Evolution spent 3.8 billion years perfecting how human skin works. It's designed to constantly hydrate, repair, defend, and renew itself, all without us ever knowing. It is the most sophisticated barrier technology that exists to protect us, and it is how we present ourselves to the world, from strangers we meet, to the people we love.
 
Yet most of us no longer have skin that works. Roughly a third of adults report dry skin, and most people will face acne at some point in their lives. Modern life has made it harder, and skincare is a surface-level that has only made it worse, creating dependency and further disruption: chronic dryness, sensitivity, and acne.

For nearly two decades, Richard Straughan has worked to find ways to use technology to enhance the body's own biological potential. He funded and helped develop some of the earliest research into regenerative stem cell and exosome therapy, and founded reDermis®, one of the world's leading teams in the field. The principle is simple: use a patient's own cells to achieve things like closing chronic diabetic wounds that had resisted treatment for four years in ten days, where the alternative would have been amputation. This work now forms the basis of research at leading universities and institutions across four continents, and helped establish the scientific foundation for an entire field. The team continues to be sought out by patients ranging from elite athletes to heads of state.

Since our work depends on keeping living cells healthy, we were curious about the rise of skincare products that talk about stem cells, peptides, exosomes and microbiome ‘friendliness’. So we tested some of them on living cells in the lab. Even diluted to one hundredth of their normal concentration, the cells were dead within hours. The reason was the preservative system contained in nearly every skincare product to enable low cost production and long shelf life.

Contained in almost every product, it’s what makes the the skincare industry work by enabling low cost production and long shelf life. Just because these are regulated as ‘safe’, it does not make them optimal (just as natural does not mean good). Every time we apply skincare, the preservative system kills the microbiome (despite claims to the contrary — there is no way to distinguish between harmful and beneficial bacteria).

The Biology Serum™ is our first product, designed around what the skin's biology needs to function at its best, with results that outperform skincare. It uses six skin-native ingredients that evolved over hundreds of millions of years alongside skin, to provide hydration, barrier support and better texture and tone, while skin becomes more capable and self-sufficient with every application and skin cycle. It is clinically proven 24% more gentle than deionised water and helps skin retain 40% more water than a moisturiser does. Each vial is hand-filled and labelled in the company's lab cleanrooms, then delivered sealed and chilled, so it needs no preservative system at all.

The company's scientific advisory board includes Dr Mohi Rezvani, Reader Emeritus at the University of Oxford, where he led the Research Institute at Churchill Hospital. Richard's father, Dr D.W. Straughan OBE, co-authored the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, the legislation that made the UK the first country to ban cosmetics testing, and the reason you we can buy cruelty free products. Two generations later, that commitment continues.