Living matter
Before becoming a formulation, it was part of something alive.
There is something I like to remember when I look at a formula. Before being a cream, a serum, or an oil, every ingredient had another story. It was part of a plant. Of a seed. Of a root. Of a fruit.
It remained exposed to the sun, the wind, the rain, and the passage of time long before reaching a formulation. And perhaps that is why it is hard for me to think of ingredients as simple raw materials. Because behind each one exists a story of adaptation.
Observing before formulating
We frequently talk about ingredients by what they do. Antioxidants. Humectants. Emollients. Regenerators. But before asking myself what a plant can provide to the skin, I usually ask myself something different:
How did it manage to become what it is? What did it have to develop to protect itself? How did it learn to coexist with its environment?
Nature has been solving complex problems for millions of years. And often the inspiration for formulating begins precisely there.
By observing.
The intelligence of matter
Plants do not remain motionless because they are simple. They remain motionless because they have found other ways of relating to the world. Some develop protection mechanisms against solar radiation. Others learn to conserve water for long periods. Some thrive in conditions that would seem impossible. Each one responds to its environment in a different way. And that capacity for adaptation is part of what makes the matter from which many ingredients come so fascinating.
Much more than a function
When I think of maqui, sea holly, jojoba, or shea butter, I do not think only of their properties.
I think of the places where they grew. Of the conditions they learned to inhabit. Of the way they found balance. Because often a plant is interesting not only for what it contains, but for the story it holds.
Transforming without losing the origin
Formulating implies transforming. But it should not mean forgetting. I like to think that a good formulation preserves something of the story of what composes it. Not literally. But as a continuity.
A way of acknowledging that behind every ingredient there was once a living system developing strategies to exist.
Living matter
This concept is important to me. Because it reminds me that a formulation does not begin in a laboratory. It begins much earlier. It begins in nature. In organisms that learned to protect themselves, adapt, and regenerate. And it continues when that matter finds a new way to relate to the skin.
Sometimes we talk about ingredients. I prefer to think that we are talking about stories. Stories that continue to transform. And that, in some way, remain alive within each formulation.
