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Don’t spend $200 to buy 30 ml (1 fl oz) of paraben free, cruelty free, clean beauty nothing. Please.

A product from Spain with a Japanese name. What could go wrong? Just as fake as its Japanese sounding name, here are the ingredients

Water, Butylene Glycol, Propylene Glycol, Ascorbic Acid, Glycerin, Glycosaminoglycans, Tocopheryl Acetate, Peg-35 Castor Oil, Benzyl Alcohol, Glycogen, Salicylic Acid, Potassium Sorbate, Sodium Benzoate, Soluble Proteoglycan, Sorbic Acid, Camellia Sinensis (Tea) Leaf Extract, Matcha Tea.

Is there anything interesting in this list? Not the solvents (water, butylene glycol, propylene glycol), or ascorbic acid, which will be an oxidizer by the time it reaches your skin. The preservatives, potassium sorbate, sorbic acid and sodium benzoate, are not very interesting either.

Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) or mucopolysaccharides, can be more interesting. These are polysaccharides that because of their structure, are highly polar and attract water, they are used in the body as a lubricant or shock absorber. There are many glycosaminoglycans in nature and you are familiar with one of them, hyaluronic acid. The list doesn’t tell us which one it is so it could also be heparan sulfate or chondroitin sulfate or who knows what. In any case, this ingredient wouldn’t make the product better. As for proteoglycans, there are too many to enumerate and they don’t say which it is either.

In short, this is a mystery formulation that tries to sell itself by using a Japanese-sounding name and using matcha tea as a label value ingredient. What else? The 30 milliliters (one fl. oz.) come in 15 medical-looking vials.

Real “kumiko” is a Japanese technique of assembling wooden pieces without the use of nails. Kumiko can also be a girl’s name.

You have been warned!

Hannah