Est. 2019
We started because we could not find a straight answer.
Six years, sixteen products, and one rule that has not moved: tell people exactly what is in the bottle and how much of it.
In 2019 I bought a $90 serum that listed “vitamin C complex” as its third ingredient and would not tell me the percentage.
I emailed the brand. Twice. The second reply said the formula was proprietary. That is a legitimate business position and it is also, if you are the person putting it on your face every morning, completely useless.
So we made four products. We printed the full formula and every active concentration on the carton. We sold them at a third of the category’s usual margin because the maths worked and because it felt like the honest thing to do alongside the transparency. We expected it to be a small business for people who read labels.
It turned out a great many people read labels. Six years later we are nineteen people, still in small batches, and the range has grown to sixteen because sixteen is how many answers we can give properly. When we cannot improve on what already exists, we do not launch.
— Mira Sandoval, founder
What we hold to
Four positions we will not trade
Concentrations, printed
If an active is on the front of the box, its percentage is on the back. A formula that only says 'contains vitamin C' is telling you nothing you can act on.
Fewer things, made properly
Sixteen products, not two hundred. Every addition has to displace something or answer a question the range cannot already answer.
Tested on volunteers
Never on animals, anywhere, including in markets that would require it. That has cost us distribution and we have made our peace with it.
Priced at what it costs
Our margin is roughly a third of the category average. We would rather you buy the refill twice than the jar once.
Ingredient philosophy
An active that works at 10% is not twice as good at 20%.
Most actives have a dose-response curve that flattens, and then a tolerance curve that does not. Past the plateau you are buying irritation, not results — which is why our concentrations are set at the point the evidence supports and not one percent higher.
We also buffer. Vitamin C sits next to niacinamide and ferulic acid; retinal is encapsulated and paired with bakuchiol. The supporting cast is not filler, it is what makes the headline number usable every day rather than twice a week.
And we publish what is not in there. No essential oils in anything designed for compromised skin, no denatured alcohol above trace, no fragrance in the four core steps.
The commitments
What you can hold us to
Secure checkout
256-bit TLS · PCI DSS Level 1
60-day returns
Even if it's half empty
Never tested on animals
Leaping Bunny certified
Full ingredient list
On every carton, every page
Questions
The ones we get most
- How fast is shipping, and what does it cost?
- Orders placed before 2pm ship the same day. Complimentary over $75, otherwise a flat $7. Standard delivery is 2–4 business days and every parcel is carbon-neutral and plastic-free.
- What if it doesn't work for me?
- Return it within 60 days for a full refund, even if the bottle is half empty. Skincare takes weeks to judge and a 14-day window would be dishonest. No return shipping charge.
- Where can I see the full ingredient list?
- On every product page under the Ingredients tab, printed in full on every carton, and searchable across the range from the shop filters. If a formula changes, the batch code on the base tells you which version you have.
- What about the packaging?
- Glass and aluminium, both infinitely recyclable, with refills on the sizes where a refill actually saves material. Cartons are FSC-certified and printed with soy inks. We do not claim to be sustainable — we claim to be less bad than we were, measurably, each year.
- How do I reach a human?
- hello@lumera.example.com, answered by someone on the team within one business day. No chatbot, no ticket number, no 'your call is important to us'.
- Are you hiring?
- Occasionally, and we post openings to the journal before anywhere else. We are a team of nineteen and we would rather hire slowly than badly.
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