Founder Essay · Cellular Regeneration
Skin that won't settle isn't failing
It may be trying to regenerate under conditions that make regeneration difficult. A look at the biology I study — and the internal framework I built Indiefog around.
If you have sensitive, reactive, or chronically inflamed skin, you've probably tried everything topically. A new cleanser. A gentler moisturizer. A serum with cleaner ingredients. The products change. The skin doesn't.
I know this pattern intimately — because I lived it before I understood it.
What changed wasn't finding better products. It was developing a different lens entirely: cellular regenerative biology. Trying to understand not just what skin needs, but what the body may be working to do at the cellular level — and what can get in the way.
The general physiology here is well established. When mitochondria are under oxidative stress, they produce less of the energy tissue repair draws on. When Nrf2 pathways are less active, the body upregulates fewer of its own antioxidant defenses. When sulfur is depleted, there's less raw material for glutathione, keratin, and collagen precursors. None of this is a claim about any single product — it's the biological backdrop I formulate against.
This is the framework I built Indiefog Naturals around — what years of clinical study, combined with navigating my own reactive body, taught me to look for. Every formulation decision I make starts with the same question: what does the body draw on to repair, and how do I build to support that rather than work against it?
The internal stack below is what I mapped through that lens for my own understanding. These aren't supplements I'm recommending to you, and they aren't trend-driven picks. They're the compounds I connected to specific biological bottlenecks while researching the question for myself.
The cellular regenerative stack
This section describes compounds and the research that has examined them. It is shared for education, not as a protocol or a recommendation for you. The ranges shown are doses used in published studies, not personal dosing advice. Supplements can interact with medications and conditions — please read the note at the end and talk with your own practitioner before changing anything.
Polypodium Leucotomos
Cellular regeneration depends on an environment where repair can happen, and UV exposure disrupts that environment — including through matrix metalloproteinase activity that breaks down collagen scaffolding. Polypodium leucotomos has been studied in randomized trials as an oral photoprotectant, with research examining its effects on these pathways. What interests me is less the cosmetic UV angle and more the idea of supporting the tissue architecture regeneration builds on.
Pycnogenol
French maritime pine bark. Sirtuin pathways are longevity-associated proteins involved in cellular repair and stress response, and research has examined whether Pycnogenol interacts with them, along with the UV-triggered enzymes that degrade the collagen matrix. Randomized trials have looked at its effects on hydration, elasticity, and pigmentation in women, and it has been studied in relation to melasma. The proposed mechanism operates at a level most beauty supplements don't address.
ch-OSA
Choline-stabilized orthosilicic acid. Collagen synthesis requires the enzymatic machinery to produce it, and silicon acts as a structural cofactor for that machinery. Many people have low silicon intake. The choline-stabilized form (BioSil) is the one with the most bioavailability data, and randomized trials have studied it for hair strength, thickness, and skin elasticity over a nine-month period. I think of this as a connective-tissue story more than a cosmetic one.
MSM
Methylsulfonylmethane. Sulfur is a building block the body draws on for glutathione — one of its primary endogenous antioxidants — as well as collagen and keratin. When sulfur pathways are depleted, several repair processes can be affected at once.
Among people navigating MCAS, chronic illness, or chemical sensitivity, this kind of depletion is often discussed as more persistent, though individual situations vary widely. MSM provides a bioavailable form of sulfur. Research has looked at its effects on skin elasticity and barrier comfort; the way I think about it, the underlying aim is restoring raw material the body uses for repair.
The one that changed my understanding
Sulforaphane
Sulforaphane is among the most studied natural activators of Nrf2 — a transcription factor that helps govern the body's own antioxidant and detoxification response. In research, Nrf2 activation is associated with upregulating glutathione synthesis, superoxide dismutase, heme oxygenase-1, and other cytoprotective proteins at the gene-expression level. The idea that drew me in isn't supplementing antioxidants directly, but supporting the system the body uses to produce and coordinate its own.
For anyone carrying a high oxidative burden — including people navigating MCAS, chronic illness, post-inflammatory skin, or autoimmune reactivity — this is a different kind of approach than a topical or a standard antioxidant supplement, though it isn't a treatment for any of those conditions.
Form matters: sulforaphane only forms when glucoraphanin and active myrosinase are present together, and many supplements contain one without the other and deliver little active compound. There's also peer-reviewed research that has examined synergy between sulforaphane and Polypodium leucotomos in skin cells — a combination that appears in the literature but that I haven't seen built into a product yet.
Astaxanthin
Mitochondria supply much of the energy cellular repair draws on, and they're vulnerable to UV-induced oxidative damage. Astaxanthin is often described as one of the most potent carotenoid antioxidants measured, and research describes it distributing into the lipid membrane, closer to where mitochondrial peroxidation occurs — whereas many antioxidants act mainly in the water-based environment around cells. Randomized trials have studied it for elasticity, hydration, and wrinkle depth. It's fat-soluble, so studies use it with food.
Tocotrienols
The tocotrienol forms of vitamin E — particularly delta and gamma — are described in research as having stronger antioxidant activity than the tocopherols found in most supplements, and randomized trials have studied them for oxidative stress at the hair-follicle level, including hair-count outcomes. From a cellular standpoint the distinction matters to me: tocotrienols are reported to interact with cell-signaling pathways that tocopherols don't.
Zinc Bisglycinate
Zinc is a cofactor for hundreds of enzymatic processes involved in cellular repair — including wound healing, barrier function, and pathways involved in hormonal skin patterns. It's foundational and, in my view, underrepresented in skin-supplement conversations. The bisglycinate chelate form is among the better-absorbed options, and tends to cause less of the GI disruption that leads people to stop taking other forms.
What I found when I looked for a single product
I looked for one supplement that combines this stack at the dose ranges used in research. I couldn't find one. Partial combinations exist — a few pair Polypodium leucotomos with astaxanthin, some include zinc or a carotenoid blend. But the fuller picture — sulfur availability, Nrf2 support, mitochondrial-targeted antioxidants, connective-tissue cofactors, sirtuin pathways — doesn't seem to be built into a single formula.
That gap matters to me — not because you need every compound on this list, but because understanding the fuller biological picture is what let me think about which bottlenecks were most relevant to my own body, and approach them with more precision than guesswork. Where you land is a conversation for you and your practitioner.
What this has to do with Indiefog
Every decision I make as a formulator starts with this framework. When I'm building a barrier-repair product, I'm thinking about mitochondrial energy, the body's own antioxidant capacity, and sulfur availability — what does this body draw on to repair, and what can a topical realistically do to support that environment?
Built for bodies in repair
Indiefog products are designed with bodies that are already working to repair in mind — not from the premise that your skin is broken, but that it's responding, and may do better with inputs chosen to support rather than overload it.
The nervous system skincare positioning isn't separate from this. It's an expression of the same view: the body is a system, skin is downstream of that system, and supporting it well means looking at the whole picture.
Kikki Avila is the founder and clinical formulator of Indiefog Naturals, a small-batch skincare brand formulated for sensitive bodies — including those navigating chronic illness, MCAS, autoimmune conditions, and ingredient sensitivities. All products are built around nervous system safety and gentle, barrier-supportive formulation.
This article is for educational purposes and reflects the author's research and perspective. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Statements about dietary supplements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
Individual needs and responses vary. Supplements can interact with medications and health conditions. Please consult a qualified healthcare practitioner before starting, stopping, or changing any supplement — especially if you are pregnant or nursing, managing a medical condition, or taking prescription medication.