Ships in 2 working days · DHL · Klarna, cards, Apple Pay
A moisturising face oil for people who don't want a ten-step routine. It absorbs quickly and feels good on the skin.
[ ONE CUSTOMER, IN HIS OWN WORDS ]
“It feels wonderful, smells wonderful … rather perfect for travelling.”
Bought in July
[ HOW TO USE ]
Three to four drops, pressed into clean skin, morning and night.
Sixty seconds, twice a day.
Warm and woody: sandalwood and cedarwood, with lavender, frankincense and a little tea tree.
About three months at three drops twice a day, a little less at four.
Nine ingredients: jojoba and rosehip oils, five essential oils, vitamin E. No water, no preservative. The full list as printed on the label:Simmondsia Chinensis Seed Oil, Rosa Moschata Seed Oil, Santalum Spicatum Wood Oil, Lavandula Angustifolia Oil, Boswellia Serrata Oil, Cedrus Atlantica Bark Oil, Tocopherol, Helianthus Annuus Seed Oil, Melaleuca Alternifolia Leaf Oil, Santalol, Linalyl Acetate, Linalool, Farnesol, Beta-Caryophyllene, Pinene, Limonene, Alpha-Terpinene, Terpineol, Terpinolene, Geraniol, Camphor, Geranyl Acetate, Eugenol, Turpentine.
DHL, out within 2 working days. 3,67 €, free from 50 €. Fourteen days to change your mind.
Klarna, cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay.
[ BATCH NO. 001 · MIXED BY HAND IN BERLIN ]
Moisturising Elixir
Face oil · 30 ml · lasts about 3 months
29,99 €
Ships in 2 working days · DHL · Klarna, cards, Apple Pay
A moisturising face oil for people who don't want a ten-step routine. It absorbs quickly and feels good on the skin.
Batch No. 01 · 130 bottlesNine ingredients, no water, no preservativeIn stock
Cures Nothing. Improves Everything.
Everything below this is the long version.
[ The Dispatch ]
Not buying today? Take a letter.
An honest newsletter in a dishonest industry. One letter a week, on Thursdays: batch dates, bench notes, the occasional invented correspondence.
The correction, 30 ml
[ The Doctrine, Briefly ]
Good skincare is millennia old. The industry complicated it. We filed a correction.
Oil on skin worked for the pharaohs, the philosophers and the dandies. Then someone invented the ten-step routine, and a margin to go with it. We went back to the original: one good oil, pressed into damp skin.
[ The Doctrine, In Articles ]
Five articles. Binding on the house.
Art. IOne remedy per problem.
Dry skin gets one oil. A second product would be an admission that the first one doesn't work.
Art. IITheatre outside, honesty inside.
The drama stays on the outside of the bottle. Inside are nine ingredients, listed on the label in INCI order. The label is the contract.
Art. IIINo fear sold here.
Nothing anti-ageing, nothing "corrective," no before-and-after. You are not broken; you are slightly dry. There's a difference.
Art. IVSixty seconds, then leave.
A routine you abandon in March helps no one. Three or four drops, pressed in, done. Designed to survive your worst weeks, not your best.
Art. VThe fiction stays fictional.
Doc Bankman is invented, and we say so. We wish the rest of the industry labelled its fiction as clearly.
Botanical plates, doubtful legends and the earliest written records. The chemistry is on the label; this is the gossip.
[ Portrait No. 02 · Rosa moschata ]
Rosehip
The mythology. The rose got the poets - sprung, the Greeks insisted, from sea foam and the blood of Adonis. The hip got the work. Anglo-Saxon leechbooks list it, and in 1941, when the citrus boats stopped, Britain sent schoolchildren into the hedgerows to gather hips by the tonne.
First on record. Pressed for its seed oil at scale only in the last century, in the Andes. Thousands of years of poetry, one century of pressing.
Doc's note: we use the seed, not the sonnet. It makes the oil feel lighter.
[ Portrait No. 04 · Lavandula angustifolia ]
Lavender
The mythology. From lavare, to wash: the Romans put it in the baths, and the medieval washerwomen who spread linen on the fields to dry were themselves called lavenders. It has smelled of clean for two thousand years.
First on record. Dioscorides filed it in De Materia Medica, first century. In the 1930s the French chemist René-Maurice Gattefossé wrote a whole book about it.
Doc's note: clean herbal note. The rest is laundry, historically speaking.
[ Portrait No. 05 · Boswellia serrata ]
Frankincense
The mythology. Burned for gods on three continents and carried west by the Magi. The Egyptians ground the char into kohl - eyeliner, arguably the first cosmetic with a supply chain.
First on record. Queen Hatshepsut sent five ships to the Land of Punt for living trees, around 1470 BCE. The incense route outlived every empire that taxed it.
Doc's note: dry resin note. We buy it by the bottle, not the caravan.
InventedCorrespondence · Letter III of V · J. W. von Goethe · d. 1832
„Endlich ein Haus, das schweigt.“
The house's version:
“At last, a house that knows when to stop talking. I never learned.”
Invented. Goethe died in 1832 and has endorsed nothing since.
[ What You Are Buying · The Batch ]
A bottle from a batch, not a warehouse.
The fill
Filled by hand at the bench; each bottle numbered as it was filled. The batch is 130 bottles.
Your order
Payment is taken at checkout. We write when the parcel leaves.
Arrival
By DHL, within Germany. The fourteen-day right of withdrawal starts the day it reaches you.
What actually arrives.
[ Witness Statements · Batch 001 ]
Living witnesses, for a change.
The letters above are invented. These are not.
“It feels wonderful, smells wonderful … rather perfect for travelling.”
Bought in July
[ In Use · The Evening ]
After the shave, before the news.
The second application of the day, and the last. Three or four drops pressed along the jaw, then the day is done.
After the shave
Ten thousand years of this. Nobody reformulated it.
[ The Objections, Filed and Answered ]
Everything you were about to ask.
Isn't oil too heavy for skin?
Jojoba is technically a liquid wax, close to the skin's own sebum, so the oil feels light. Three or four drops pressed into damp skin are absorbed by the time you've found your keys. How to use it: drops, damp skin, after shaving.
Will it block my skin?
We haven't tested the finished oil for that, so we won't promise it either way. Start with fewer drops, stop if you notice a change you don't like, and patch-test on the inner arm for three days, as you should with anything new. Every skin is its own jurisdiction.
Why only one product?
One remedy per problem is Article I of the Doctrine. A second product would be an admission the first doesn't work - and the beginning of a shelf. We have seen where shelves lead.
What about sunscreen?
Wear it. The elixir has no SPF and will not pretend to. Oil first, sunscreen on top. Face oil or moisturiser?
Is it for women too?
Skin is skin. The house formulated it for people who won't do routines, and the bottle has no opinion about who opens it.
Why so few bottles?
Because they are filled by hand, and we would rather make a batch we can number than guess and fill a warehouse. Every bottle that ships is numbered.
What if I don't like it?
Fourteen-day right of withdrawal from the day it arrives, per German law. Return the bottle; keep the scepticism. It suits you.
Further objections are welcomed by post, and answered in order of politeness. Twenty-five more are already on file: all questions, answered.
