With a holistic approach to beauty and wellness, Pure Culture creates mindful, microbiome-friendly skincare and personal care products centered on nurturing our ecosystems so all Filipinos can glow inside-out.
Clean beauty has been defined in many different ways, but to put it simply, it is a skincare and cosmetics movement that emphasizes the use of safe, non-toxic, and environmentally responsible ingredients in beauty products.
While the global clean beauty market is gaining momentum, expecting to reach $22 billion by 2024 according to Statista Reseach, it’s still in its infancy among local Philippine skincare brands. As a result, Filipinos looking for clean alternatives to skincare and personal care still end up buying imported products.
Thus far, F-beauty (Filipino beauty) has been focused on color cosmetics and “Instagrammable packaging.” In contrast, K-beauty, which has gained so much popularity among Filipinos, is known for its unique approach to skincare, characterized by a focus on achieving healthy, radiant skin through a complex multi-step skincare routine.
Redefining F-Beauty
Enter Pure Culture, an innovative local skincare brand that was founded specifically to create products that strengthen the skin’s microbiome by using sustainable, biocompatible, natural-origin and biotech ingredients coupled with fermented good bacteria. “We nurture you skin-deep, allowing you to glow from within,” CEO Stephanie Oller states.
Pure Culture was born from the need to solve the three founders’ own skincare woes: Alex Gentry, Rina dela Calzada, and Kim Reyes-Palanca, good friends and mothers, all couldn’t find local products that matched their lifestyles and their values. They also had food allergies and skin sensitivities that made skincare a battle. With Pure Culture, they aim to set the highest standard in clean F-beauty.
“We sincerely believe that there are three important points that need to be part of the clean F-beauty conversation” shared Gentry. “First is nurturing the skin microbiome; second is sustainable packaging; and third is innovations in biotechnology. In line with the first point, Pure Culture educates customers about “rewilding” their skin — bringing it back to its natural state by understanding that their skin is a living ecosystem, and that it doesn’t need multiple layers of petrochemicals to keep it healthy. On Gentry’s second point, Pure Culture is a big advocate of highlighting safety of ingredients and packaging not just for the people who use them, but also for the greater communities we move in – our country and our planet. They encourage consumers to ask these three questions before buying products: What’s in it?; How did it get to me?; Where will it end up?
Launching Dream Drops Universal Hydro-Oil
On Gentry’s third point, Pure Culture takes biotechnology up a notch with the launch of their newest product, Dream Drops Universal Hydro-Oil. This scientifically-formulated bi-phase facial oil with edelweiss callus culture and resveratrol deeply hydrates and prevents premature signs of aging.
Edelweiss callus culture is an extract that rejuvenates and regenerates the skin like never before. Sourced from the pristine alpine regions, this ingredient is cultivated using SMART-RC2 cell culture technology to maximize its benefits,” explained Oller. “Resveratrol is a powerful antioxidant found in grapes, and berries. The one we use is derived from Japanese knotweed, known for its high concentrations of trans-resveratrol—the more biologically active and bioavailable form of resveratrol with superior anti-aging, brightening, and anti-inflammatory properties. Sodium hyaluronate and hyaluronic acid—these are high and low molecular weight substances created through bio-fermentation—are great for total hydration on all layers of the skin.”
Dream Drops is a unique formulation of water-based ingredients and Pure Culture’s proprietary Tetra-Luxe Lipid blend of plant-based oils, giving it a luxuriously light finish, perfect for the high-humidity Philippine climate.
This is the first product out of the brand’s “Universal” line, and is a skin booster that benefits most individuals – from those with a compromised skin barrier (sensitive and reactive skin); those with dry, flaky skin; or even those with combination or oily skin but showing signs of dehydration (i.e., experience breakouts but skin feels tight).
Constantly innovating
There are a lot of ingredients that Pure Culture uses that may sound very common and mainstream, like sodium hyaluronate, hyaluronic acid, collagen, and elastin. In fact, these are widely used in both the skincare and supplement industry. However, where Pure Culture pushes the envelope is in finding the highest-performing and most sustainable sources for these for their formulations.
“Pure Culture’s foundation is very much aligned with biotech,” declared Oller. “It only makes sense, as our values around biocompatibility, microbiome-friendliness and sustainability go hand-in-hand with biotechnology. Some of the ingredients our company currently uses are sourced from the world’s leading biotech companies. They may not be the most affordable or most accessible, but they are proven to be more effective.”
As an example, Pure Culture sources its collagen and elastin from Gelator, a California based biotech firm. Gelator created HumaColl21, the first ever bio-designed vegan human collagen. It is the first of its kind commercial human type 12 collagen created through microorganism fermentation, and is demonstrated to deliver superior effects compared to marine collagen. Elastin, the talk of the skincare industry these days, with skin elasticity being a huge beauty focus, is what allows the skin to stretch and recoil, and be bouncy. Elastapure is the world’s only pure human elastin ingredient for topical skincare, and is the highest molecular weight elastin ingredient available in the market.
From the very beginning, skincare startup Pure Culture has been at the forefront of cosmetic chemistry innovation with cutting-edge formulations that are inspired by nature and backed by science. Everything offered by the brand is certified by the Philippine Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but they also go above and beyond, and is the first Philippine company to get certified by third-party organization Safe Cosmetics Australia.
Pure Culture has multitasking products that address most skin issues of Filipinos. The Wild Algae line is a high-performance ritual for acne-prone/oily skin, while the Bulgarian Rose line addresses aging skin, dry skin, and sensitive skin types. They also offer zero-waste, high-performing body soap called Biome Bars.
Pure Culture is a member of One Percent for the Planet, an international organization headquartered in Burlington, Vermont, U.S.A. Members or the organization contribute at least one percent of their annual revenue to environmental causes to protect the environment.
