Born from Nature. Built Through Science.

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.

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.