About a 4-minute read.
Every time you step into the forest, something happens on your skin
The Finnish forest is a diverse ecosystem. On its surfaces, in its soil and in its air live thousands of bacterial species that have adapted to northern conditions over thousands of years. When you walk into a forest, they meet your skin. People have always lived alongside these microbes.
Modern city life has changed that. We spend more and more time indoors, and we have lost the daily contact with nature's diverse microbiota. This is what Luonkos forest microbe products were developed to answer.
A Finnish innovation called Reconnecting Nature®
Reconnecting Nature® is a patented microbial extract developed by the Finnish company Uute Scientific. Behind it are researchers who spent years on one question: how could contact with nature become part of a city dweller's everyday life, without anyone having to move to the middle of a forest?
In October 2020 the first consumer products containing Reconnecting Nature® reached the market. Luonkos was among the first, and its forest cakes, handmade in Naantali, were among the first cosmetic products to bring the feel of the forest indoors.
What is actually in the extract?
Put simply, Reconnecting Nature® is forest in a bottle. One gram of the extract contains up to 10 billion bacterial particles and on average 600 different bacterial species, all originating in Finnish forest nature. That is an exceptional number of species: many lab-grown preparations contain only a handful, or at most a few dozen.
What matters is the diversity, not the quantity alone. Nature's biodiversity rests on many different species living in balance with one another.
The extract is 100% natural and vegan. It is made by combining different plant composts to a precise recipe, so that the finished extract carries a bacterial community as diverse as the one found in Finnish nature. One important detail: the extract does not require nature itself as a raw material. No valuable forest is destroyed, and no microbiota is collected directly from the wild.
Skin and its own microbiota
Skin is not just a passive surface. Thousands of bacterial and fungal species live on it naturally, forming the skin's own microbiome. It plays a part in regulating the skin's pH and in maintaining the barrier.
If that balance is disturbed – by stress, over-washing or harsh products – the result can be dryness, irritation or sensitivity. Products containing Reconnecting Nature® help support the skin's microbiome and help protect the skin barrier.
Finland, Lohja, and no animal testing
The Reconnecting Nature® extract is made in Lohja, Finland, from Finnish raw materials. Uute Scientific works to strict ethical principles, and the extract is not tested on animals.
Luonkos makes its forest microbe products by hand in Naantali. The products contain no preservatives and no added fragrance.
Bring the forest to your skin, even in the city
You do not need to live in a forest to have daily contact with the microbiota of one. It is there every day, when you open the jar or the tube. Simple – and one of the more interesting Finnish innovations in cosmetics.
Explore the forest microbe products
Background for the reader
- Uute Scientific Oy, Lohja – developer of the Reconnecting Nature® microbial extract
- Luonkos Finland Oy, Naantali – maker of the forest microbe products
