This serum started in a Vermont barn. Literally. The founder was foraging birch and spruce from her own backyard, mixing batches for friends because she couldn’t find anything that didn’t smell like a lab accident.
That barn energy is still in the bottle — it smells like you walked into a forest after rain. Not perfumey. Not “clean beauty” sterile. Just… real.
It’s a lightweight face oil-serum hybrid. $58 for 1 oz. The claim that got me: “brightening without irritation.” I’ve been burned by vitamin C before (literally), so this felt like a dare.
No water, no filler
It’s 100% active ingredients. The first thing on the ingredient list isn’t water — it’s aloe.
Absorbs in 15 seconds
Not greasy. Not sticky. You can put makeup on immediately. I timed it.
Smells like a hike
Real essential oils from plants they actually foraged. Not synthetic “pine scent.”
Photo: Poko Skincare / Unsplash
Three hero ingredients doing the heavy lifting. No trendy superfood dust, just stuff that’s been used for centuries by people who didn’t have Sephora.
- Birch sap: natural source of vitamin C + minerals, calms redness
- Spruce resin: antimicrobial, speeds up healing of breakouts
- Cloudberry seed oil: omega-rich, actually fades dark spots over time
- Sea buckthorn: the glow-maker, but in a balanced dose so you don’t turn orange
Photo: Laura Chouette / Unsplash
Thin, almost watery oil. Spreads across your face like it knows where it’s going. First few days I thought it was doing nothing — no tingle, no burn, no instant glow. Just… comfortable.
Week 2: woke up and my skin looked like I’d slept 10 hours instead of 6. The weird part? My usually angry chin breakouts just… stopped being angry. No purge, no drama.
After 4 weeks: my dark spots are lighter, not gone. My skin is calmer. I still get breakouts, but they heal in 2 days instead of 5. The glow is real — but subtle. Think “well-rested,” not “Insta-filter.”
This is the serum for people who are tired of skincare feeling like a science experiment. It works because it’s simple, not because it’s complicated. Ursa Major actually means something here.