Head east on Cambridge Street and the restaurants and bookstores of Inman Square gradually give way to nail parlors, fish markets and corner shops. But, tucked away between them is a tiny operation called Threla. There, you’ll find MIT grad Tseh-Hwan Yong cooking up her own brand of lotions, lip balms and scrubs. Literally. Before she took off on vacation, she was working in her storefront on “facial mists.”

Yong says she creates products like Fruit Smoothie lip balm and Jasmine deodorant by combining "a passion for natural goodness with a trained scientist’s eye… Every ingredient in our products, whether natural or synthetic, is carefully selected. Our philosophy is to begin all formulations with fresh, natural ingredients and to complement with safe synthetics only when there is a tangible benefit to the product and the user.

…If a product is described as natural, it is primarily created with natural ingredients but may be complemented with nature-identical ingredients such as vitamin B3, vitamin C, lactic acid, and hyaluronic acid that could be harvested from natural sources but are more safely and feasibly obtained from manufactured sources. (Side note: you could naturally source hyaluronic acid and collagen from marine life, cows and other animals, but we would much rather get it from the fermentation products of cells in a bioreactor, which is similar to how insulin is made.)

And, on the other end of the world, Harvard-trained anthropologist Jennifer Peters noted indigenous communities in South Africa used local plants to protect skin from the desert heat. So, the Massachusetts native found a partners and created a skincare brand.

For thousands of years, the people of Southern Africa have relied solely on indigenous plants to protect their skin from the desert sun and harsh climates. Savane Organic Skincare blends this ancient traditional knowledge with modern Green Science to bring you Africa’s unique botanicals in their most potent form.

Savane is inspired from the ethnobotany of Southern African plants. The relationship between Southern Africa’s people and its biodiversity is the essence of Savane’s skincare range.

Lots of cosmetics — in fact most of of them — make scientific claims. Since we don’t have a testing lab here, we can confirm them. And, some of our readers object to the suggestion that “natural” = better.We see their point. But, natural or not, these seem to come from relaible vendors. And, we tried Threla’s green tea scrub in our uncertified washroom lab and rather liked it.