Indigenous significance
Before the Europeans arrived on the shimmering shores of Aotearoa New Zealand, the people of the land, the Māori, had already incorporated biodiverse natural treasures into daily routines – from nutrition to medicine and beauty.
One of their most prized surviving sustainable assets was New Zealand red seaweed, colloquially referred to as “Rimu” by Māori. They utilized “Rimu” to store their food, a source of nutrition during the winter, and treating cuts, wounds, and different skin ailments.
New Zealand’s intriguingly unique marine biodiversity
The volcanic landscape of New Zealand is uniquely nestled under a thin ozone layer. As a result, its resident land and marine botanicals have had to endure and adapt to a harsh environment over a period of eight million years. New Zealand native red seaweeds, present in intertidal waters and floating on the ocean surface when mature, have responded to this exposure through an over production of potent antioxidant, metal chelator (anti-pollutant), antiviral, anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.
In the last decade, the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and cosmeceutical industries have seen an unprecedented surge of interest in marine bioactives. The majority of these compounds are readily available in the form of versatile small molecular weight peptides and sulphated glycosaminoglycans (sGAGs) with multiple bioactivities. The most common sGAGs used across all these industries are only found in red seaweed species.
Compared to the red seaweeds grown artificially or sourced around the world, New Zealand’s native species have the advantage of growing in the country’s clean, pristine and nuclear-free waters which are infused with sub Antarctic streams rich in minerals.
This unique geographical combination of a thin ozone layer and pristine mineral-rich ocean, in concert with its abundant source of sGAGs, elevates the water retaining capacity and bioactive efficacy of New Zealand native red seaweed beyond that of other industry known marine sourced ingredients.
Promising inhouse discoveries
Based on the comprehensive research on New Zealand native red seaweeds conducted by world renowned marine scientist Wendy Nelson*, we have conducted a series of in vitro tests that have confirmed our expectations of their superior bioactivity.
Our initial discovery was that New Zealand native red seaweeds have a significantly higher inherent water binding and retention capacity compared to the industry standard, hyaluronic acid. These properties can be attributed to a “fishnet-like“matrix of interlocking sGAGs, naturally occurring in our red seaweed blend and maintained intact by our patented “clean beauty” TPT™ Xtraction process.
Further research has determined that the sGAGs in our red seaweed extract are significantly high in antioxidant and antipollution activities as well as the presence of Vitamin A precursors, another class of antioxidants that are highly sought after in the global beauty market.
At the forefront of the global beauty industry
After 6 years of fruitful research and experience with New Zealand red seaweed, our future lies in discovering novel, high performing natural compounds and conclusively establishing their natural ability to treat any trending skin concerns in a contemporary way.
Our ongoing research and investment are focused on further analysis and characterisation of novel bioactives via fractionation, spectrophotometrical analysis, and in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo trials.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Nelson_(marine_scientist)
