The Era of Freshly Blended Skincare Products

Welcome to the new generation of preservative-free skincare

I have been using the same $50 facial moisturizer for about three years. But for as long as I’ve been buying the same face cream, I’ve been harboring concerns over contamination. Why?

Basic hygiene.

The jar comes with a small wooden spatula that is offered as a substitute for dipping your finger inside. It sounds cute and thoughtful, but in practice, it has presented all sorts of design challenges.

Trilogy Vital Moisturizing Cream $50

1. Where do you store it? I keep my spatula resting on top of the lid of the jar. But the jar lid isn’t exactly clean either, because it has the oils and impurities of my hands on it from unscrewing and replacing it.

2. Then there is the issue of the residual cream on the stick that inevitably attracts dust and provides a moist environment for bacteria to colonize on.

3. From time to time, the little stick falls from the top of the lid, getting dirtier yet with whatever gunky bathroom surface it touched. Sure, I could rinse it off and give it a dry, but we’re literally talking about a stick that’s like half the width of the wooden “spoon” that comes with the elementary school cup of ice cream. You just don’t take something that’s 3/4” wide by barely 3” long and give it a daily wash. That seems… hysterical.

4. Eventually, you downright lose track of the stupid stick and then you start dipping your dirty finger in the jar.

Maybe I should be using individual popsicle sticks and disposing of them every time I apply moisturizer - generally morning and evening. But that is 60 craft sticks a month. Seems like a lot of waste, doesn’t it?

In January, I learned that Trilogy offers a similar moisturizer, the Ultra Hydrating Face Cream, packaged in a squeeze tube. Can you imagine my joy?

May the days of sketchy jars of face cream live only in my past.

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If I know anything about science and skincare, it’s that purity matters. Putting dirty product on our face kind of defeats the purpose. This was my whole conundrum with the 2 ounce jar of face cream. Heaven only knows what microscopic impurities were fighting an invisible war in there. I’m not really a germaphobe, but the packaging design was poorly matched with the intended use of the product.

It’s not a stretch then, to want the freshest possible product.

If we assume that the ingredients in our skincare products eventually become less stable and start to lose effectiveness, we are essentially just diluting the benefits we bought into in the first place.

One brand that I’ve supported since 2019 is NUORI, which was founded in 2015 by a former L’Oreal staffer with firsthand observations of the EU cosmetic labeling rules, which state that products with a 2.5 year minimum stability do not require an expiry date. Thus the industry standard for shelf life became 30 or more months. Of course this often requires the use of additives and synthetic preservatives to stabilize the formulations for that long.

As an alternative approach, NUORI is blended in small batches every 10-12 weeks. The brand uses packaging that minimizes exposure to air, light, bacteria and mold before and during the use.

From left to right: NUORI Vital Foaming Cleanser $37, NUORI Vital Eye Cream $62

I currently use two NUORI products everyday: the Vital Foaming Cleanser and the Vital Eye Cream.

You might argue that big companies are making product 24/7. But they are pumping preservatives into it so that it can legally sit in distributions centers or on store shelves for years.

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A Boston-based skincare brand called LightWater is taking this a step further. The company makes vegan, fresh, clean and pure moisturizers for morning and night that are packaged in “fresh-lock” daily doses. This helps maintain optimum hygiene and potency with each use. And despite the optics of what might seem like added waste, the company claims that the approach reduces materials by 35-75% versus traditional skincare. The approach provides the experience of using “brand new” product every time.

From left to right: LightWater AM Multivitamin Moisturizer $55, LightWater PM Replenishing Cream $55

LightWater’s AM Multivitamin Moisturizer has Vitamins B3, B5, B7, plus Vitamin C, Vitamin E, hyaluronic acid, green tea extract, shea butter, cocoa seed butter, and probiotics. The PM Replenishing Cream contains ferulic acid, goji berry extract, omega-3 fatty acids, super-hydrators and barrier-strengtheners, as well as probiotics.

Designed by Soo-Young Kang, the product integrates her knowledge of Korean beauty expertise with her training as a research fellow at Harvard. The co-founders of LightWater are Harvard dermatologists with impressive backgrounds in laser therapies and skin resurfacing.

This is the same team that brought Living Proof hair products from a lab bench at MIT to an estimated $150 million acquisition by Unilever in 2016.

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What do you think of the concept of fresh skincare? Are you concerned about preservatives in the products that you use?

For clarity, there are three layers of problems and three levels of solutions.

The problems are:

• Preservatives, and the resulting irritation they can cause

• Decreased effectiveness, due to oxidation and aging of “active” ingredients

• Contamination, due to poor packaging

The solutions are:

• Preservative-free formulations

• Decreased consumption cycles (ie: one-time), to ensure freshness

• Better design, to avoid contamination

There’s a movement away from preservatives in our food. It’s not surprising to find a movement away from preservatives for the products that sit on our skin.

NUORI and LightWater are two contemporary examples, but I expect more small skincare brands to begin embracing the marketing boost of fresh ingredients and improved form factors. Just watch as “fresh” becomes an anchor claim over the next decade in skincare and aesthetics.