Step 016 ingredients
Cleansing Milk
€343.00% Oat β-glucan · 2.00% Glycerin · pH 5.5
Fig. 1One drop of Barrier Serum, 0.04 ml, about forty times life size. Move closer — it notices.
The whole formula, on the front.
Barrier-repair skincare made from eight ingredients or fewer, each printed at its exact concentration. 5% ceramide complex. Nothing to hide behind.
(02) The ritual
Three steps. Morning and night.
We started with what a stressed barrier actually needs — lipids, water, patience — and stopped there. No fragrance, no essential oils, no “hero botanicals”. What’s left fits on the front of the bottle, to two decimal places.
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Cleanse
Cleansing Milk150 ml · €34
A low-foam milk that lifts sunscreen and the day without stripping what your skin rebuilt overnight. Massage into dry skin for forty seconds; rinse lukewarm.
- 3.00% Oat β-glucan, to calm as it cleans
- 2.00% Glycerin, so nothing feels tight
- pH 5.5 The same as healthy skin
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Repair
Barrier Serum30 ml · €58
Three drops on damp skin. Ceramides, cholesterol and squalane in the proportions your skin already uses — plus niacinamide, so it makes more of its own.
- 5.00% Ceramide complex
- 2.00% Niacinamide
- 0.50% Cholesterol, for the 3 : 1 : 1
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Seal
Night Balm50 ml · €64
A pea-sized amount, warmed between fingertips and pressed — not rubbed — over the serum. It melts at skin temperature and is gone by morning, except the softness.
- 12.00% Shea olein
- 1.50% Ceramide complex
- 0 Fragrance, of any kind
(03) Ingredients
Six actives, to the second decimal.
Listed the way a label should be: highest concentration first. Hover, tap or tab through — each number is what goes into the batch, not a range and never “up to”.
Everything else in the bottle — water, glycerin, one gentle preservative — is printed too. We just didn’t call it an active.
(04) 28 days
Patchy to even, mapped.
We map hydration, not faces. 256 corneometer readings across a 4 × 4 cm square of cheek — before the first drop, and again after four weeks of the full ritual, twice daily. Drag across to compare.
- Mean hydration
- 29→54AU
- Variation across map
- 41%→9%
- Area under 25 AU
- 38%→2%
Day 0Before the first drop
Day 28Full ritual, twice daily
(05) Clinical results
Numbers, with their small print attached.
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−38%
Transepidermal water loss after 28 days. Less water escaping means a barrier that’s closing up.
Open-chamber evaporimetry · forearm · n = 64
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+71%
Skin hydration eight hours after a single application of serum and balm.
Corneometry · cheek · n = 64
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94%
Said their skin felt less tight after the first seven days. Sixty of sixty‑four people.
9-point self-assessment · day 7 · n = 64
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0/64
Reactions of any kind, graded by a dermatologist — including 31 people with self-reported sensitive skin.
Dermatologist-graded · days 0, 14, 28
MethodAurel in-house study AC-2603, run in our Copenhagen lab, March–April 2026. n = 64 (41 women, 23 men), aged 22–61, Fitzpatrick I–V. Full three-step ritual twice daily for 28 days. Instrumental measures after 20 minutes’ acclimatisation at 21 °C / 45% RH. It is our own study of our own products, which is exactly why we publish the protocol and share the raw data with anyone who asks.
(06) Best-sellers
Start with one. Most come back for the other two.
Best-seller8 ingredients
Barrier Serum
€585.00% Ceramide complex · 2.00% Niacinamide · 0.50% Cholesterol
Step 037 ingredients
Night Balm
€6412.00% Shea olein · 1.50% Ceramide complex · 0.50% Cholesterol
Save €20All three, in order
The Ritual
€136Milk, serum and balm. Travel sizes last about three weeks.
(07) Reviews
Edited for length. Never for tone.
I stopped buying five things to fix what one of them was causing. Three bottles now, and my bathroom shelf has room for a plant.
“The serum smells of nothing. I didn’t know that was what I’d been looking for.”
Priya’s notebook, abridged
- Wk 1Still tight after cleansing.
- Wk 3Stopped using my second cream.
- Wk 6Forgot my skin was a project.
“Finally, a label I can read out loud to my dermatologist.”
(08) Journal
Notes from the bench.
Why we print the percentages
Most labels list ingredients by weight and stop there. We think the numbers are the useful part — and that a formula you can’t read is a formula you can’t trust.
3 : 1 : 1, the ratio your skin already keeps
Ceramides, cholesterol and fatty acids work as a set. Get the proportions wrong and the barrier notices.
A winter diary from the harbour baths
Twelve cold-water swimmers, one Copenhagen winter, and what their skin told our evaporimeter.
(09) Letters
Letters from the lab.
Formulation notes, batch diaries and the occasional failed experiment, every other Sunday. Join and your first ritual is 15% off — with a 5 ml Night Balm in the box.
You’re on the list.
Your code LAB15 is on its way. The first letter lands this Sunday, around coffee time.