the water yourself, at the moment you need it, rather than hoping an ingredient will attract it from an environment that might not have much to offer.

Improving Oily Skin

Switching to oil-based skincare surprises a lot of people by settling oily skin, too. Traditional oily-skin products strip away excess oil, but it's now understood that this causes skin to overcompensate and produce even more, making the problem worse rather than better.

Many customers find that switching to a plant oil-based routine rebalances oil production, reduces shine, and settles skin prone to breakouts. Our Natural Skincare Routine for Oily & Blemish-Prone Skin walks through exactly how to do this.

Using Fewer Resources

A little goes a very long way. A tiny amount glides on, absorbs easily, and covers a surprisingly large area, keeping skin hydrated and comfortable all day. Our products come in small jars, meaning less packaging and less energy needed to ship them to you.

Diet Matters Too

What you eat affects your skin barrier as much as what you put on it. A balanced diet rich in fruit, vegetables, and unprocessed foods supports good barrier function, and staying well hydrated helps ensure that water reaches the outer layers of skin from within. See our foods for healthy skin page for more information.

The Future of Skincare

More mainstream brands are catching on to the benefits of oil-based skincare, hot cloth cleansers and facial oils are appearing on the high street. Most, though, still rely on petrochemical derivatives and other less desirable ingredients.

We're committed to bringing you genuinely natural skincare, with potent infusions of our home-grown herbs, full ingredient transparency, and formulas built on the science of how your skin actually works. We'll keep doing this for as long as you keep choosing us.