About

Stratum exists because most skincare copy answers “what does this ingredient do” and skips “where does it actually go.” Those are different questions, and the second one is the one a formulation chemist can actually answer with a straight face.

We started as a two-person formulation studio taking on private-label work for other skincare brands — the kind of work where you learn exactly how much of a typical brand’s marketing outruns its actual formulation. In 2019 we started publishing our own line under one house rule: every active ingredient’s target layer gets shown, not just claimed, and every full INCI list ships on the product page, not buried in a PDF or a physical box most online shoppers never see.

That rule shapes the catalogue more than it might seem to. We have turned down formulating a product around an ingredient we could not honestly map to a layer with a stated mechanism. We have rewritten our own draft copy more than once after a claim came out sounding stronger than the underlying research actually supports — “commonly associated with supporting” instead of “proven to fix,” “formulated to reach” instead of “penetrates deep,” percentages that are ingredient concentrations, not clinical-trial results, because we have not run clinical trials.

We are a formulation studio, not a medical practice. Nothing on this site is a diagnosis, a treatment plan, or a substitute for advice from a dermatologist or physician about your own skin — particularly around retinoids, acids, or any product if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or managing a diagnosed skin condition. Where we say “check with a clinician,” we mean it.