Nervous System Skincare™

Your skin is the part
of your nervous system
you can see.

So it answers when the rest of you does. You already knew that. We formulate for it by subtraction, with every ingredient named.

Keep going
A woman in a linen robe, eyes closed, holding a jar of Indiefog Pure Reset against her cheek
No synthetic fragrance Facial line essential oil free Every ingredient named Small-batch in San Diego Free shipping over $45
Paying attention

You have been paying attention
to your skin for a very
long time.

You read the ingredient list before you buy. You remember which product was fine last spring, and which one you finished once and never bought again.

You know the weeks it shows on your face. The cream that suited you in June runs warm in September. Your jaw is tight by four in the afternoon. Your cheeks are still flushed at bedtime.

Here, all of that counts for something.

Your skin has been keeping a record of all of it.

The Framework

Your skin keeps a record
of what your body has
been carrying.

You already know the weeks it shows. It runs hot and reactive when you have been bracing. It goes dry and looks thinner when you have been running on reserve.

Your skin and your nerves share an origin, the ectoderm, and your skin is dense with them. So when your system sits in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, your skin answers. Cortisol rises. Circulation slows.

Read the Full Framework →
State 01
Fight
Your body has been holding a line it never gets to put down.
Redness · Heat in the face · Jaw tension · Reactive skin
State 02
Flight
Your body keeps mobilizing, and keeps spending what it had in reserve.
Dryness · Hollowness under the eyes · Skin that looks thinner
State 03
Freeze
Circulation and lymph slow down, and the surface goes quiet with them.
Dullness · Flatness · Morning puffiness
State 04
Fawn
You have been managing everyone else at your own expense.
Hypersensitivity · Reactivity · Skin with no buffer left
State 05
Regulated
There is room to rest here, and something worth protecting.
Steadiness · Room to recover · Something to keep
A Note on This Framework
This is a language for noticing. It is not a diagnosis, and it belongs alongside your doctors, never instead of them. Where established physiology supports what we say, we say so. Where we are offering clinically informed intuition, we say that too.
Kikki Avila, Clinical Formulator and Founder of Indiefog Naturals
Kikki Avila
Clinical Formulator · Founder · Indiefog Naturals
The Founder

“I built Indiefog from inside that experience, while I was still in it.”

For years I lived in a body that reacted to almost everything. Chronic sensitivities, and a system that stayed on high alert. My skin rejected most of what I had been told was gentle.

So I became a clinical formulator. I studied physiology, and I studied the specific ways a system on high alert handles ingredients. Then I made the formulas I had been looking for and could not find.

My own reactivity has since gone quiet. The formulation standard stayed exactly where it was. These products were made for skin that cannot afford a mistake, and that is still who they are for.

If you are navigating chronic illness, MCAS, autoimmune disease, perimenopause, or a system that stays on high alert, you are the reason this brand exists. Indiefog belongs alongside your doctors, never instead of them.

Small-Batch San Diego, CA
For the evening

A few minutes at the end
of the day that ask
nothing back.

Warm a little magnesium butter between your hands. Press it into the back of your neck, then up into the base of your skull. Slow circles, real pressure. Take as long as you like.

Then press play on the five-minute meditation, and put the screen down.

Gentle Descent is lightly scented with lavender and chamomile. Pure Descent is the same butter with them left out.

The meditation is free, and it is going to stay free.

Shop the Magnesium Butters
Gentle Descent magnesium body butter
What is in it

You read the list first.
So here is a whole one,
before you ask.

This is The Gentle Balm, printed the way it appears on the jar. Sixteen ingredients, in order, with the certifications marked. Nothing grouped, nothing shortened to fragrance, nothing left for you to work out.

The Gentle Balm · Full INCI

Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil*+^^, Butyrospermum Parkii (East African Nilotica Shea) Butter*, Garcinia Indica (Kokum) Seed Butter*, Squalane, Coco-Caprylate/Caprate, Vegetable Glycerin, Aqua (Water), Quillaja Saponaria Wood Extract, Calendula Officinalis Flower Extract CO2*, Crambe Abyssinica Seed Oil, Limnanthes Alba (Meadowfoam) Seed Oil, Saponaria Officinalis Leaf/Root Extract, Benzyl Alcohol****, Tocopherol, Dehydroacetic Acid****, Althaea Officinalis (Marshmallow) Root Extract.

Scroll the list. All sixteen are there.

*Organic   +Ethically Sourced   ^^Regeneratively Grown   ****ECOCERT-certified

16 ingredients86% Natural14% Naturally Derived & SyntheticUnscentedNo Synthetic FragranceEssential Oil-FreePEG-FreeNo Parabens, Dyes or Talc
See the whole product page →
Benzyl alcohol, named rather than buried
It is in this balm as part of the preservative system, not as a scent ingredient. It is also a declarable fragrance allergen on European labels, which is exactly why we name it here instead of leaving you to spot it. That is also why this one is unscented rather than fragrance-free. The difference matters, and you are the person who checks.
Two preservation systems, both certified
Every water-containing formula we make is preserved, because an unpreserved water formula is a safety risk. One system is 100% natural. The other is COSMOS and Ecocert certified, benzyl alcohol with dehydroacetic acid, and it is the one in this jar. Most of our anhydrous formulas need no preservative at all. Whichever is in your product, it is named on the label.

Every product page carries its full list this way. Left out on purpose is only worth saying if you can see what was left out. One more thing worth knowing before you try this one: calendula is in the Asteraceae family, so if you react to ragweed, patch test it carefully.

Before you risk anything

Two ways to find out,
and neither one costs
you much.

Start here
The Discovery Sample Pack, $3
Sample sizes, for about what a coffee costs. Patch test them on your inner forearm and give it a full day before anything goes near your face. Three dollars is a small way to find out how your skin feels about us.
Get the sample pack →
And if it goes wrong
If your skin reacts, we refund you
Tell us within 30 days and the money goes back. Keep the jar, or pass it to someone whose skin will take it. There is nothing to photograph and nothing to argue about. We would rather you kept your trust in us than kept a product you cannot use.
Tell us what happened →

Formulated for reactive, easily-overwhelmed skin. We suggest a patch test on the inner forearm, left 24 hours, before facial use.

Who This Is For

For the woman whose body
has been saying something
for years, and who keeps being
handed one more thing to try.

01
Reactive & Sensitive Skin
Skin that reacts to essential oils, fragrance, and even to the products labelled gentle. Skin with no buffer left. These formulas are built around exactly that, and they ask nothing more of it.
02
The Ingredient-Conscious Woman
She reads the full INCI list before she buys, and she checks what she is told. Every ingredient we use is listed, named, and explained, so she can verify all of it herself.
03
Chronic Illness & Autoimmune
MCAS, Hashimoto's, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjögren's, celiac, endometriosis, CFS, fibromyalgia. Made for skin navigating a system that reacts, with every ingredient chosen against that reality.
04
Perimenopause & Hormonal Shifts
Skin that changed without warning. New reactivity, breakouts, sudden dryness, flushing. Formulated for a body in transition, with nothing added that it has to work around.

From the Community

Women who have been
where you are.

Most people find us on a bad week. Something else has already gone wrong, and they are looking for the shortest ingredient list they can find. That is who these were made for.

★★★★★
I have MCAS, and I trusted this brand when I was having a flare from another product.
B BrookeSensitive skin · MCAS
★★★★★
I am 46 and my skin changed completely in the last two years. Everything I used to use started causing reactions. Indiefog is the first brand that seemed to understand what was happening in my body, and on my skin.
M Margaret R.Perimenopause · Hormonal reactivity

Swipe for more →

Reviews describe individual experience. Indiefog products are cosmetics, made to cleanse, soften, and comfort skin. They do not treat, cure, or prevent any condition.

The Nervous System Face Map

Your face has been speaking.
Here is how to listen.

Flushing, shadows, held tension, the lines that show up first. The quiz walks you through your own face, zone by zone, then points you to the ritual that meets you where you are.

Offered as a language for noticing. It is not a diagnosis, and it belongs alongside your doctors, never instead of them.

Begin Your Face Map Reading →

Rooted & Well™

A room where you are
understood before
you speak.

A free community for people choosing to live more holistically, whether you are managing a chronic condition or you simply want a calmer way of caring for yourself.

Meditations, journaling, and the self-compassion work. A human design expert, a detoxification specialist, and a meditation specialist, in the room alongside your own care team. The guides, the Cup Theory, and a library that stays put.

You can read without posting. Nothing runs on a schedule, so there is nothing to fall behind on. Disappear for three weeks and the room is still here when you get back.

It is free, and it is going to stay free. You already pay for enough.

Come in

Rooted & Well™ is a peer community, founded by Kikki Avila. Everything shared there is for education and support rather than medical advice. Please make care decisions alongside your own providers, never instead of them.