From the desk of Dr. Pedro Catalá, founder of TWELVE Beauty

Whenever I catch up with Dara and the team at Ayla, we always find ourselves returning to one fundamental truth: a healthy, resilient skin barrier is completely non-negotiable.

Now, full disclosure: I can be a total calamity when it comes to juggling a chaotic travel schedule, keeping my plants alive, or remembering where I left my reading glasses. But when it comes to chemistry and your skin's delicate barrier, I am absolutely uncompromising!

Summer Is Quietly Depleting Your Skin Barrier

As we navigate the height of summer, our skin faces a relentless barrage of environmental stressors. High UV, soaring heat, air conditioning, salt water, and chlorine all work in tandem to strip away delicate epidermal lipids. Even if your skin feels oilier on the surface, underneath that shine, your barrier is often depleted, leaving skin dehydrated, reactive, and vulnerable.

When I formulated Nutritive Repair Emulsion, my goal was to create a "healthy skin good night's rest in a jar."

Many people hesitate to use a rich repair cream during warmer months, fearing heavy, suffocating formulas. But this emulsion does something most repair creams can't: it's exceptionally rich in restorative nutrients, yet it absorbs with effortless weightlessness, leaving skin cushioned, calm, and breathable.

What Makes It Essential Right Now?

During this time of year, your skin requires three specific things to recover: barrier lipids, soothing relief, and antioxidant protection.

1. Replenishing Lost Barrier Lipids

Solar radiation and frequent washing reduce essential fatty acids in the skin.

- Spent Grain Wax: High in linoleic acid, an essential omega-6 fatty acid critical for repairing the skin's permeability barrier.

- Cupuaçu Butter: Sourced sustainably from the Amazon, this biological treasure restores elasticity and locks in deep moisture.

- Organic Argan Oil & Shea Butter: Rich in naturally occurring phytosterols and vitamin E to nourish sun-stressed tissue.

2. Soothing Micro-Irritation

Sun exposure and heat trigger subtle inflammatory responses, even if you haven't burned.

- Mallow Flower Extract: Delivers soothing, softening polysaccharides that immediately quiet tightness and redness.

- Imperatoria (Masterwort) Leaf Extract:Renowned in Alpine botany for its remarkable skin-repairing and anti-inflammatory properties.

3. Neutralizing Free Radical Damage

- Butterfly Bush (Buddleja) & White Genepi: Powerful botanical antioxidants that help neutralize oxidative stress caused by UV exposure, blue light, and urban pollution.

How to Incorporate It This Season

- The Overnight Recovery Reset: Apply a small amount as your final evening step. While you sleep, the skin's cellular regeneration peaks; this emulsion supplies the exact building blocks required to rebuild lipid stores by morning.

- After-Sun Comfort: After a day spent outdoors, layer it over your favorite serum to instantly calm warm, stressed skin.

- Transitioning Into Autumn: As humidity drops, use it morning and night to proactively prevent seasonal skin breakdown before the colder air arrives.

Formulator's Tip: If your skin feels particularly overexposed, mix 2–3 drops of Intelligent Frontier Facial Oil directly into Nutritive Repair Emulsion in the palm of your hand to create a hyper-customized barrier therapy.

Skin repair isn't about dramatic intervention; it's about giving your skin the precise, skin-identical nutrients it needs to heal itself. Nutritive Repair Emulsion provides that daily dose of comfort and strength when your skin needs it most.

Wishing you healthy, glowing skin, 

Pedro

PS Ready to give your skin its overnight reset? Shop Nutritive Repair Emulsion here.