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The results were never the problem

Retinoids ask a lot of your skin before they give anything back. The first weeks bring redness and peeling, tight patches along the nose and jaw, a burn when moisturizer meets raw skin. Dermatology has a name for it, retinoid dermatitis, and a protocol for getting through it. Some skin settles. Some never stops reacting.

So people stop. A product that works ends up in a drawer with the cap on, and the person who bought it carries a quiet sense of having given up on something that was supposed to help.

HALENE The Routine, the full bakuchiol line

What we went looking for

We were not looking for a softer retinol. We were looking for something that could stand next to it on results and drop the irritation.

That ruled out most of what the category sells. A bottle with forty botanical extracts answers a different question, and a fragrance answers none. We wanted one active with published evidence behind it, used at a dose someone had measured, in a formula short enough to read in one breath.

The research kept pointing at one ingredient: bakuchiol, a compound pressed from the seeds of the babchi plant. It behaves like a retinoid in the skin without being one.

Bakuchiol amber oil droplet on bone stone with skeletal structure

What the research showed

In a 12-week randomized, double-blind study, 44 people used either 0.5% bakuchiol twice a day or 0.5% retinol once a day. Both reduced wrinkle surface area and hyperpigmentation, and the difference between them was not statistically significant. The retinol group reported more scaling and stinging.

A second paper found that bakuchiol, with no structural resemblance to retinoids, regulates many of the same skin pathways. A third followed 60 women with sensitive skin, a third with eczema, a third with rosacea and a third with cosmetic intolerance, and found a bakuchiol moisturizer well tolerated.

Those three papers are the reason HALENE exists. We keep them on one page, with citations.

Read the research

Making the formula

We built No. 01 with a formulator, working from a short brief: the actives at stated doses, and nothing in the bottle we could not explain. The serum has nineteen ingredients. Three of them do the work: 1% bakuchiol, 4% niacinamide and 0.5% beta-glucan. The rest carry those three, keep them stable, or make the serum feel like nothing on your skin.

Some of what we left out took longer than what we put in. No added fragrance, and no aromatic botanicals doing the same job under another name. No drying alcohol. No PEGs. No phenoxyethanol. We reformulated until the product was ready to sell and we could account for every line on the label.

Three actives, each at a stated dose

  • Bakuchiol amber oil droplet on bone stone with skeletal structure

    Bakuchiol, 1%

    Pressed from the seeds of the babchi plant. The 2019 head-to-head studied it at 0.5%. No. 01 uses 1%, and we say so.

  • Niacinamide milky swirl on bone stone with skeletal structure

    Niacinamide, 4%

    Vitamin B3, in the form skin can use. Included to support the skin barrier and the look of even tone.

  • Beta glucan clear gel on bone stone with repeat unit structure

    Beta-glucan, 0.5%

    A sugar chain from oats and yeast. Included to hold water at the surface and keep the serum comfortable on reactive skin.

Where we draw the line

The rules we write to, on every page of this site.
  • The research is on the ingredient, not on our finished product
  • The study used 0.5% bakuchiol. No. 01 uses 1%. We say so
  • No borrowed proof: no fabricated reviews, no before-and-afters
  • We do not describe it as clean or natural. We list what is out, and why
  • No promises about your skin. The study measured results at 12 weeks
  • If we cannot cite it, we do not print it
HALENE No. 01 Serum with dried babchi seeds on walnut wood

What HALENE is for

We make alternatives to the actives people quit. Not softer versions of retinol, but different ingredients with published evidence behind them, at stated doses, formulated without added fragrance, drying alcohol, PEGs or phenoxyethanol. The idea is simple: an active with evidence behind it, in a formula you can read.

No. 01 is the first of them, a daily serum with three actives and nineteen ingredients. We number what we make in the order it belongs in a routine, and we add to the line only when the next product can meet the same standard. Until then, No. 01 is where HALENE begins.

Start with No. 01

A daily bakuchiol serum with three actives at stated doses, formulated without retinoids or added fragrance. It is the step the research measured, and the whole of HALENE today.

Shop No. 01