Ayond skincare launched in 2019 by partners in life and business Shani van Breukelen and Porter Yates. The pair ‘wanted to create a genderless skincare line that was clean and effective’. While many other skincare lines can lay claim to all of those qualities, what sets Ayond apart (and why it has gained such a loyal legion of followers in a short time) is that it creates its genderless, clean and effective skincare with a unique range of desert botanicals, primarily found around the brand’s Santa Fe home base.
Van Breukelen and Yates realised that the very qualities that make the desert the antithesis of what you want your skin to be – dry, sun-scorched, cracked – are exactly what makes the landscape contain natural ingredients best suited to combat those problems.
Ayond fragrances harness Santa Fe desert ingredients
The brand’s hero ingredient, rock rose, is a prime example of this, a delicate flower that can only bloom after its hard outer shell is burst by the heat of a wildfire, when it germinates and goes on to help rebalance the ecosystem. Wild-harvested by Ayond in a zero-waste facility, the flower’s extract is used in serums, balms and creams to provide intense moisturisation, heal stressed skin and rebalance skin tone.
Now, rock rose and the brand’s other botanicals are also central ingredients in its newly debuted fragrance line. Like Ayond skincare, the three Ayond fragrances, Rock Rose, Taos Blue and Metamorph, use desert botanicals to, in van Breukelen’s words, combat ‘stress and allow you to flourish in a difficult environment’. While the brand’s skincare tackles the physical stress caused to your skin by everyday pollutants, the fragrances work to combat the mental stress caused by everyday life.
Rock Rose uses the complex, resinous scent of the titular flower (which has been used in meditation ceremonies for centuries) to calm and revitalise a tired mind. Taos Blue, which is inspired by spring in New Mexico’s wildflower-filled Taos Mountains, is formulated with bright top notes of lilac, freesia and wild herbs, and then tempered with an enduring bottom note of cedarwood and vetiver to help improve focus.
Finally, Metamorph is dedicated to the shifting winds and sudden rain of the American Southwest’s monsoon season with a woody blend of juniper and clary sage, mixed with frankincense and other ceremonial incense to open the mind and encourage new growth.
Indeed, improving mental, as well as physical wellbeing, has always been an important principle of the brand, since it was van Breukelen's own traumatic burn injury that encouraged her and Yates to explore the healing power of desert botanicals in the first place. When she was in her mid-twenties, a freak accident with the gas oven in her New York apartment left van Breukelen with third-degree burns on her legs. And, after a month spent in ICU, it didn't feel as if the mild creams the doctors recommended were doing enough.
‘It became really hard for me to feel nourished in my skin,’ says van Breukelen. ‘So that’s when I kind of started to tinker. Then I met Porter and he encouraged me to investigate a little bit deeper. We started experimenting with a bunch of oils and ingredients like aloe vera, which is a classic anti-burn remedy, and then we thought, maybe there's a way we can make something that’s effective but had a bit of a sensorial nature and didn’t just feel like a medicine.’
Whether you’re aiming to look good, feel good, or a combination of both, Ayond’s products are worth a try. We particularly recommend the Rock Rose serum, which plumps and brightens every type of skin (and has a nice honey-esque scent too), blended worn with the Rock Rose fragrance, which has sophisticated musky notes ideal for those who prefer heady, tobacco-like fragrances.
