LOS ANGELES — Pu-erh tea, a rare, 2,000-year-old tea leaf from China that sells for almost $2,000 a pound, is the primary ingredient in a new prestige skin care line that hits stores in September.
Timeless Secret, founded by mother-and-daughter duo May and Michelle Wong, based here, is a four-stockkeeping unit line that contains more than 65 ingredients in addition to the tea essence, including patented intelligent ceramides and vitamins B5, C and E.
Housed in simple packaging with a nostalgic print of a Chinese woman, a young girl and a child, the collection was devised as an antidote to chemical formulations and to regimens that require multiple steps.
May Wong, a Hong Kong-born businesswoman with a successful electronics business in China and the U.S., said she came up with the idea for Timeless Secret because she disliked the idea of having to carry several products every time she traveled. “I was looking for a simple skin care line,” she said.
She decided to research and launch her own line with her daughter Michelle, using Pu-erh tea, something that generations of her family drank for beauty and well-being. “My grandmother and mother have always had really healthy skin,” said the younger Wong. “The tea has medicinal properties, and was used as a form of currency during the Tang Dynasty.”
The leaf, which comes from Hunan province, contains 300 natural proteins that reportedly help to detoxify the body and lower cholesterol. It is so highly valued that at a recent auction, an especially prized and aged quantity of 250 grams sold for $200,000. The Wongs took an extract of the tea to a laboratory in Switzerland.
“We wanted to blend advances in science with something from our culture,” said May Wong, “and we wanted to share it with the public. It is an alternative to Botox, contains collagen peptides and is a non-hydroquinone skin brightener.”
The sku’s include Unveil, a cleansing foam that retails for $55 for 180 ml., designed to exfoliate, detoxify and cleanse and tone the skin. Whisper is a moisturizer for normal to combination skin, and sells for $135 for 50 ml.; it contains anti-inflammatory ingredients. There is also a version for normal to dry skin. Save Face, an SPF 30 sun shield, is at $65 for 50 ml. and contains sunflower seed oil, shea butter, tangerine essential oils and micronized titanium dioxide. And Wink, an eye booster, uses a botanical complex to lighten dark under-eye circles and reduce puffiness. It retails for $125 for 15 ml.
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The collection will retail at Planet Blue in Malibu and the Beauty Collection chain here, and has been picked up by Fred Segal Beauty. Michelle Wong said the plan was to expand distribution on both coasts during the rest of the year. There are also plans to add three more skin care products in 2007 — including a face and eye mask and an ultrarich cream. A body care line — which will encompass anticellulite treatments, is slated for 2008.
Industry sources said the line could do $1 million at retail in its first full year.