MYATB x FDB: Meet Zaffrin
So, my questions...
What inspired you to found Five Dot Botanics?
I was inspired to launch Five Dot Botanics after seeing how complicated and synthetic personal cosmetics had become. I had already started to think about what was going into the food I was eating, so the next step naturally was to think about what ingredients were going into what I put onto my skin.
Reading the ingredients label of many personal cosmetics usually throws a person into a loop; the jargon often doesn’t make sense. Five Dot Botanics was born out of a desire for radical transparency and a return to simplicity.
Skincare in recent years has become complicated. Not just in terms of multi-step routines, the array of products available to us on the market is overwhelming. Your skin doesn’t need that many products to be healthy, and it doesn’t need complicated routines or hundreds of ingredients.
The power of plants has always inspired me, so it was natural that when it came to creating Five Dot Botanics, we would return to the most potent ingredients from nature.
Can you run us through what order we should use your products and the benefits of each one?
A simple routine using our products:
Step 1 - Cleanse your skin using Calm Shift Cleansing Balm
Calm Shift Cleansing Balm is a gentle cleansing balm that is kind to skin and helps shift impurities. The glycolipids are a cleanser derived from sugar, while lavender oil gives a calming aroma as well as an antibacterial and anti-inflammatory boost to the skin. It is effective at gently removing make-up, pollution and daily grime. It is rich in hazelnut oil which is high in oleic acid and kind to the skin, while glycerin acts as a humectant and moisturiser. It will leave skin cleansed, softened and feeling fresh. Massage 1-2 pumps over face & neck and rinse with a warm damp cotton cloth.
Step 2 - Hydrate your skin using Face Mist Brighten Up
Brighten Up Face Mist is a fragrant balancing mist that includes active pomegranate enzymes to brighten, purify and boost the skin. Rose flower water detoxifies the skin and is good for inflamed or irritated complexions. The mist helps encourage cell renewal and balances pH levels after cleansing as levulinic acid and sodium levulinate combine to improve the skin's natural acidic balance. Designed to make skin will feel hydrated, toned and restored. Just spray generously onto freshly cleansed face and neck, after cleansing and at any time of the day.
Step 3 - Apply Full Bright Renewal Eye Serum
Full Bright Eye Serum has a powerhouse of eye brightening ingredients combined in a serum designed to reduce dark eye circles and bags. Active Horse Chestnut extract provides anti-inflammatory benefits while improving circulation. The regenerative properties of liquorice root work alongside caffeine, which has powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits. Caffeine also firms and brightens the skin. Your eye area will feel revived, nourished and restored, with dark circles lightened and puffiness reduced. Apply morning or evening once a day by gently rolling the applicator under eye, from inner to outer corner, 2 to 3 times and gently pat the serum in. For extra de-puffing, chill before use.
Step 4 - Apply Deep Feed Facial Serum
Deep Feed Facial Serum contains powerful botanical oils and extracts that moisturise skin and provide intensive nourishment. Cold-pressed green coffee beans deliver high levels of antioxidants helping to protect and soothe damaged skin. Cacay nut oil high in vitamins helps to revitalise and soften the skin and reduce fine lines. Amla fruit extract helps protect and repair the skin, while chamomile oil is a skin soother. Massage 2-3 drops onto freshly cleansed skin, morning and evening.
Unlike nearly all other skincare brands, you don't include loads of ingredients that we don't understand - is your skincare as effective?
There is often a misconception that you need lots of ingredients for skincare to be effective. We use high percentages of potent plant extracts to create our skincare. If you have a product with 30,40 or 50 ingredients in, chances are you are only getting a tiny percentage of the active ingredients. Often cosmetic products are mixed with cheap fillers; usually, a blend of water and petroleum based derivatives make up the bulk of the product. Five Dot Botanics products are highly effective as we include high percentages of active ingredients. We use ingredients from plants that have proven benefits for the skin, and we don’t add any cheap fillers to bulk out the products. People are increasingly starting to wonder why brands include so many ingredients; it is a misconception that you need that many to have effective skincare. Minimal ingredients are powerful, as you only include the ingredients that matter.
How would you suggest women in their mid-life look after their skin?
Whether in mid-life or beyond, there are a lot of benefits to having a skincare routine, and consistency is key. However, it is also important to keep in mind that healthy skin needs a healthy lifestyle, so exercise, diet, sleep, stress and our overall wellness can all impact our skin. A skincare routine is only one part of looking after our skin in mid-life.
A simple skin care routine can be really effective at looking after skin in mid-life. It doesn’t need to be complicated, and a simple routine might be - Cleanse, Mist and Moisturise (see above for the FIve Dot Botanics Routine). The key here is that healthy skin is part of a holistic approach to health and wellbeing.
How do you choose which ingredients go into your products?
We work with an experienced cosmetic scientist and British formulation lab to help choose our ingredients. Since we only use 5 ingredients in all our products, we need to be discerning about what goes into every product. We start with the science, looking for evidence by way of scientific studies that shows the effectiveness of an ingredient for a specific outcome. We focus on plants, and we don’t use synthetic chemicals, so we are always looking at the best extracts from plants, seeds, nuts and flowers.
No moisturiser! What?! Please enlighten us...
Our plant based facial serum and facial oil are both effective moisturisers. Moisturising is about trapping and sealing in moisture to build the skin’s protective barrier. The lipids in our plant oils are fantastic at this. They play the role of a moisturiser by helping to prevent water loss from the skin and keep your skin soft and smooth. Moisturising is different to hydrating. Hydration is about the water content within the skin cells rather than retaining moisture.
We do get asked about whether you need to use a moisturiser alongside our facial serum or face oil, and the answer depends on your routine.
If you are using a hydrating mist as part of your skincare routine, then locking in water with our oil based facial serum or facial oil will help ensure skin remains hydrated and nourished for longer.
Our facial serum and facial oil is made only from plant oils and extracts, whereas most commercial moisturisers tend to be made from oils and water. As a result, commercial moisturisers tend to come with a lot of other ingredients, to help the oil and water to mix together properly.
We think plant oils are the best for moisturising because they are compatible with our skin, and they are super effective at helping nourish the skin’s top layer, which is important for our skin barrier health.
And no night cream! Surely midlife women should be bathing in night cream? Can you explain why not?
Our products are all about concentrated plant based formulas and because we only use 5 ingredients, water based creams and moisturisers are not in our product range. It gets very complicated in terms of the number of ingredients you need to preserve these kinds of products.
As our facial serum and facial oils contain no water, we do not need to preserve them in the same way, so all the ingredients in our products are all there to work for your skin. They were designed to be highly effective on the skin overnight.
The Five Dot Botanics Deep Feed facial serum is really effective at adding oil and moisture back into your skin at night. We selected five of the most powerful plant oils for that product, and it is designed to give intensive nourishment overnight.
It is important to hydrate skin before using an oil facial serum or oil and we encourage the use of a facial mist. However, our serum then adds antioxidants to the skin, and the ingredients contain high levels of vitamins E, F and A, which revitalise and soften the skin.
Where do you source your ingredients from?
We manufacture everything in the UK however our ingredients are sourced from all over the world. Lavender, chamomile, safflower and sunflower we can source closer to home, other ingredients such as the ones that come from nuts and seeds from plants that are grown in warmer climates, come from further away.
Where can we buy your products from?
You can shop on our website fivedotbotanics.com or we're at Look Fantastic, Holland & Barrat and Feel Unique (to name a few!). You can see all of our stockists here.
What is the skincare industry's biggest myth?
The skincare industry wants you to believe that you need to buy lots of products to have good skin. However, a healthy skin barrier means resilient, happy, clear and healthy-looking skin, and that doesn’t always mean needing to use a myriad of products or having a complicated routine. Skincare for Five Dot Botanics is more than about how we look; it is about using products in a way that helps our skin barrier to be strong. That may mean using fewer products, which isn’t always what the beauty industry will want you to hear.