Inside The ADN Lab: The Story Behind Our Beauty Formula

Every beauty brand claims to be "science-backed." We wanted to actually be able to defend that claim, ingredient by ingredient — so before we wrote a single word of marketing copy, we wrote a formulation brief with one rule: every active ingredient had to appear at a dose that matched the clinical research behind it, or it didn't make the cut.

Starting from the research, not the trend

That rule eliminated a lot of popular ingredients. Trendy plant extracts with a single small study behind them were out. Proprietary blends that hide individual doses behind a single combined number were out. What remained was a shorter list: hydrolysed fish collagen, hyaluronic acid, and vitamin C for Skin Code; MSM, silicon, biotin, zinc, selenium, copper, and a targeted amino acid complex for Hair Code.

Why fish collagen, specifically

Marine collagen peptides have a smaller molecular size than bovine collagen, which several studies suggest may support more efficient absorption. It's why Skin Code uses hydrolysed fish collagen rather than a generic collagen source.

Why the amino acid complex in Hair Code

Hair is almost entirely made of keratin, a structural protein built from specific amino acids. We included L-Lysine, L-Cystine and L-Methionine — the amino acids most directly tied to keratin structure — alongside MSM and silicon, which support the connective tissue hair follicles sit in.

The part we can't put in a capsule

Hair and skin cell turnover happens on a roughly 3-month cycle, which is the honest reason none of our products promise results in a week. Consistency is doing more work than any single ingredient — which is the whole idea behind building this as a daily ritual rather than a quick fix.