My readers, what product or ingredient comes to mind when you think of Sulwhasoo?
If you use or know Sulwhasoo, you might have heard of the brand's iconic First Care Activating Serum EX and its core ingredient JAUM Balancing Complex at least once. In this column, I'd like to approach JAUM Balancing Complex, an ingredient in Sulwhasoo's products including First Care Activating Serum EX, in a slightly different perspective to share some of the stories that are less known.

 All numerous Korean herbal medicinal ingredients used in Sulwhasoo products are carefully selected medicinal ingredients (medicinal herbs) through several tests. The medicinal ingredients that have been used throughout history based on literature on Korean herbal medicine are verified for their components, uses and effects or benefits through scientific tests. You might have heard of the stories on how the five medicinal ingredients – peony, lotus, Polygonati Odorati Rhizoma, lily and foxglove – were chosen to create JAUM Balancing Complex. It is a story of identifying around 3,000 medicinal plants in literatures like the Compendium of Materia Medica, the Shennong Bencaojing and the Dongui Bogam and finding the perfect combination of five medicinal plants with optimal skin benefits through thousands of tests and experiments. But how did we extract the skin benefits of JAUM Balancing Complex from these five plants?

 Unlike animals, plant cells, which hold everything required for metabolism, are protected by a cell wall of a thick structure. It is the result of a survival strategy chosen by plants in the process of evolution in the living things of Earth. To use the bioactive components of plants, we must access the plant cell itself by breaking down nature's protective layer. It is the same for the five plants used in JAUM Balancing Complex. Plants contain components that are beneficial to our skin as a result of metabolism, but we must first access plant's cell and extract the essence of life inside the cell. This is what Korean herbal medicine calls 'processing (poje, 泡製)'. The dictionary definition of the term 'processing (poje)' is 'to process following a defined method in order to change the properties of the medicine according to its use'. In other words, the method of processing may differ depending on the biological properties of the medicinal plant or active components it contains. Put simply, processing methods such as roasting, steaming over fire or processing with other substances are all under the scope of 'processing'.

 However, JAUM Balancing Complex is not just one medicinal plant but a combination of five plants. This is where it gets tricky. A processing method to extract from one plant may not be a good processing method for another plant. For example, the medicinal components of a plant generally are known to destruct when heat is applied. However, in some plants, these beneficial components are maximized when heat is applied by causing the big molecules to split into more potent smaller molecules. Our researchers decided to find a more innovative and fundamental approach to apply to the medicinal plants that form JAUM Balancing Complex.

 As mentioned above, the bioactive components of plants are surrounded by a biopolymer structure called cell wall. Generally, the components are extracted by physically breaking and destroying the cell wall then applying heat or using various solvents. But this always troubles the researcher. The bioactive components exposed to the process may become degraded and the organic solvents used in dissolving and extracting them are not suitable for the human body. Researchers of the Sulwhasoo Heritage & Science Center conducted various research and successfully developed a processing technology that can purely extract more beneficial components of the plant cell by applying high pressure on the plant tissue and disrupting the cell wall structure.

 This is called the PREXtract Process™. It is a highly advanced technology in processing plants using an amazing amount of pressure of around 600MPa (mega Pascal), which is about 6,000 times higher than the Earth's atmospheric pressure. With the technology, we can evenly extract the bioactive components of the medicinal plants that form JAUM Balancing Complex.

 The below photos are images of peony and lily, the main components of JAUM Balancing Complex processed with this technology.

 Do you see all the plant cell walls deconstructed neatly through high-pressure processing?
JAUM Balancing Complex is a combination of five different medicinal plant extract processed with this technology. It is an ingredient with strong beneficial effects for the skin including nutrition, vitality, clarity, firmness and resilience as well as antioxidant properties verified by cell testing. This is the secret to First Care Activating Serum EX being loved by many customers for a long time for its best benefits.

 One thing we cannot forget about JAUM Balancing Complex is the dedication poured by researchers. Today, it takes more than 8 days to make the ingredients of the standardized JAUM Balancing Complex. It purely takes more than a week just to make JAUM Balancing Complex. Researchers had to overcome numerous trials and errors to try this high-pressure processing on a lab level and then to apply it to actual production that processes units of tons. In addition, because the raw material used in the process is living plants, there is always a difference in the properties, or level of bioactive components depending on climate condition or harvest every year. There was not one simple or easy step in managing the raw material, ensuring a standardized and optimal process or achieving stability and efficacy in the formulation of First Care Activating Serum EX. However, with JAUM Balancing Complex obtained with tenacity, dedication and effort towards one goal, First Care Activating Serum EX is loved by customers not only in Korea, but also around the world as the best product.

 That is not all. The technology and benefits of JAUM Balancing Complex continue to be upgraded even today through up-to-date research. Research on Korean herbal medicinal plants' benefits based on big data analysis accumulated by the Sulwhasoo Heritage & Science Center and recent biotechnology are brought together to make the complex the best complex a customer can wish for. We look forward to one day introducing to you the more upgraded and refreshed benefits and technology of JAUM Balancing Complex.

 Thank you for reading.