Q & A

Skin Care Q & A

Skin care doesn't have to be complicated. To achieve healthy radiant skin, we just need to spend a few minutes everyday practicing proper self-care with good-quality, high-efficacy products.

3-Step Basic Skin-Care Regimen

  1. SOOTHE - Soothe any irritation or inflammation
  2. HYDRATE - Properly hydrate to pump up the skin
  3. PROTECT - Repair and protect against radicals & UV rays

Q: What causes adult cystic acne?

A: One of the major reasons of adult acne is the absence of acid mantle on our skin. The acid mantle, or skin barrier, is a thin layer on our skin made up of natural oils, sweat, and dead skin cells, and is slightly more acidic in nature to protect the skin from harmful particles which are naturally alkaline.

The acid mantle is about a 4.5-5.5 on the PH scale, which means that healthy skin is acidic.

When the skin becomes alkaline, it's causing dryness, inflammation, redness and more breakouts! Propionibacterium Acnes also known as p. acnes is a bacteria that thrive in alkaline environments! 

A lot of cleansers and sunscreens are at pH 7 or higher - this can cause serious damage to the skin and lead to an unstoppable breakout cycle. For acne-prone skin, we do NOT recommend washing your face with harsh surfactant-based cleansers because they are too alkaline for skin. Even most of the drugstore face wash with Salicylic Acid doesn't work on acne because Salicyclic Acid loses it's efficacy over pH 7. In fact, Salicylic Acid works better at pH 4 or lower.

(However if your skin is in good condition, you should be able to use cold process soaps for face cleansing since your skin will be able to re-balance itself afterwards. All the leave-on products should be skin pH friendly.)

We developed some low pH cleansers (pH 5.5 or less) for acne-prone and sensitive skin types -

Q: How do you lighten dark spots or sun spots?

 A. Dark spots are mostly caused by excessive sun exposure besides several medical skin conditions. To prevent getting more sun spots and to lighten them, we need to moisturize, repair and protect the skin from harmful UV rays.

Our signature dark spot lightening ingredient is Sepiwhite™ MSH, an excellent skin lightener and brightener made of natural amino acids with a lipid-residue. It is non-acidic, non-phototoxic and not irritating to the skin.



Our company formulated 2 best selling brightening face creams with Sepiwhite™ MSH and Niacinamide:

We also offer a pure Sepiwhite™  serum - Pigment Corrector

Q: Why do some Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid) serums turn yellow / brown?

Throw away your vitamin C ascorbic acid serum if it turns to brown hue like this. Oxidized vitamin C does more harm to your skin than repairing it.

Our chemist doesn't like formulas with "water + ascorbic acid" because no matter how well the products are packaged or stored, ascorbic acid starts degradation the moment it's mixed with water.

In fact, l-ascorbic acid is very unstable in water based formula, as it starts to oxidize immediately, gradually producing color changes (orange/brown shift) and a reduction in activity as it converts to dehydroascorbic acid.

If you are looking for a highly stable water-free, oil-free, alcohol-free ascorbic acid serum, it is here ~

5% Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) + Ferulic Acid