Enfleur

Enfleur develops, produces and packages its skin care products in its own laboratory in Lierde, the hometown of Marleen Maras. Fair products and a short chain.

The products do not contain any animal ingredients and are not tested on animals, 100% plant-based.

Enfleur was founded in 2014 by Marleen Maras. Strengthened by her experience as a researcher in the ecotoxicology laboratory, she wanted to opt for truly natural skincare. Unfortunately, she often came across cosmetics and skincare products containing many synthetic substances. Because of her great fascination for nature, she started looking for special natural ingredients that pamper our skin and bring it back to top condition. The ingredients, also known as cosmeceuticals, help to maintain the healthy skin barrier and skin structure that we were given as babies until our old age. What started as a hobby for Marleen, has resulted in an excellent Belgian brand: Enfleur Pure & Nature. Her beauty products include :

• Shea butter (originally Butyrospermum parkii) from the nuts of the shea tree in East Africa. Shea butter is intensely moisturising, softening and restores skin elasticity.

• Pomegranate extract has a soothing, anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant effect, and stimulates the growth of skin cells, the thickening of the epidermis and the recovery of your skin.

• Camillia Oleifera Oil, (oil from Asia) which is extracted from the seeds of the green tea plant, is an ideal oil to maintain skin hydration.

• Hematococcus Astaxanthin seaweed, is a very powerful antioxidant that protects against harmful free radicals. The seaweed prevents skin blemishes, wrinkles and DNA damage that visibly age the skin.

• Dunaliella salina seaweed extract. This ingredient also prevents skin spots, wrinkles and DNA damage. And, as an antioxidant, protects against damaging free radicals generated by excessive sun exposure.

• Laminaria digitata Fucoidan

• Squalane extracted from olives is also a greasy oil. Squalane protects the skin from drying out, restores the skin barrier and balances the skin.

• Rhatania root extract (from the Andes), protects against UVA and UVB radiation.

• Yeast Beta-Glucan (the wall of baker’s yeast) increases the self-protective capacity of the skin.

Airless bottles for the win

In order to guarantee that the antimicrobial agents work properly, the products are packaged in polypropylene airless bottles. If they use other packaging, there is a risk that the dam against microbial contamination will break if the product is contaminated too much and too often. Imagine a jar that you have to dip your fingers into every day, nobody wants that. By using airless bottles, no air, light or fingers come into contact with the product. This allows Enfleur to make products with efficient yet gentle and skin-friendly preservatives. Up to now, airless bottles exist only in this plastic material.

Enfleur pure natural offers care products with and without fragrance: Instead of synthetic perfume, Enfleur has chosen to use pure organic essential oils. These oils are always mentioned in the list of ingredients and the allergens can be found at the end of the ingredients list: limonene, linalool, geraniol, farnesol, citronellol.…

If you choose Enfleur products, know that the concentrations of ​‘perfuming’ essential oils are very low. The ​‘perfume’ wears off quickly after it has been applied to the skin. You have to learn to love essential oils; they smell rougher and more natural than the synthetic perfumes we are usually used to. Once you get used to them, you will have a different perspective on perfumery and it is not uncommon for your appreciation for synthetic fragrances to diminish.

All ingredients are 100% natural without exception. By this, Enfleur means that they work with natural molecules that are not invented by man, but can be found in nature. A very small percentage is considered synthetic, such as the preservatives potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate, which are approved by Ecocert.

Where possible Marleen only works with organic raw materials. Her products are not certified organic because certification is expensive. They have however been assessed by a CE certified safety assessor and can therefore be considered completely safe.

Synthetic preservatives are powerful but can cause allergy and irritation. Enfleur adds a combination of antimicrobial agents. This cocktail of natural preservatives is necessary because together they create a very hostile environment for micro-organisms; individually they are not efficient enough.

All these ingredients are cosmeceuticals. Cosmeceuticals are cosmetic products with bioactive components that give them ​“medicine-like” properties. There are things that cannot be solved with a cream but need medical treatment. Such as the successful elimination of wrinkles, because care products can temporarily fill in those grooves in your skin so that the wrinkles are not noticeable. Cosmeceuticals do not make wrinkles disappear completely, but they do reduce the depth of the wrinkles and help to prevent skin creases. So they can be considered a bit like a cross between medicines and cosmetics.