THE LIVING FORMULATION SYSTEM: Spa-Born Science in Real Time

Most skincare is developed far away from the people who will actually use it.

A brief in a meeting room becomes a lab sample, becomes a focus group, becomes a launch. Once it’s on shelves, the formula is effectively “finished”—even if it doesn’t really work for the diversity of real, changing skin.

INBAR+co grew up in a different world.
We weren’t born in a lab. We were born in a spa.

Every day, we work face-to-face (literally) with complex, reactive, hormonal, stressed, recovering skin. Over time, this created a different way of formulating—a dynamic, iterative, practice-based method we now call The Living Formulation System.

It’s the third pillar of our ethos, and it’s what makes our science feel alive.

What Is The Living Formulation System?

At its core, The Living Formulation System is our way of treating each formula as something that can evolve, not a static product that’s fixed at launch.

It’s built on three convictions:

1. Skin is dynamic. It changes with hormones, stress, climate, lifestyle, and time.

2. Real performance shows up in real use. Not only in controlled conditions, but in everyday routines.

3. Practitioners are data sources. Estheticians see patterns, rhythms, and edge cases that spreadsheets often miss.

So instead of treating R&D as a closed event, we treat it as a loop:

Treatment room → Observation → Iteration → Small-batch production → Real-world feedback → Refinement

This is spa-born science—not vague “inspired by a spa,” but actually developed in one.

Step 1: Formulas Start as Treatment Concepts

Every product in the INBAR+co line began as a treatment need, not a marketing idea.

Maybe we kept seeing barrier-compromised skin that was reactive but dehydrated. Maybe we needed something that supported skin through hormonal shifts without overwhelming it. Maybe we needed a way to amplify cellular communication during recovery.

From there, we design a treatment prototype:

• A texture we can actually use in a professional protocol

• A concentration of actives that makes sense on real skin

• A formula built under our Responsible Chemistry rules (green chemistry, intact microbiome, no petrochemical derivatives)

Before anything gets a name, it has to earn its place in the treatment room.

Step 2: Practice-Based Evaluation (Quasi-Clinical)

We call our approach quasi-clinical on purpose.

We don’t pretend these are full clinical trials, and we say that clearly. But we also don’t treat spa work as “just vibes.” We structure our evaluation with care.

That looks like:

• Defined protocols:
  The same product is applied in consistent amounts, with clear timing and layering in a treatment.

• Baseline and follow-up observations:
  Estheticians note barrier condition, texture, radiance, redness, hydration, and perceived comfort before and after use—and over multiple visits.

• Sensitivity and recovery tracking:
  We pay close attention to the edge cases: reactive clients, peri-menopausal skin, acne-prone barriers. If they’re not happy, we aren’t done.

• Time-based assessment:
  We pay attention to what happens after 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, not just “did this look good today?”

In other words: it’s not just “my clients like it.” It’s structured, repeated, practitioner-led observation over time.

Important: When we say “quasi-clinical,” we mean practice-based observational data, not a substitute for formal clinical trials.

Step 3: Small-Batch Production for Real-World Testing

Once a prototype performs well in treatment, we scale it—a little.

We produce it in small batches, so we can:

• Monitor texture, stability, and user experience in real homes

• Make adjustments faster if we see patterns (e.g., slightly heavier in summer, slightly too light in winter)

• Keep the formula fresh and aligned with our Material Integrity and Responsible Chemistry pillars

Clients take products home. Estheticians watch what happens when those products leave the treatment bed and land in bathrooms, carry-on bags, and inconsistent sleep schedules.

This is where real-world proof shows up—or doesn’t.

Step 4: Feedback Loops and Iteration

Because we are spa-born, feedback doesn’t arrive as a quarterly survey—it walks in with our clients.

We learn things like:

• “My skin stayed calm through my cycle for the first time.”

• “I can layer this under SPF without pilling.”

• “This felt too rich in August but perfect in November.”

• “I didn’t get that tight feeling after cleansing anymore.”

Practitioners also log more clinical observations: improved overall texture, fewer flare-ups in certain clients, better tolerance to actives when layered properly.

When patterns emerge, we adjust:

• Fine-tune emulsions or textures

• Adjust percentages of supportive ingredients (lipids, humectants, soothing agents)

• Refine scent levels and temperature feel (cooling, neutral, cocooning)

• In rare cases, retire or replace a formula that doesn’t meet our long-term standards

That’s why we call it The Living Formulation System: if real skin doesn’t like something, the formula doesn’t stay fixed.

How This Supports Skin Longevity (Not Just Quick Wins)

Because our audience is primarily millennial, living through busy, high-stimulus lives, we don’t design for one dramatic “after” shot—we design for skin longevity.

The Living Formulation System helps us do that by focusing on:

• Barrier quality over time — Is skin more or less reactive after three months?

• Microbiome respect — Do clients report fewer flare-ups, less chronic redness, less “mystery irritation”?

• Resilience under stress — Travel, hormonal shifts, big life changes; does the skin bounce back more easily?

• Compatibility with real routines — Can people realistically keep using this daily or nightly without overwhelm?

We avoid heavy, aggressive, “shock” formulations that impress on day two and backfire by week three. Instead, we design adaptive, spa-tested formulas that help your skin stay responsive for the long term.

The Living Formulation System + Our Other Pillars

The system doesn’t stand alone—it’s meant to work with the other three pillars:

• Responsible Chemistry
  Ensures that the ingredients we iterate with are green-chemistry aligned, microbiome-respecting, and free from petrochemical derivatives.

• Material Integrity
  Makes sure that once a formula is working, it’s held in plastic-free aluminum packaging and FSC paper, with no hidden compromises in pumps and plastics.

• Planet-Positive
  Ensures that constant iteration doesn’t mean constant waste: we produce small batches, avoid overproduction, and operate with renewable energy only across spa and production.

The Living Formulation System is where science, touch, and values meet.

Why This Matters More Than “Clinically Proven” Soundbites

You’ll rarely see us leaning on vague claims like “clinically proven” without context. That language has been overused to the point of meaning almost nothing.

What we can say, honestly, is that:

• Our formulas are born in treatments, not just on paper

• They are refined through documented, practitioner-led observation

• We stay in relationship with our products over time—watching how they behave in lives, not just in labs

If a product doesn’t hold up on real people with real schedules and real skin histories, we don’t try to argue with that. We reformulate.

For us, credibility doesn’t come from louder claims; it comes from being willing to change the formula when the skin tells us to.