Born from Nature. Built Through Science.
From the Mountains to the Lab
Founded in Shanghai in 2019 by chemical engineer Elaine Gong and her husband and longtime best friend, Bill Liu, SIMPLY THIS is a biotech skincare brand rooted in the Daliang Mountains, their shared hometown. Childhood classmates turned co-founders, they built the brand around Elaine’s career in global R&D, bringing together fermentation biotechnology, ecological formulation, and thoughtful care for sensitive skin.
It Started with Elaine
Elaine Gong grew up in the Daliang Mountains of southwestern China, where childhood meant long days outdoors, changing seasons, wild fruit, and a landscape that made nature feel less like scenery and more like a way of life.
As she grew older, years of sun exposure and her own experience with sensitive skin turned that relationship with nature into a personal question about skincare. She went on to study chemical engineering, earn her master’s degree at the University of Cambridge, and work in Unilever’s Global R&D Center, where skincare became both a scientific discipline and a lifelong pursuit.
In 2010, at a graduation trip around a bonfire, Elaine was asked to make a wish for her life ten years later. Her answer was simple: "I hope that I will have my own skincare brand in 10 years." Nine years later, when she faced the decision to start again, she remembered that wish. SIMPLY THIS was founded in 2019.
For Elaine, SIMPLY THIS became a way to bring together the things that had shaped her most: nature, science, sensitive skin, and the belief that good skincare should work with the skin rather than overpower it.
OUR PHILOSOPHY
Tirer la sagesse de l’écosystème
En tant que plus grand organe du corps humain, notre peau est un système écologique indépendant et robuste, tout comme l’écosystème naturel.
The Three Ecosystems
SKIN
Support its natural resilience.
We study skin as an interconnected biological system and formulate with sensitivity, barrier function and visible renewal in mind.
NATURE
Take less. Give back more.
From ingredient sourcing and refillable design to carbon reduction and reforestation, our responsibility extends beyond the formula.
INNER SELF
Make skincare a ritual, not a correction.
We believe skincare can be a quieter daily practice — one rooted in patience, pleasure and respect for your own rhythm.
“What began as a landscape became an ingredient story. What began as an ingredient became biotechnology.”
A Black Pomegranate’s Journey
Years after leaving the Daliang Mountains, Elaine returned to the landscape that shaped her childhood with a new perspective: not simply to draw inspiration from nature, but to build a deeper relationship with it.
Elaine’s family roots also connect her to Yi heritage through her grandmother, making Liangshan not only the landscape of her childhood, but part of her family’s cultural history.
DALIAN MOUNTAINS
In Liangshan, Sichuan, SIMPLY THIS established sustainability planting bases, including a pomegranate orchard. The fruit became part of a larger experiment in how local botanical heritage could meet modern skincare biotechnology: from cultivation and fermentation research to formulation.
The black pomegranate is now one of the clearest expressions of that idea. Its juice supports fermentation, its seeds yield botanical oil, and even its remaining materials have informed our exploration of lower-impact packaging.
DALIAN MOUNTAINS
In Liangshan, Sichuan, SIMPLY THIS established sustainability planting bases, including a pomegranate orchard. The fruit became part of a larger experiment in how local botanical heritage could meet modern skincare biotechnology: from cultivation and fermentation research to formulation.
The black pomegranate is now one of the clearest expressions of that idea. Its juice supports fermentation, its seeds yield botanical oil, and even its remaining materials have informed our exploration of lower-impact packaging.
FERMENTATION BIOTECH
Transformed from botanical inspiration into functional skincare research
FERMENTATION BIOTECH
Transformed from botanical inspiration into functional skincare research
Born in Shanghai, Designed in London, Innovated in California
SIMPLY THIS was founded in Shanghai in 2019, where our ideas about skin ecology, biotechnology and thoughtful living began to take physical form.
Today, the brand lives not only in formulas, but in the spaces we create, the people behind them, and the collaborations that bring our philosophy into everyday life.
THE FLAGSHIP
A Place to Experience SIMPLY THIS
Our Shanghai flagship store brings the brand world into one space — skincare, nature, material, scent and quiet ritual designed to be experienced rather than simply explained.
@天物EKA in Shanghai
THE FLAGSHIP
A Place to Experience SIMPLY THIS
Our Shanghai flagship store brings the brand world into one space — skincare, nature, material, scent and quiet ritual designed to be experienced rather than simply explained.
@天物EKA in Shanghai
IN GOOD COMPANY
IN GOOD COMPANY
THE MEANING BEHIND SIMPLY THIS
Poème et raison
Les valeurs binaires de SIMPLEMENT CECI
Poursuite poétique :
Aspirer au-delà de la banalité du quotidien
Esprit rationnel :
Persévérer dans le chaos du monde
Qui nous sommes?
Fondée en 2019 à Shanghai, en Chine, SIMPLY THIS redéfinit les soins de la peau durables grâce à son approche distinctive du respect de la peau comme de son propre écosystème.
En tissant la sagesse orientale intemporelle avec les merveilles brevetées de la biotechnologie de fermentation, nous nous engageons à démêler les complexités de la sécheresse cutanée, de la sensibilité et du processus naturel de vieillissement, en ouvrant la voie à la vigueur et à l'équilibre inhérents de votre peau.
Nés d'une passion pour la beauté et la durabilité, un couple d'amis de toujours des montagnes de Daliang avec des décennies d'expérience en R&D, ont créé la marque certifiée n°1 de soins de la peau à teneur nette zéro en carbone.
Lisez l'histoire de notre PDG ici
