Every ingredient, and why it is in there.

Other creams give their water a trademarked name and a backstory. Meria calls it water. It is listed first because there is the most of it, and it carries everything else: the butters and oils, held through it as fine droplets, and the ingredients that only dissolve in water: panthenol and betaine in both, niacinamide in the skin cream. Without it each jar would be a solid balm. That is the whole secret.

Hair cream, 1 of 17, the carrier, and most of the jarSkin cream, 1 of 22, the carrier, and most of the jar

Soft, comforting feel on the skin.

Skin cream, 14 of 22, a supporting ingredient

Smooths and renews in the way retinol does, gentle enough for daily use. The purified Sytenol® A grade, not a crude babchi extract.

Skin cream, 16 of 22, a minor ingredient

Reads like a sulfate and is not one. It is a conditioning agent derived from rapeseed, and it is what lets the cream detangle and soften without leaving a film to clarify out.

Hair cream, 5 of 17, a key ingredient

A humectant from sugar beet. Holds water without the tack that glycerin alone can leave.

Hair cream, 10 of 17, a supporting ingredientSkin cream, 8 of 22, a key ingredient

A small solvent that arrives inside the conditioning emulsifier and helps it disperse evenly.

Hair cream, 12 of 17, a minor ingredient

The melt-in. Softens at skin temperature, so the cream breaks down on contact instead of sitting on top.

Hair cream, 2 of 17, a major ingredientSkin cream, 2 of 22, a major ingredient

Part of the preservative blend, named because it is in the jar. A mineral salt of gluconic acid, the same family as the gluconolactone beside it.

Hair cream, 16 of 17, a minor ingredientSkin cream, 21 of 22, a minor ingredient

The light liquid fraction of coconut. It thins the butters so the cream spreads without dragging — and it is the reason the hair cream is not coconut-free. The skin cream is formulated without it.

Hair cream, 7 of 17, a supporting ingredient

A glycol that conditions on its own and lets the preservative system work at a lower dose than it otherwise would.

Hair cream, 11 of 17, a minor ingredient

Not the drying kind. Fatty alcohols are waxy and conditioning — the opposite of the drying alcohol on a toner label. Stabilises the emulsion and carries the texture.

Skin cream, 12 of 22, a key ingredient

Another fatty alcohol, not a drying one. Body and slip.

Hair cream, 3 of 17, a major ingredient

Part of the preservative system, with sodium benzoate and calcium gluconate. A cream that is mostly water will spoil without one — this is the gentler way to prevent that.

Hair cream, 8 of 17, a supporting ingredientSkin cream, 15 of 22, a minor ingredient

A humectant — it pulls water in and holds it. Plain, cheap, and one of the most reliably useful things in any moisturiser.

Skin cream, 3 of 22, a major ingredient

The emulsifier that makes oil and water into one cream. Plant-derived, and gentler than the PEG-based emulsifiers it replaces.

Skin cream, 9 of 22, a key ingredient

Added to bring the finished cream to a measured pH rather than to a fixed weight, which is why its figure is nominal. The same acid the skin's own surface uses.

Hair cream, 14 of 17, a minor ingredient

The middle butter — firmer than shea, lighter than illipe, and low in odour. Body without heaviness.

Hair cream, 6 of 17, a key ingredientSkin cream, 4 of 22, a key ingredient

The most-studied ingredient in the jar. Supports the skin barrier and evens the look of tone and texture.

Skin cream, 5 of 22, a key ingredient

Holds water and gives the cream its slip.

Hair cream, 9 of 17, a supporting ingredientSkin cream, 13 of 22, a supporting ingredient

A trace that arrives with the provitamin B5. It is part of how panthenol is made, so it is listed rather than left off.

Hair cream, 17 of 17, a traceSkin cream, 22 of 22, a trace

A light oil, high in oleic acid, that absorbs quickly rather than sitting on the surface.

Skin cream, 11 of 22, a key ingredient

A rare high-melt butter from Borneo. The firmest of the three butters, and the reason the skin cream sets richer than it spreads.

Skin cream, 7 of 22, a key ingredient

Technically a liquid wax rather than an oil, and the closest botanical match to what skin already makes. It absorbs instead of pooling.

Skin cream, 10 of 22, a key ingredient

Part of the preservative system. Unglamorous and necessary: an unpreserved water-based cream grows things within days.

Hair cream, 13 of 17, a minor ingredientSkin cream, 19 of 22, a minor ingredient

The salt form of hyaluronic acid, which is the form that actually absorbs. Draws in water for immediate plumpness.

Skin cream, 17 of 22, a minor ingredient

A chelator from rice bran. It binds the trace metals that would otherwise turn the oils, so the cream keeps.

Skin cream, 20 of 22, a minor ingredient

Olive-derived. Absorbs rather than sitting on top, which is what separates a cream that softens from one that coats.

Hair cream, 4 of 17, a key ingredientSkin cream, 6 of 22, a key ingredient

An antioxidant. Its first job is keeping the oils in the jar from oxidising, which is what makes a natural formula go off.

Hair cream, 15 of 17, a minor ingredientSkin cream, 18 of 22, a minor ingredient