‘Hand care is skin care’: Skin Inc develops ‘world’s first’ duo-chamber hand serum and sanitiser

Skin Inc’s hand serum duo incorporates both a hand sanitiser (65% alcohol) and hand serum in one bottle.

According to Rani Lanyifan Wang, global brand manager at Skin Inc, the firm decided to develop this product after observing an increase in eczema prone skin and dryness from frequent hand washing and sanitising since the onset of Covid-19.

“We came up with the dual chamber hand serum and sanitiser to address these problems​.”

During the Covid-19 pandemic, healthcare professionals have called for frequent hand washing or use of hand sanitisers with alcohol content of at least 60% to eliminate bacteria and virus on the hands.

A recent study by Japanese scientists​ found that SARS-CoV-2 responsible for causing the COVID-19 outbreak could survive on human skin for as long as nine hours, although ethanol-based sanitisers could inactivate it within 15 seconds.

However, frequent use of alcohol-based sanitisers can result in dryness, irritation and eczema.

While sanitisers strip away microbes, they also remove protective oils from the skin, which in turn dry out the skin.

Dual functions​

Launched in October and available for SG$35 (US$25) for 30mL, the hand serum duo is sold at Skin Inc’s e-commerce store, its physical concept stores in Singapore, as well as shipped internationally.

Wang said it will also be listed in China’s Tmall next month.

The sanitiser (15mL) portion contains ethanol which has the ability to destroy microbial cell walls and membranes, plant extracts such as spearmint leaf, tea tree leaf, peppermint left, as well as angelica gigas, a traditional Chinese medicine to mask the alcohol scent.

The lavender-scented hand serum (15mL) portion contains of vitamin B3 and licorice to smoothen the skin, ceramide to strengthen skin barrier, hyaluronic acid to hydrate as well as cica and multi-polypeptides.

The products are contained in separate chambers, and it is recommended to apply two pumps of sanitiser on the hands followed by two pumps of the serum.

While Skin Inc’s products typically take about one year of R&D, the firm was agile and halted other products in its pipeline and accelerated R&D for the duo chamber hand serum and sanitiser.

It took about four months from conceptualisation to finished product.

The product is manufactured in South Korea, but  the firmconducted its R&D in Singapore.

Wang said this product was targeted to everybody, “we try to educate our customers that hand care is also skin care.”​

Founded in 2008, Skin Inc is best known for its personalised serums where consumers complete a skin identity check whether online or in-store.

Currently, the 100-staff team consist of its R&D team located both in Singapore and Japan, while manufacturing is in Japan and South Korea.

Wang said the firm was looking into new markets in Asia where it believes there is huge potential, “Asia and US are the top markets for skin care, and we will continue innovating and developing products to leverage our technology and big data to come out with products along the concept of customisable skin care​.