by Imagine walking on the beach in a tropical location, with the waves crashing to your feet. Your skin is wrapped just the right amount of moisture to give it a plump, cool glow, your cheeks are perfectly melted and you have spent the morning drinking water from a coconut that came straight from a tree. Paradise, right?
It was this heavenly feeling that inspired Giovanna Campagna to create Joaquina Botánica, a skin care brand based on its Colombian roots. “When I think of preparations, I often think that my skin always feels better when I am somewhere like Cartagena or Cali, where it is protected from moisture and sunshine and cool all the time and nourished from within. “Of all the fresh foods I eat — like when you walk and sweat a little, but you don’t even need makeup because you’re already shining,” he says. “I wanted to create products that give you that little glow that you almost feel like you could wear makeup, but you feel great without it.”
Launched in 2021, the range currently features three products — a glow oil, a moisturizing oil and the new Crema Essencial (“essential cream”) – combining Colombian natural ingredients (almost all from small Colombian suppliers) with clinically tested active skin care ingredients.
“All the inspiration behind the brand brings together untapped, supercharged herbs from the area, inspired by how they have been used in beauty practices,” she says. “… There are all these amazing fruits and herbs that are part of everyday life, and wherever you look, there are incredible flowers in bloom. It has become a truly incredible part of the culture, and in beauty, it was so fascinating to be able to to draw from it “.
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Glow oil, for example, uses Orchid (or orchid, which is the national flower of Colombia) and Colombian super fruits such as Camu Camu, Maracuja, Papaya and Sacha Inchi to impregnate the skin with radiance and the substance was directly inspired by how Colombian women use flower mist in their care facial routines.
It is the brand new Porcelain Cacao + Amino Acids Crema Esencial ($ 98), However, this has really taken advantage of Campagna’s coveted “holiday aura” – and the skin benefits that come with it – in just one step.
The light moisturizer took three years to perfect, as Campagna wanted to ensure that the pure formula would melt perfectly on the skin and provide hydration throughout the day. To achieve this, the formula uses an “exact balance” of different oils and moisturizers, each of which is absorbed at a different rate. “It leaves just the right amount of coolness and has no matte effect on the skin,” says Campagna.
The “crown ingredient”, as Campagna calls it, is porcelain cocoa, a very fine variety of white cocoa from Peru. Studies have shown that the ingredient can help protect the skin from damage signs of blue light, which can lead to oxidative stress and premature skin aging. “I liked the bifurcation of using these 100 percent natural ingredients that have clinical trials behind them to help us with this side effect of modern life,” he says.
The formula also contains a bioactive molecule called gentian, which has been shown to stimulate the skin’s natural skin renewal process to help improve thickness and regenerative repair. In addition, it has barrier-boosting amino acids, moisture-locking hyaluronic acid, and a triad of Colombian superfoods (açai, guava and uchuva) that provide antioxidant protection.
Like all Joaquina Botánica products, the moisturizer comes in a papaya-colored glass jar with hints of gold detail — another nod to Campagna’s Colombian heritage. “The color of our brand is this extremely vibrant papaya shade that always reminds me of fruit and henna and architecture, and the gold elements are inspired by pre-Columbian jewelry,” he says.
After incorporating Crema Essential into my daily routine for two weeks, I can understand why Campagna was so excited to share these Colombian ingredients with the world. As I promised, it is immediately absorbed into my skin and leaves behind just the kind of “sweaty glow” that makes me feel like my skin has been transported to a tropical island. It has a faint papaya scent that lets me dream of breakfast on the beach and keeps my skin firm and cool all day.
“It was exciting for me, on a personal level, to highlight these Colombian ingredients and present them in skin care to show what they can do and place them in a luxurious setting,” says Campagna. Buy the Crema for yourself, above.
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