Hi Friends!
September is always an interesting month for me because it marks another year since I started Beauty Heroes. We officially launched on September 1, 2014, and announced our very first Discovery that same day.
Many of you know this story already, but at the time I was soooo into this one idea: creating a service that would help people like you and me discover truly healthy beauty, one Hero product at a time. One brand. Two full-size products. Deep education. A very special value. And, most importantly, a way for me to curate and share the products I thought were exceptional.
That was it. That was my whole vision.
I really had no idea what Beauty Heroes would become. I wasn't imagining a store, a treatment room, events, thousands of products on our shelves, or all of the other ways we've created moments of discovery together over the years. So it slightly boggles my mind that this month marks our 145th monthly Discovery.
145!
And after 12 years, Beauty Heroes is still a relatively small company compared with most traditional beauty businesses. That's not an accident, and over the years I've come to understand much more deeply why.
Conventional beauty and green beauty may occupy the same category, but economically and operationally, they're almost two different industries. They use very different ingredients, supply chains, manufacturing processes and production volumes. I've learned the intricacies of this by working closely with our brand partners and founders for more than a decade. They've been my greatest teachers, and telling their stories has become one of the things Beauty Heroes does best.
There’s also a strange inversion in beauty that I think about a lot. Truly exceptional green beauty is extraordinarily expensive to make, often in small batches, using fresh and high-quality plant oils, extracts, botanicals and innovative natural ingredients. Yet, in many cases, it’s priced below conventional luxury beauty, leaving far less margin despite what it costs to make.
I've seen $350, $500, even $600 creams whose price has very little relationship to what's actually inside the jar. Meanwhile, some of the most beautiful, sophisticated formulas I know are being produced by independent founders and labs using ingredients that are considerably more costly.
At Beauty Heroes, even our most expensive skincare tops out at $270. That speaks to the values of the brands we carry: their prices reflect what actually goes into the jar—not simply what they could charge for it.
Maybe that's also why I've always thought of our monthly Discovery as a bit of a no-brainer. I intentionally created it that way. Not really as a way to “save money,” but as a way to make saying Hell Yes! to discovering healthy beauty incredibly easy. I wanted the value to remove the hesitation and leave the fun part: trying something truly special that you might never have discovered otherwise.
Which brings me to number 145.
This month, we're taking you to Poland with Oio Lab, where Founder Joanna Ryglewicz and her team formulate and manufacture their products in their own laboratory. The two full-size formulas in your September Discovery were made fresh for our Beauty Heroes community, traveled all the way from Poland (tariffs and all!), and landed here to make their way to your doorstep at a value that, 12 years later, still makes me smile.
Our Hero product is Lunula Night Facial Treatment Oil, Oio Lab's newly updated, high-performance retinol serum-oil. And I was already a fan before Joanna went and made it even better.
I'll be honest: I don't do a ton of retinol. I like my skin barrier happy, and I've never felt the need to push my skin particularly hard. But the retinols coming out of green beauty have worked well for my 52 year old skin, and Lunula Night has been at the top of my list for years. I've recommended it to close friends long before it became a Beauty Heroes Discovery, and now I'm recommending it to you.
The formula uses a next-generation hydrogenated retinol developed in Japanese laboratories, chosen in part for its exceptional stability. Then Oio Lab surrounds it with an extraordinary botanical complex: Arctic kelp, lotus stem cells and CoQ10, along with Polish spilanthol and Greek mastic resin. The result is a retinol treatment designed not simply to smooth the surface of the skin, but to support firmness, elasticity and skin density — while being well tolerated even by sensitive skin types.
I paired Lunula Night with Superpause Restorative Facial Cream, which I think is one of the more interesting creams we've featured in a Discovery.
Joanna created Superpause specifically for skin in transition. Of course, that can mean perimenopause, menopause and post-menopause — hello, many of us — when changes in hormones can suddenly make skin we've known our entire lives start behaving like it has its own agenda. But “transition” can mean many things. Postpartum skin. Skin recovering after a procedure. Stressed skin. Depleted skin. Or simply skin that's asking for more support than it used to.
Superpause is rich and deeply comforting, with liposomal melatonin, chasteberry extract and natural glycoin, along with a marine moisturizing complex, Allanblackia butter, jojoba and squalane. It's designed to support hydration, elasticity, barrier function and the skin's own restorative processes. Oio Lab's testing found a 43% increase in hydration just one hour after application, which gives you an idea of what Joanna was trying to accomplish with this formula.
You'll also notice something else about these two products: the scent experience is quite different from many products we feature at Beauty Heroes. That's part of the Oio Lab difference. These formulas aren't built around a big aromatic experience; they're built around what Joanna and her chemists want the formula to do.
Rather than have me explain that for her, I'd love for you to hear Joanna talk about it herself. I just spoke to her LIVE on IG this past Friday where she shared in detail how Oio Lab formulates, tests and manufactures its products in Poland. If you love a little ‘behind the brand’ content - this is a good one.
Twelve years ago, I wanted to make it easier to discover the people and products moving healthy beauty forward. I didn't know exactly where that idea would take me, or us.
Apparently, at least this month, it took us to Poland.
Hero On!
Jeannie
