Founder, buying
Decides what gets tried, and what quietly gets dropped.
Beauty,
with intention.
We started in 2019 with one shelf, forty products and a rule we have not broken since: nothing gets stocked until somebody here has used it for a month.
Why a shop like this
needed to exist
In 2019, buying Korean skincare in Ukraine meant one of two things: paying triple at a department store counter, or gambling on a grey-market seller and hoping the batch code checked out. Neither felt like a reason to spend money on your own face.
So we started small — one shelf, forty products, every one bought directly from the brand. The rule we set then still decides what we stock now: somebody on this team has to use it for a month first. A surprising number of famous products never make it past that.
Nothing gets stocked until somebody here has used it for a month.
Seven years later there are twenty brands, eighty-six products and a team of nine, and the part that has not changed is the part we are proudest of: when you write to us, a person who has actually used the product writes back.
Three things we will not negotiate
- 01
Beauty should feel personal.
Your skin, your season, your budget — not a universal ten-step protocol borrowed from someone else's bathroom. - 02
Good formulas matter more than good marketing.
We read the ingredient list before we read the press release, and we say no to most of them. - 03
Less noise. Better choices.
Eighty-six products on the shelf, not three thousand. Editing is the service.
Chosen in real life.
Every product is used, discussed and reconsidered before it earns a place on the shelf.
Before it reaches the shelf.
- 01
We try it.
Someone on the team uses it consistently — not once, not for a sponsored post. - 02
We question it.
Formula, texture, price, and whether it actually solves something. - 03
We live with it.
At least a month whenever the product allows it. - 04
Then we stock it.
Only if we would still choose it with our own money.
The people behind the shelf
Skincare editor
Lives with the actives, the acids and the slow ones.
Customer care
Answers the questions that arrive at eleven at night.
Studio and packing
Checks every batch code before a parcel leaves.
What makes it in
- Formulas we would repurchase ourselves.
- A clear reason to exist beside what we already stock.
- Comfortable enough to use every day.
- Fair value for what it actually does.
What doesn't
- Products built only around a launch campaign.
- Duplicate formulas with no reason to be here.
- Claims the ingredient list cannot support.
- Anything nobody on the team would buy again.
- 2019Founded
- 20Brands on the shelf
- 86Products, edited down
- Every productUsed before it is listed
Less, but better chosen.
Find something worth keeping.
Explore the products that made it through our shelf.