Black Tea Youth Enhancing is a skin care line comprising of an ampoule, cream, eye serum and ampoule mist.
First launched in South Korea end September 2020, innisfree sold 398,000 bottles of ampoule as of December 2020, in South Korea and China.
Ampoule is its star product, which has been clinically studied for its hydrating and moistening properties.
In Singapore, innisfree will launch the new line-up at its physical outlets, online store, Lazada flagship store and Shopee flagship store in January 2021.
Fountain of youth
The key ingredient in this anti-ageing line is black tea which contains the active compound, theabrownin.
Seonhee Lee, leader of Brand Management Team 1, at innisfree Korea HQ explained black tea is a 'pre-fermented tea'.
“Black tea has a higher content of amino acid compared to other post-fermented teas, as well as a higher level of molecular fermented catechin when compared to other pre-fermented teas.”
The black tea is extracted with mineral water at 80℃ for 12 hours, which enhances the efficacy of the active ingredient, theabrownin.
Research on black tea started in 2018, and product development of Black Tea Youth Enhancing began in June 2019.
The line was developed by Amorepacific Research Institute and released as a production of Cosvision.
For millennials
According to Lee, the company wanted to develop an anti-ageing line for young millennials who are not the typical target audience of anti-ageing products.
“Traditional, anti-ageing skincare products that are currently available in the market target middle-age consumers who are suffering from pre-existing conditions such as wrinkles, freckles, and blemishes.”
“However recently, it was observed that hectic lifestyles and harmful external environment such as lack of sleep, stress and environmental pollution have emerged as a growing cause of accelerated skin ageing.”
Stress and lack of sleep often lead to faster skin dehydration at night.
So, the firm created a line for millennials who were exposed to these daily environmental stressors, at the same time, help combat premature skin ageing.
The Black Tea Youth Enhancing line was developed to reset skin fatigue in terms of dryness, dullness, texture, sensitivity and overall skin health.
For instance, a clinical study on the ampoule product showed that 100% of users felt their skin feeling more moisturised after a single use, before sleep. 90.3% users also experienced better skin quality after a single use, after sleep.
The study was conducted on 31 women between 22 to 55 years old, at the P&K Skin Research Center in April 2020.
The ampoule product is recommended to use before sleep.
Lee told CosmeticsDesign-Asia: “Nighttime is when the weakened skin barrier begins to repair, recover and regenerate itself. The ampoule helps to hydrate, maintain moisture levels and provide a protective barrier to prevent skin from drying out, and restores compromised skin during sleep.”
Currently, only the ampoule has been clinically studied. The other products (cream, eye serum and ampoule mist) have only been dermatologically tested.
Besides South Korea, China and Singapore, the Black Tea Youth Enhancing is also available in Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Canada, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Vietnam, India, Philippines, Australia, Middle East, and US.
innisfree is currently working on developing more natural ingredients to formulate products that have high efficacy on the skin.