改善
What we changed, and why
Three revisions to the 500x Tremella Moisturizer that nobody asked for, what prompted each one, and the one change we tested and rejected.
Read the noteField Notes
覚書 — おぼえがき
Notes, not noise.
Ingredients, routines, and the version of skincare that fits around a real schedule. We use this as a working log — including the things we got wrong and changed.
銭湯
Sentō rules
Wash before you get in. No towel in the water. And the part nobody mentions: twenty minutes at 42°C will strip your face harder than any cleanser you own.
白きくらげ
Why tremella holds 500× its weight in water
The science behind the mushroom we keep coming back to — and why the number matters less than what it does with it.
終電
Shūden
The last train out of Shibuya, and the twenty minutes afterwards that decide what your skin does overnight.
棚は一つ
One shelf, not two.
We didn’t build a men’s range and a women’s range. We built one range around a set of conditions — and skin doesn’t much care whose face it is on.
素材
Concrete, poly, steel
Board-marked concrete, polypropylene, brushed steel, paper. The material palette this brand was built from, and where it was found.
継続
Nothing works in a week
Skin turnover runs roughly 28 days. What that means for judging any routine, including this one.
スクワラン
Squalane — The shark that isn’t in it
An ingredient named after a shark, which mostly no longer comes from one. A hundred and twenty years of refining the same molecule without ever renaming it.
下北沢
Nothing here is new
A neighbourhood built entirely on second-hand, and what it has in common with a formula revised three times and never once relaunched.
納豆
Natto, and the ingredient that came out of it
Polyglutamic acid is derived from fermented soy. How a breakfast dish ended up holding water in a night cream.
梅雨
Tsuyu
Eighty-five percent humidity in June, bone dry by January. Tokyo swings harder than almost any major city, and a routine has to survive both ends of it.
椿
Three camellias
Tsubaki oil, green tea and camellia leaf are the same plant family, spread across three of four formulas. Why that isn’t a coincidence.
ドラッグストア
What Tokyo actually buys
The drugstore, not the department store counter. What moves in volume in Japan, why the formulations feel different, and what earns room in the bag.
ヒアルロン酸
Hyaluronic Acid — The rooster comb problem
Until 1985, hyaluronic acid came out of rooster combs and cost a fortune. A patent filed in Yokohama is the reason it sits in a moisturiser rather than an operating theatre.
夜は二品
The two-product night
What actually matters after 11pm, and what you can skip without consequence.
画面
Screen skin, honestly
What long hours at a screen actually do to your face — and which of the popular claims don’t survive contact with the evidence.
米ぬか
Rice, long before it was a skincare ingredient
Sake brewers noticed something about their hands. A short history of rice water, and what survives scrutiny.
Stay in the stack
New notes, occasionally.
Ingredient breakdowns and formulation changes, when there is something worth saying. No launch spam.