03 — 재료 Four hero ingredients

Plants of the peninsula.

We work with growers across Korea — in Geumsan, on Ganghwa Island, on Jeju, in the Jirisan range. Each ingredient below has been used in Korean herbal medicine for centuries; we use only what we can trace, from farms we have visited and growers we know by name.

Provenance is a quiet word that does a great deal of work. In our case it means this: every ingredient in every formulation is sourced from a single farm or distillery, named on our packaging, contracted by us for the season's harvest. We do not buy on the spot market; we do not blend across provinces; we do not source from brokers.

This makes us slow and small. It is also why we make only six objects.

Ginseng roots on a wooden surface, dried and golden

Geumsan, Chungcheong-do

Ginseng 인삼

Harvested in Geumsan after six years of slow growth, our ginseng is the same root used by Joseon court physicians. We extract its oligosaccharide for circulation; the aged glycosides for resilience. The roots are dried in shade for three weeks before pressing.

Geumsan supplies a meaningful share of the world's ginseng but most leaves the region as a four-year root, harvested early because the market rewards volume. Six-year is rarer, slower, and structurally different: more saponins, more ginsenoside Rg1, more depth. We work with a single farm in the foothills outside the town of Bugang.

Used in: Yul Essence, Geum Serum

ii.

Ganghwa Island, Incheon

Mugwort 쑥

On Ganghwa Island, mugwort is gathered before the spring rain — when its leaves are still bitter with their first medicine. We steam-distill the young shoots; the calming volatile oils survive the process. Used in our serum and our sun protection.

Ganghwa mugwort is the variety used in moxibustion across East Asia — Korean buyers in particular consider it the most active. The island's salt air and tidal flats produce a leaf with higher concentrations of cineole and thujone than mainland varieties. The harvest window is twelve days.

Used in: Geum Serum, Hae Defense

iii.

Jeju Island

Camellia 동백

The camellia of Jeju blooms through the winter — a botanical anomaly. Its seed yields an oil rich in oleic acid, used by the haenyeo divers of the island for centuries against the Yellow Sea wind. We cold-press a single harvest each January.

Our camellia comes from a small cooperative of haenyeo women near the village of Hyeopjae. They have been pressing camellia oil for their own hair and skin for as long as anyone can remember. We pay above market for the first pressing; the women keep the rest. The arrangement was their idea, and we like it.

Used in: Bidan Cleansing Oil, Bidan Silk Mask

iv.

Jirisan, Jeollabuk-do

Houttuynia 어성초

Known in Korean medicine as the "fish-smell herb" — its raw scent earned the name. We cold-ferment the leaves for fourteen days; the odor disappears, the depth remains. An antimicrobial extract that lends quiet brightness to skin.

Houttuynia grows everywhere in the Korean countryside; what makes ours different is the Jirisan elevation (between 600 and 900 metres) and the fermentation method, adapted from a Joseon-era preparation we found described in a hand-copied Donguibogam at the National Library. The fermentation costs us two weeks of inventory time. We think it is worth it.

Used in: Mool Cream, Yul Essence

A practitioner's hands sorting dried botanicals on a wide table

The Other Side반대편

What we don't use.

We do not use snail mucin. We do not use bee venom. We do not use stem-cell extracts of any kind, plant or animal. We do not use synthetic peptides marketed under proprietary brand names. We do not use fragrance, including the well-tolerated essential-oil blends. We do not use preservatives in the paraben family; our formulations use ethylhexylglycerin and pentylene glycol at minimum effective levels.

This is not because any of these ingredients are dangerous. It is because we have not been able to satisfy ourselves that they are necessary. When we can — if we can — we will reconsider.

Begin

The objects, made from these.

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