Glow and Harmony: Our Facial Serums, Thoughtfully Enhanced
After eight years of making and refining our facial oils, we wanted to give each serum a more distinct focus while keeping the qualities customers already love: the moisture, the feel, the natural aroma, and the whole-plant infusions.
The updated versions are now available:
- Glowing Floral Serum becomes Glow Serum, with 0.5% purified bakuchiol for its focus on smoother-looking texture and radiance.
- Harmonizing Botanical Serum becomes Harmony Serum, with organic virgin sea buckthorn fruit oil, chosen to complement its richer moisture and dry-skin comfort.
Both retain their original oil blends and botanical infusions. They also have updated packaging and a new 15 mL size, alongside the familiar 30 mL bottle.
For those curious about the ingredients, the choices behind these additions are worth a closer look.
What we kept, and what we wanted to enhance
A facial oil’s character comes from the entire formulation. Its spread, absorption, scent, and finish depend on how the ingredients work together.
Our organic oils form the moisturizing foundation. Flowers and herbs steep directly in them for several weeks, bringing their oil-soluble constituents and natural aromas into the blend. We grow, gather, or source those botanicals locally, then infuse, filter, blend, and bottle in small batches at our studio on Vashon Island, Washington.
That process remains central to both serums. Glow keeps its floral infusion and lighter finish. Harmony keeps its six-herb infusion and more substantial moisture.
We chose the additions to develop those existing differences. Bakuchiol gives Glow a defined ingredient with research relevant to texture and tone. Sea buckthorn fruit oil brings a distinctive combination of fatty acids and plant pigments to Harmony. Each has a purpose within an already complete blend.
Glow: from bakuchi to purified bakuchiol
A plant with a history beyond skincare trends
Bakuchiol comes from the seeds of the plant commonly called babchi or bakuchi, often listed as Psoralea corylifolia. A member of the pea family, it has a long history in Ayurvedic and Chinese herbal medicine.
The Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India identifies bakuchi as the plant’s dried ripe fruits. Traditional uses include skin preparations, connecting the plant to a history of practice that predates its appearance in modern cosmetic serums.
The compound bakuchiol was first isolated and described in 1966 by researchers G. Mehta, U. Ramdas Nayak, and Sukh Dev. That marked a different kind of investigation: identifying a particular molecule within a traditionally used plant. Read the original research record.
Today’s research on purified bakuchiol builds on that chemical identification. Traditional preparations and the isolated ingredient each have their own composition and context.
Why we chose the purified ingredient
Babchi seed oil and purified bakuchiol are different materials. The seed oil contains a mixture of plant constituents, including varying amounts of bakuchiol and potentially psoralens—compounds that can make skin more sensitive to ultraviolet light.
Purification separates the desired ingredient from other plant constituents, including the photosensitizing psoralens. This distinction is important: purified bakuchiol is used in daytime skincare and is not known to increase skin’s sensitivity to sunlight.
For Glow, we wanted a defined amount of bakuchiol, selected for a particular role in the formula. Using the purified ingredient gives us that precision, rather than relying on the variable bakuchiol content of a whole seed oil.
Why 0.5%, and what does the research show?
Bakuchiol has been shown to stimulate collagen production in laboratory skin models. Collagen helps give skin its structure and firmness, making this research relevant to the appearance of fine lines and the changes we see as skin ages. Read the laboratory study.
We chose 0.5%, a concentration used in a published clinical comparison with retinol.
In the 12-week study, 44 participants were assigned either a 0.5% bakuchiol cream twice daily or a 0.5% retinol cream once daily. Both groups showed improvements in measured wrinkles and pigmentation. Retinol users reported more scaling and stinging.
That helps explain why bakuchiol has attracted interest as a botanical skincare active.
Within our serum, bakuchiol complements rosehip, pumpkin seed, argan, jojoba, and grape seed oils, along with the slow infusion of rose, chamomile, and wild-foraged botanicals. The intended experience remains lighter daily moisture, a soft floral aroma, and skin that feels smooth and supple.
Harmony: the particular character of sea buckthorn fruit oil
A plant connected to people and place
Sea buckthorn, Hippophae rhamnoides, is a shrub native across parts of Europe and Asia. Its orange berries have been used as food and in regional medical traditions.
In the Himalayas, those relationships continue today. Ethnobotanical fieldwork in Ladakh documents sea buckthorn’s place in local livelihoods and the Tibetan Sowa-Rigpa medical tradition. This is living plant knowledge, maintained through communities’ use of the landscapes around them.
Why fruit oil rather than seed oil?
Sea buckthorn produces oil in both its seeds and the fleshy part of its berries. The plant part changes what the oil contains.
Seed oil is particularly rich in the polyunsaturated fatty acids linoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid. Fruit-pulp oil contains much more palmitoleic acid, an omega-7 fatty acid also found in skin lipids. Analyses show substantial differences between the two, with composition also varying by cultivar and growing conditions.
For Harmony, we selected fruit oil for that distinctive lipid profile and its naturally occurring carotenoids.
Carotenoids are plant pigments, including beta-carotene and zeaxanthin, associated with sea buckthorn oil’s strong orange color. They are also studied for their antioxidant properties. The color is a visible expression of some of the oil’s chemistry. Read more about sea buckthorn oil’s composition.
Together, those fatty acids and pigments give fruit oil a particular place within Harmony’s conditioning blend.
What CO₂ extraction means here
We use organic virgin fruit oil extracted with carbon dioxide. Under pressure, carbon dioxide can act as a solvent to recover oils and other fat-soluble constituents. Changes in pressure allow it to separate from the collected extract.
Research on sea buckthorn extraction shows that the method and processing conditions affect which constituents are recovered, including carotenoids. That is why we specify both the plant part and the type of extraction.
The finished Harmony has a warm golden color and a subtle berry note alongside its botanical aroma.
What the skin research adds
Sea buckthorn research includes studies of its composition and its effects in skin-cell models. In a 2024 laboratory study, pulp oil reduced collagen degradation in cultured human skin cells exposed to UVB. Researchers also investigated palmitoleic acid as a contributor to those responses.
In our formula, fruit oil joins jojoba, argan, apricot kernel, rosehip, and castor oils and the familiar herbal infusion. The focus remains soft, comfortable skin and richer moisture, especially when skin feels dry, rough, or tight.
Choosing your serum and size
Glow offers lighter moisture and a soft floral aroma, now with purified bakuchiol for its focus on texture and radiance.
Harmony offers richer moisture and a natural botanical aroma with a subtle berry note, especially welcome for dry, tight-feeling skin.
Both remain water-free facial oils with no added fragrance, essential oils, colorants, or preservatives. Each can be used on slightly damp skin, morning or evening.
Both serums are available in 15 mL and 30 mL bottles.
Our product pages include complete ingredients, directions, and more about the oils and infusions that make each formula distinct.