INAHO Sake Lees, sustainable cosmetics for both the Earth and skin

Last month, YOU LLC released two cosmetic products, “INAHO Lees Lotion” and “INAHO Lees Serum,” which are made using discarded sake lees.

YOU LLC is a company that specializes in developing products using sake lees. Lees are dregs after squeezing sake, and about one-third of sake lees are leftover during the sake manufacturing process. The idea of turning this sake lees into cosmetics came when YOU got inspired to turn sake lees into cosmetics after revisiting the history of sake.

In the olden days, Japan had always had a sustainable culture. People used everything up and rarely left anything behind. Sake lees were no exception as people ate them or made preserved foods out with them. But now, many of these were getting discarded. YOU developed these cosmetics with the hope to make full use of lees to minimize their impact on the environment.

YOU first picked a suitable brewery where they could obtain leftover lees. Yoshida Sake Brewery in Ishikawa Prefecture, interested in sustainable sake brewing, quickly joined YOU in collaboration. They use Kanazawa yeast to brew sake, which is free from additives. Moreover, they prepare it using 100 years old water from Mount Haku. After brewing sake with such care and effort, Lees that remain are beneficial for the skin.

YOU then searched for a manufacturer that could produce cosmetics with these natural ingredients. They found a manufacturer that uses a closed elementary school on the Osumi Peninsula in Kagoshima Prefecture as a factory. There, the manufacturer extracted lees essence, which contains a lot of beauty and moisturizing qualities, through natural ingredients only. Furthermore, other natural ingredients such as white fungus extract and cypress extract are also used for cosmetics. No artificial additives, fragrances, preservatives or ethanol are used in the process.

Even the packaging is kind to the environment. YOU wanted to refrain from creating garbage with plastic, so they decided to use glass containers for their cosmetics. However, they still needed to make a vanity case to protect the glass container. Instead of wood, they approached Gojo Paper MFG Co. Ltd. to create a packaging from sugar cane dreg. The paper is certified environmentally friendly and is free of organic chlorine compounds (often used for bleaching, which leads to water pollution).

The more you use “INAHO Lees Lotion” and “INAHO Lees Serum” the more you can contribute to reducing lees and sugar cane waste. YOU aspire to create more cosmetics made outdoors and gentle to the Earth and skin by creating a system that gives back to nature.. In the future, the company hopes to develop more environmentally friendly products like milky lotion and bath bombs, using lees and waste.