Ingredient notes

Why our vitamin C comes in an oil.

You bought the serum. It stung, so you went to every other day, then to once a week, then it sat in the drawer. Or you kept going, and three months in the bottle had gone orange and you had no way of knowing whether anything was still in there.

Most people with reactive skin have a vitamin C story that ends one of those two ways. Both of our vitamin C oils exist because of it. Here is what the form of vitamin C in them is, and what it is doing in an oil rather than in water.

Where the trouble starts

The water is the hard part.

Vitamin C in its pure form is L-ascorbic acid. It is the most studied form there is, and it is potent. It also has two properties that matter a great deal if your skin reacts easily.

The first is acidity. L-ascorbic acid has to sit in an acidic formula, usually somewhere around pH 2.5 to 3.5, to stay in the form it is sold for. Skin sits closer to 5. That gap is what you feel as the tingle, and on reactive skin the tingle often becomes heat and redness that lasts the rest of the morning.

The second is what happens in the bottle. Ascorbic acid dissolves in water, and in water it oxidises. Light and air speed it up. That orange bottle at the back of the cabinet is the reaction, finished.

So a water-based serum asks you to accept an acid on your face, and to use it fast. For skin that is already spending its energy tolerating things, that is a lot to ask of one step in a routine.

The form we chose

Tetrahexyldecyl ascorbate. Vitamin C with a fatty tail attached, which makes it oil-soluble instead of water-soluble.

Two things follow from that, and they are the whole reason both elixirs are built this way. It does not need an acidic formula around it, so it can sit at the skin's own pH and there is nothing to sting. And it keeps. In an oil base with no water in it, THD ascorbate stays stable on the shelf. Nothing to mix, nothing to activate, and no countdown running from the day you open it.

Left out on purpose

No water. No preservative, because there is nothing here for anything to grow in. No free ascorbic acid, which is the form that stings. No synthetic fragrance and no essential oils.

What the format takes away

Every absence is one less thing to answer for.

This is the part that made the decision for us. A water-based serum needs water, and water needs a preservative, because water is where things grow. Our butters are emulsions and they carry one, because they have to. An oil does not.

So going into an oil took a preservative out of the formula, and it took the acid out with it. Two fewer materials in the bottle, on a face that reads every material as a question. That is how we formulate across the line, and vitamin C is where it shows most plainly.

Your skin is the part of your nervous system you can see, and it reacts when your system does. Nervous System Skincare™ means we build for that by subtraction, so your skin has less to react to. No formula acts on a nervous system, and ours makes no claim to.

What we are not claiming

An oil-soluble vitamin C is a quiet ingredient. It works slowly, and what we ask of it is appearance-level and nothing further. The look of a brighter, more even tone, over weeks of daily use.

If your skin tolerates acidity and you want the fastest result available, a high-strength L-ascorbic acid serum is the more direct route, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. That person already has good options. We formulated for the one who has tried them twice and given up.

One more honest note. The oil deepens in colour over the life of the bottle, from pale gold toward a warmer gold. That is the vitamin C ambering with time and light, which is what this form does, and it is why we ask you to keep it out of the sun.

Two oils, one form of vitamin C

They were built for two different mornings.

Glow Elixir · nine ingredients

• Why we formulated itFor the morning where your skin looks flat and tired and you have room for exactly one step. A few drops pressed in, and the whole thing takes under a minute.
• What the vitamin C is doingTwo things glow here, and they arrive at different speeds. The oil softens the surface, and softened skin returns light evenly, which you see in the first minute. The vitamin C is the slower half, and what it supports is the look of a brighter, more even tone over weeks.
• What came out, and whyRosehip seed oil and green tea seed oil were left out on purpose. They were the two oils in the old formula most prone to turning, so taking them out keeps the oil steadier over its life and lets the base run lighter. The olive blend came out with them.
• What is leftSqualane, coco-caprylate/caprate and caprylic/capric triglyceride, with meadowfoam. THD ascorbate, sunflower seed oil, vitamin E, bisabolol and rosemary leaf extract. Nine lines, fragrance-free, no water and no preservative.

Clear Elixir · fourteen ingredients

• Why we formulated itFor tone that settled in slowly. Sun, years, and a flare that healed and left a mark behind. By the time you notice it, it has usually been there a while, and you have probably tried something for it and stopped, because it stung.
• What the vitamin C is doingThe same THD ascorbate, with licorice root beside it. Both are here for the look of a more even tone, and neither one needs mixing or activating.
• Why no acidsNo glycolic, lactic, or ascorbic acid. No exfoliants and no retinoids. Tone work is slow work, and slow work only happens if you can keep using the thing. An oil you can tolerate daily does more over six months than an acid you abandon in three weeks.
• What came out, and whyNeem is out, and with it the pregnancy and nursing caution this formula used to carry. Bakuchiol is out. So are the heavier seed oils, the two algae-derived ingredients, the carrot and the olive blend. A lot of that formula was asking a reactive body to tolerate things it did not need to.
• What is leftA squalane-led base, hibiscus seed oil and meadowfoam, THD ascorbate, licorice root, gotu kola, sunflower, vitamin E, bisabolol and rosemary leaf extract. Fourteen lines, fragrance-free, no water and no preservative.

Which one is yours

Both are waterless oils, so both carry none of the benzyl alcohol found in our water-based butters. Both are made for sensitive, reactive skin, including skin navigating eczema, psoriasis, rosacea, or MCAS. Neither one treats any condition.

Please note

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

For external use only. Keep away from the eyes, and rinse with water if it gets in.