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Facialist Georgia Louise Launches the Pure Molecule, Freeze-Dried Skin-Care Tablets

Aesthetician Georgia Louise is known in the beauty world for many things — futuristic skin-care devices, celebrity-favorite treatments, and the infamous Hollywood EGF facial, among them — and today, Louise is adding a new product category to her namesake lineup. Actually, she touts her latest launch as an entirely new product category for all of us. Introducing: the Georgia Louise Pure Molecule.

In true Georgia Louise fashion, the Pure Molecule really isn't like anything else out there. It's a topical, freeze-dried tablet that dissolves in your hand with an activator liquid and then it's applied to clean skin (pre-serum). What makes it so exciting is that because of this freeze-dried technology each tablet is supposed to be extremely potent, with highly concentrated ingredients. For example, each tablet purportedly contains the equivalent of five bottles of 2 percent hyaluronic acid serum (stay with us here, we'll explain).

The inspiration for the product, which has been in the works for over a year, came from Louise's work with a Korean manufacturer who was using freeze-dried collagen and hyaluronic acid patches to heal skin wounds. "I'm always looking for the latest innovation and this really resonated with me to have a freeze-dried new product category," Louise tells Allure. "It was just extraordinary to stumble upon that and then we were able to come up with this concept and put it into skin care."

How does all of that fit into one tiny tablet, you ask? Freeze-drying is basically sucking out all the moisture of what would make up, say, your typical serum, as well as all of the preservatives it contains. In addition to having all that stuff gone, it also shrinks the molecular weight of the ingredients, so you can pack more of them in there. Not to get too scientific, but as a skin-care rule of thumb a lower molecular weight also means that it will be absorbed better, where larger molecules sit on top of the skin.

"When you freeze-dry a raw ingredient, not only are you able to get more weight shrunk, you're also able to shrink the molecule size," Louise explains. "So the weight of the molecule size is so teeny tiny that it's able to [better] penetrate the skin."

<h1 class="title">Georgia Louise Pure Molecule box.jpg</h1><cite class="credit">Courtesy of brand</cite>

Georgia Louise Pure Molecule box.jpg

Courtesy of brand

Since topical freeze-dried tablets are new to me, my first question for cosmetic chemist Ginger King (who never hesitates to give me her completely honest opinion on a product, even if it's an unfavorable one) was this: Is this concept legit? To which she responded with a resounding, "Yes, it is legit."

Although freeze-drying skin-care technology is new to us here in the States, according to King it's already big in Korea — yet another skin-care innovation we have to thank them for. In Korea, "they have it in many different forms, like in tiny balls," King explains. "This company is pretty smart to put it in pill capsule form."

But does freeze-dried automatically equal a higher potency? King, along with board-certified dermatologist Dhaval Bhanusali, isn't entirely sure — and that's because the potency of the pill itself depends largely on the actual freeze-drying and whether or not certain ingredients could become altered during the process.

"It's certainly possible to put more ingredient into a solid form and then mix it with a solvent," says Bhanusali. "The issue is how well it mixes, how well the mixture then absorbs, [and] how long it is stable."

No surprise — Louise already thought of all this. In addition to the molecular shrinkage that happens during the freeze-drying process, each tablet is formulated with hyaluronic acid of the lowest molecular weight.

<h1 class="title">Georgia Louise Pure Molecule dropper, hand.jpg</h1><cite class="credit">Courtesy of brand</cite>

Georgia Louise Pure Molecule dropper, hand.jpg

Courtesy of brand

If you're wondering exactly how you apply a tablet onto your skin, here's a more detailed explanation: While holding the tablet in your palm, apply eight drops of the included Pure Activator liquid (made with rose water, peptides, and more hyaluronic acid) on top, then mix it all together, and apply the liquid-slash-serum all over your face. Immediately afterwards, Louise says you should apply another serum — she uses her namesake stem-cell serum, but says you can use whatever serum you love or have on hand — to lock in the formula and prevent it from drying out. Then layer your moisturizer of choice on top of that as usual.

"You can [still] use whatever you love to use," Louise says. "I don't want people to stop using their favorite products. I just want to try and introduce this new skin-care category, which is a tablet before a serum."

One last, important detail: The Pure Molecule is sold as part of Louise's 32 Nightly set, which is a four-week-long regimen of nightly serums. The entire set, which includes 32 of the Pure Molecule pills (hence the name) and the Pure Activator serum, is divided into four sheets of eight pills. Each sheet is formulated with a different ingredient, plus hyaluronic acid, in the following order: Week one is hyaluronic acid alone, week two is collagen and hyaluronic acid, week three is EGF (epidermal growth factor) and hyaluronic acid, and week four is vitamin C and hyaluronic acid. It's designed as a "booster treatment," says Louise, so you can use the set before a big event, as needed, or on an ongoing basis (if you can afford it).

The Georgia Louise Pure Molecule 32 Nightly retails for $550 and is available for pre-sale starting April 18 on georgialouise.com.


More on skin-care tech to check out:


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