- By
- Mackenzie Hamilton
- Photography by
- Brittany O'Malley
Native Beauty Sets a New Standard for Natural Skin Care
With her new line Native Beauty, the entrepreneur Lisa Qi is putting her longtime passion for skincare to use. “I have been interested in skincare since I was in high school,” she says, “when I began to receive love letters from boys.” As the founder of a giant e-commerce company in China, Daling Family, Qi is already in a position to reach a mass market and is taking advantage of the platform to launch Native Beauty. “Most luxury skincare brands are too expensive for the majority of consumers,” she says. “Since Daling Family is our own channel, we can reach millions of consumers directly and offer clean beauty products with high performance at an affordable price.” Launched this February in China with its first product, a moisture-locking, protective serum, Native Beauty aims to offer products to Asian women with sensitive skin who are looking to combat the effects of pollution and everyday stressors.
Native Beauty was born out of a conversation Qi had at an international beauty summit with Harvey Gedeon, the former head of research at Estée Lauder, about why a newborn baby’s skin is so healthy. The answer inspired the creation of their first serum, inspired by the vernix caseosa, the thin protective layer babies are coated in when they are born. Qi wondered if it was possible to use biomimicry to recreate the vernix in a skincare product and teamed up with Gedeon to find out. After expanding the company to include the renowned plastic surgeon Dr. Kenneth O. Rothaus, they began their search for the best natural and clean source of products, discovering a Silicon Valley-based biotech company, Amyris, which specializes in the biological fermentation and synthesis of a clean, Ecocert-approved, and renewable source of squalene, the main ingredient in Native Beauty’s patented vernix serum. After spending over a year in development working on the perfect formula which would mimic the moisture-locking effects of the vernix, Qi finally felt confident that she had a unique and effective product that would suit the needs of all Asian women.
The emphasis on innovative technology and the commitment to using only the highest quality natural ingredients set Native Beauty apart. With plans to launch six more products before the end of the year, Qi sees remaining true to this approach as the future of skincare. “Native Beauty has redefined the future of strict standards,” she says. “These standards meet the needs of all Asian women and they set up a milestone for the revolution of skincare in Asia.”
- By
- Mackenzie Hamilton
- Photography by
- Brittany O'Malley
