What we leave out, and why

Most labels are written to be glanced at. Ours are written to be read: what each ingredient is, why it’s there and where it comes from. That takes room, so something had to go. What we left out, mostly, was words.

Everything is chemicals

Water is a chemical. So is the vitamin C in an orange and the cardamom in our Body Oil. “Chemical-free” describes an empty bottle, and it sells a fear rather than a formula. We would rather name every ingredient and say why it’s there.

The sunflower, sweet almond, jojoba and rosehip oils in the Body Oil are chemicals, grown in fields. The gentle urea in the Body Cream is a chemical too, made in a laboratory so every batch is the same. Neither is better for where it came from. Each is there because it works.

Numbers on the front

Where a number matters, it goes on the front of the pack, big enough to read in the shower: 5% hydroxyethyl urea and 2% panthenol on the Body Cream, 2% vitamin C and 1% ferulic acid on the Vitamin C Serum. A hidden percentage is usually hiding for a reason. A printed one lets you compare, and holds us to it.

Results work the same way. Every one we show comes with its study printed underneath: how many people, for how many weeks, and what they said.

Words that do no work

“Miracle.” “Revolutionary.” “Clinically proven”, with nothing said about what was proven. The first cabinet was full of them, and not one told us what was inside. So the rule is short: if a word doesn’t say what a product does or how long it takes, it doesn’t go on the label.

If we can’t say it plainly, we don’t make it.

Scent, by name

“Parfum” on a label can stand for dozens of things. We name ours instead: green cardamom, rosemary and galbanum in the Body Oil; cucumber, lemon and thyme in the Body Cream; mandarin in the Vitamin C Serum. The natural allergens those scents carry are listed on the back, so if you know what your skin dislikes, you can find it in seconds.

Skin as it is

Our name is a skin tone, so one promise is missing from the whole range: a different one. Nothing we make is meant to change the colour of your skin, and our pictures show skin as the light found it, never edited lighter or darker.

What goes in instead

The room all those words used to take now holds the plain ones: a + beside each key ingredient on the label, and an entry in In plain words for every one of them, 29 in all. Eight of our nine formulas are COSMOS certified, and we tell you which eight. The ninth is the Body Cream. The gentle urea that does its work is made in a way the standard doesn’t allow, and we chose the ingredient over the logo.

That is the whole trick, really. Leave out the words that sell nothing, and there is plenty of room for the ones that tell you something.

In plain wordsAll 29 ingredients, from aloe to zinc