Our Ingredients

Heritage

• A perfumer's base oil of ancient Egypt, bland, nearly scentless, and slow to turn rancid, so fragrances laid in it stayed true.
• The Ebers Papyrus face recipe pairs fresh balanites oil with frankincense gum and wax: 'applied every day, make it, and thou shalt see.'
• Daily skin care, too, the same papyrus has fresh balanos oil massaged into skin to keep biting insects away.

What research shows

• Barrier lipids: rich in linoleic acid (roughly 37–44%), the fatty acid skin uses to build its acylceramides.
• A dry, fast-spreading feel: an oleic–linoleic balance that nourishes without a heavy film.
• Antioxidant and antimicrobial activity: shown for the plant in studies of its fruit, seed and leaf.

Heritage

• Ben oil, the oil of Upper Egypt, pressed from the moringa that grows wild in rocky Upper Egypt, the Sinai and Arabia.
• One of two favoured perfume bases, exceptionally resistant to rancidity, so flower and resin scents stayed vivid in it.
• In the Ebers Papyrus, moringa oil appears in ointments, and massaged into skin daily with castor and fat.

What research shows

• Oleic-rich conditioning: around 70–78% oleic acid, with behenic acid giving the oil its silky, stable character.
• Wound-repair support: moringa seed oil sped repair and improved collagen in healing skin.
• Calming pathways: seed extracts raised TGF-β1, VEGF and type I collagen, and lowered IL-1β and TNF-α in studies of healing skin.

Heritage

• Found in Egyptian tombs, castor beans survive as offerings, dated to around 2000–1500 BCE.
• A facial prescription in the Ebers Papyrus, castor seeds with fat and moringa oil, massaged into the skin daily.
• For hair and body, Greek travellers in Egypt described castor oil used in ointments, and to improve hair growth and texture.

What research shows

• Ricinoleic acid: 85–90% of the oil, a hydroxylated fatty acid found at this strength in no other common oil.
• A deep-cleansing oil: its pull on debris and build-up inside pores is why we place it at the heart of our cleansing oil.
• Anti-inflammatory & antimicrobial: a 2026 narrative review of castor oil in dermatology reports favourable findings across wound care, pigmentation and acne research.

Heritage

• Senetjer, 'that which makes divine', the resin Egypt sailed to Punt to obtain, at great cost.
• Hatshepsut's expedition, her Deir el-Bahri reliefs show some 31 living incense trees brought home and planted at her temple.
• Temple & skin, burned each morning in the temples, blended into kyphi, and ground into the Ebers face recipe with balanos oil.

What research shows

• Boswellic acids: the resin's triterpenes inhibit 5-lipoxygenase, a key enzyme in the leukotriene inflammation pathway.
• Further calming pathways: boswellic acids also modulate NF-κB signalling in studies.
• A note on form: boswellic acids live in the resin itself; the findings below belong to resin preparations.

Heritage

• Among Egypt's most prized imports, carried from Punt for temple incense, perfumed unguents and embalming.
• Stacte, myrrh drawn into balanos oil, one of the celebrated perfumed oils of the ancient world.
• In the medical papyri, myrrh appears again and again in Ebers preparations, and in the kyphi burned at evening.

What research shows

• Sesquiterpene chemistry: furanoeudesma-1,3-diene, curzerene and lindestrene anchor its activity.
• Wound-support findings: myrrh preparations show anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and antimicrobial activity in studies.
• Fibroblast response: a myrrh resin extract closed 98.4% of a scratch wound in cultured skin cells.

Heritage

• An Egyptian dressing, 3,500 years old, the Ebers Papyrus lays lint, grease and honey on wounds: absorb, seal, protect.
• In the Edwin Smith Papyrus, honey is the chosen defence against wound infection.
• Manuka honey, a New Zealand honey, from the mānuka tree of Māori tradition, prized today for a potency science can now measure.

Manuka is the honey in our Milk & Honey Foaming Cleanser.

What research shows

• Methylglyoxal (MGO): manuka's signature antibacterial compound, the basis of its UMF and MGO grading.
• Antibacterial & antibiofilm: active against Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa in clinical wound research.
• In our cleanser: honey brings humectancy and softness: it draws in water and leaves skin soothed, never stripped.

Heritage

• A strategic import since the Old Kingdom, the Palermo Stone records cedar arriving in Sneferu's reign, around 2600 BCE.
• Ships, coffins, temples, cedar built royal barges; an entire tale, Wenamun, turns on fetching cedar for Amun's barge.
• Resin & oil, cedar preparations served in Egyptian medicine, incense, perfumery and embalming.

What research shows

• Cedrol & α-cedrene: the sesquiterpenes behind cedarwood's studied activity.
• Antimicrobial & anti-inflammatory: reported in studies in a 2025 pharmacological review.
• An honest limit: the review calls for rigorous clinical trials; the skin evidence is early.

Heritage

• Named in a temple recipe, juniper berries are ground into the kyphi inscribed at Edfu.
• In the medical papyri, juniper-berry remedies stand in prescriptions of around 1550 BCE.
• At Saqqara, juniper-type conifer oils were the most common conifer preparation in a 26th-Dynasty embalming workshop, found in 60% of its vessels.

What research shows

• Tested in skin cells: juniper berry oil calmed pre-inflamed dermal fibroblasts in studies.
• Inflammation markers lowered: the chemokines IP-10 and I-TAC, and the remodelling markers collagen I, collagen III and PAI-1, all fell.
• Antimicrobial: active against Candida albicans and a range of bacteria in studies.

Heritage

• The East African shea, gathered across northern Uganda, South Sudan and Ethiopia, in the Nile's own headwater lands.
• Women's craft, shea has been collected and worked by women's hands across the African savanna for a thousand years and more.
• The softer shea, nilotica is creamier and lower-melting than its West African sister, with a milder scent.

What research shows

• Barrier protection: its oleic–stearic base reduces water loss from skin at least as well as mineral oil in comparative work.
• A bioactive heart: unusually rich in unsaponifiables: triterpenes such as lupeol and the amyrins, plus tocopherols and phytosterols.
• Soothing pathways: shea's triterpene fraction inhibits COX-2 and iNOS and lowers TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-12 in cell studies.

Heritage

• A Moroccan flower, blue tansy grows wild on Morocco's Mediterranean coast, North Africa's own blue chamomile.
• The blue is born in the still, the flower is yellow; its deep blue colour forms only as it is distilled.
• A modern perfumer's treasure, gathered into fine skincare today for its colour, its scent, and its calm.

What research shows

• Chamazulene: the blue compound, an antioxidant-type inhibitor of leukotriene B4, a driver of inflammation.
• Calming pathways: chamazulene lowered MMP-3, MMP-9, COX-2 and iNOS, and quieted NF-κB in studies.
• Antifungal activity: the whole oil shows it in studies, from camphor, α-pinene and chamazulene together.

Heritage

• A treasured New Kingdom fruit, pomegranates reached Egypt from the Levant and multiplied in 18th-Dynasty gardens.
• In royal company, the fruit lay in Djehuty's tomb, grew in Thutmose III's carved 'Syrian garden' at Karnak, and was modelled in gold among Tutankhamun's goods.
• Fruit, wine & rind, Egyptians drank pomegranate wine, and prepared the rind against intestinal ills and for dyeing leather.

What research shows

• Punicic acid: 65–80% of the seed oil: an omega-5 fatty acid with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity in studies.
• Photoprotective findings: in studies, pomegranate preparations reduced UVB damage: fewer DNA lesions (cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers, 8-OHdG) and less oxidative injury.
• Matrix protection: a 2026 systematic review of 54 studies found pomegranate preparations switch on the Nrf2 antioxidant pathway, inhibit MMP-1 and MMP-3, and support fibroblast activity and hyaluronic-acid synthesis.

Heritage

• A plant of cord & cloth, hemp's story in the ancient world begins with rope and fibre, the Pyramid Texts' shemshemet cords among its threads.
• A debated identification, scholars differ on whether shemshemet names this plant; we let the debate stand, and prize the oil for what it is today.
• A modern seed oil, cold-pressed from the seed, with no meaningful CBD or THC.

What research shows

• An ideal ratio: linoleic (omega-6) and α-linolenic (omega-3) acids at roughly 3:1, plus a little GLA.
• Barrier building blocks: linoleic acid feeds the ceramides that hold the skin barrier together.
• Calming metabolism: GLA converts toward series-1 prostaglandins, an anti-inflammatory route.

Heritage

• A Levantine treasure, the almond travelled the same eastern routes as the pomegranate, into Egyptian gardens and stores.
• The Edwin Smith riddle, its recipe 'for transforming an old man into a youth' turns on a fruit scholars first read as fenugreek, and now read as bitter almond: hemayet.
• Our oil is the sweet almond, the gentle cosmetic oil, pressed for skin, not the bitter kernel of the riddle.

What research shows

• A classic emollient: 60–70% oleic acid with linoleic acid, vitamin E and phytosterols.
• Barrier homeostasis: plant-oil research places almond among the oils that support the skin barrier and calm dry skin.
• A comfort oil: softening, cushioning, and made for slow massage.

Heritage

• Egypt's flower today, Egypt is one of the world's great jasmine producers; its fields scent perfumes across the globe.
• Yasmeen, the name comes through Arabic, carried into North Africa and the Mediterranean with the flower itself.
• A night flower, picked at dawn, before the sun takes its fragrance.

What research shows

• Antioxidant defence: a jasmine cell extract lowered reactive oxygen species in stressed skin cells.
• Nrf2/ARE activation: the extract switched on a master antioxidant pathway and reduced glycation (AGE) formation.
• Collagen support in studies: the same extract raised collagen type I production in studies.

Heritage

• A Mediterranean herb, sage belongs to the sunlit coasts of the Mediterranean, Egypt's northern sea.
• The Greek & Roman physicians, Dioscorides, writing in the 1st century CE, prescribed sage to clean wounds and ulcers.
• Salvia, from salvare, to save, its very name is a claim its healers made for it.

What research shows

• Rosmarinic & carnosic acids: sage leaf is rich in these antioxidants; ursolic acid leads its topical anti-inflammatory activity in studies.
• Cytokines lowered: sage extracts reduced IL-6 and TNF-α in inflamed cell systems, in some tests comparably to standard anti-inflammatory controls.
• Clary sage's sclareolide: inhibits IL-1α in skin cells and moderates pigmentation pathways in studies.

Heritage

• A jewel of the spice routes, cardamom grows in the wet forests of southern India, and reached Egypt as a costly import.
• In the kyphi tradition, the later kyphi recipe handed down under the name of Manetho, the Egyptian priest who wrote in Greek, counts cardamom among its spices.
• Alexandria's trade, in the Greco-Roman age, cardamom moved through Alexandria as a prized perfume spice.

What research shows

• α-Terpinyl acetate & 1,8-cineole: together about two-thirds of the oil's character.
• Antimicrobial: cardamom oils act against bacteria and especially fungi in studies.
• Antioxidant & anti-quorum-sensing: studies show free-radical activity and interference with bacterial signalling.

Heritage

• A western Mediterranean plant, lavender's home is the dry hills from Spain to the islands off Marseille.
• First described by Dioscorides, his stoichas, in the 1st century CE, opens lavender's written history.
• Lavare, to wash, Rome gave lavender its name and its place in the bath.

What research shows

• Linalool & linalyl acetate: the pair behind its scent and its studied activity.
• Calming pathways in skin cells: lavender oil lowered IL-6, IL-1β and IL-8 in stimulated keratinocytes, quieting p38 MAPK and NF-κB signalling.
• Best known for calm: its strongest evidence is for aroma, rest and ease, gathered by inhalation.

Heritage

• Willow, on skin, in the Edwin Smith Papyrus, its Case 41 lays a poultice of willow leaves on an inflamed, stubborn wound.
• Willow in the Ebers & Berlin papyri, prescribed for inflammation and for toothache.
• The source plant of the salicylates, willow holds salicin, the natural compound from which salicylic acid was later developed. Our BHA is that story's refined, modern descendant.

What research shows

• Oil-soluble by nature: the one BHA of dermatology, it travels with sebum into the pore itself.
• Desmolytic: it loosens the bonds between surface cells so they shed cleanly, easing pore plugs and build-up.
• In a cleansing oil: it works during massage, then rinses away: pore care with a short, gentle contact.