Frankincense & Myrrh Resins, Essential Oils and Hydrosols
All our products are based on frankincense and myrrh. From the trees of frankincense and myrrh, we obtain the raw resins, vegetable-oil-based infusions, essential oils and hydrosols. We utilize their benefits in our cosmetics (body lotions, creams, body and hand washes, shampoos, conditioners, lip balms, masks and scrubs) and bathing soaps.
The resins of frankincense and myrrh generally contain essential oils — which we extract through hydrodistillation — as well as boswellic and lupeolic acids which have anti-tumor, anticancer, anti-proliferative and skin-regenerative activities which makes them ideal for skin protection and nourishment.
The oil-based infusions, made entirely from vegetable oils and the raw resins, give you the whole benefits of the essential oils, and boswellic and lupeolic acids for the benefits of your hair and skin in a manner that is familiar to your skin biome and skin composition.
You can think of the essential oils (also called ethereal oils) as the concentration of all the beneficial components of the resin, which are also part and characteristic, of the scent and fragrance of the resin. These components are highly volatile — easy to evaporate from the resin through heating — and we extract them from the resin carefully, delicately, gradually and to completion through indirect heating with hot water in a process called hydrodistillation. The essential oils of the various species and varieties of myrrh have been known — apart from having, natural sweet and balsamic scents — to be antiseptic (antiviral, antibacterial and antifungal), skin-regenerating, anti-cancer, antitumor, anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidizing; everything you may dream to be in your body wash or face cream. As a bonus, aromatherapeutic experiences with the essential oils of various species of frankincense and myrrh have proven to be calming, soothing, uplifting and even energizing to the mind. Imagine the natural relaxation of showering in our shampoo made from opoponax in citrus orange! We blend frankincenses and myrrhs essential oils with natural essential oils of orange, eucalyptus, tea tree, rosemary, geranium and others so as to create natural scents that are not only beneficial, but also worthy of evoking memories and experiences.
During the crafty distillation of our resins, the essential oils come out with another essential by-product — the hydrosol. The hydrosols are the aromatic waters from which our essential oils are separated. They smell just like the essential oils, but subtler. They are a natural gift to the sensitive skin, for their soothing, rectifying and skin-balancing effects. They are natural skin-toners and we use them in our facial products in the to make every drop of your face cream rewarding of your indulgence.
Cleansing Ingredients
To wash our skin, we need to use cleansing agents. In our washes and shampoos, we make sure that these cleansing agents, sometimes called surfactants, are well-balanced in a manner than they cleanse your skin without ripping off healthy oils and other essential components of your skin microbiome. The balanced blends of cleansing agents also moisturize your hair, and do not leave it dry. Additionally, all our washes have their pH close to that of the skin. This helps in greatly minimizing the potential for irritation, especially for those with sensitive skin.
Moisturizers, Conditioners and Humectants
We use natural plant oils only. Among our favourite collections of bio-mimicking vegetable oils are black seed, baobab, moringa oils. We also use natural extracts such as vegetable glycerine, natural vitamin e, beeswax, propolis and honey so as to lock in moisture in your skin.
Product Preservation and Safety
We take the safety of our products very seriously. Safety is an essential part of our quality control. The essential parts of the safety of our products are preservation against microbial contamination, and skin sensitization and irritation.
All cosmetic products are prone to contamination with harmful microorganisms — mostly bacteria and fungi —which will make them them unsafe for use. To ensure that all our products are free from such contaminations, we take certain steps in our procurement, production, packaging, storage and dispatch of our products. An essential part of these steps during production is the use of preservatives. Preservatives ensure that microorganisms do not grow in our products, and that, in the unlikely case of contamination, the microorganisms are destroyed before making the products unsafe for use. This applies throughout the shelf life of all our products.
We can classify all our cosmetics into two categories: rinse-off; those that are washed off from the body after application such as body wash, hand wash and hair shampoo; and leave-in; those that stay on your skin after application such as body lotion and body cream.
For our leave-in products, we use the natural and mildest preservative on the market that has been approved by ECOCERT and COSMOS. For our rinse-off products, we use nature-identical preservatives whose safety has been approved by several by the EU, UK, USA and Japan. We do not use parabens and other heavy-duty preservatives.
Our formulations have been tested and confirmed to be effective against microbial growth for both bacteria (gram negative and gram positive) and fungi (yeasts and moulds).