N° 01The hero · since 2019
Cold-pressed in small batches on the Faroes, from kelp fermented for fourteen months in oak barrels lined with sea salt. One bottle takes a year to make and another six weeks to ship.
— No. 01 · The Hero
— The one ingredient
— Laminaria hyperborea · cold-pressed, oak-barrel-aged 14 months
Mire's entire product line is built around a single ingredient: a species of cold-water brown kelp called Laminaria hyperborea, which grows in tight forests off the northern coast of the Faroe Islands. Our four divers harvest it by hand, in a six-week window each autumn, from a single seven-hectare bay we lease from the Faroese fisheries authority.
What makes the kelp interesting isn't the kelp itself — it's what happens after. The harvested fronds are cold-pressed within six hours, the liquid moved into hundred-litre oak barrels lined with Faroese sea salt, and left to ferment for fourteen months in a converted boathouse on the southern coast of Streymoy. The fermentation produces a slow, low-pH wash that is unusually rich in fucoidan, mannitol, and a class of polyphenols that the cosmetics industry has spent the last decade trying to synthesise without success.
Every one of our five products is, at its base, this fermented kelp wash. No filler oils. No fragrance. No alcohol. The differences between formulations are differences in concentration, viscosity, and what we pair it with. Always the same kelp, the same bay, the same fourteen months.
— How a bottle is made
The slow part of skincare is not the formulating, it's the waiting. We start with kelp that won't be a bottle for a year and a half, and we don't release a batch until it's ready.
— October · six weeks · 4 divers
Our divers harvest from the same seven-hectare bay off Streymoy, every autumn. Each frond is cut by hand, never dredged. Yield is roughly eleven tonnes per season — enough for 142 bottles per finished batch.
— Within 6 hours · 4°C
Within hours of being cut, the fronds are washed in seawater and cold-pressed under granite stones in our boathouse on Streymoy. The press juice is racked into oak barrels lined with Faroese sea salt the same evening.
— 14 months · oak barrels
The wash ferments for fourteen months in 100-litre Faroese oak barrels — long enough for the fucoidan to concentrate, the polyphenols to bloom, and the smell to mellow from kelpy to something closer to grass.
— 142 bottles / batch
Each batch yields about 142 bottles. We bottle by hand, label by hand, and ship from Tórshavn by air-freight every six weeks. There's no warehouse — each bottle is in stock for an average of nine days.
— The full range · five products
Mire has five products and no plans to introduce a sixth. Every one is built on the same fermented marine base — the differences are concentration, paired ingredients, and how you use them.
— N° 01 · The hero
The original — a pure 14-month-fermented kelp serum. Best at night, on damp skin, before anything else. The product we make twice as much of as anything else.
— N° 02 · The everyday
A balm-to-oil cleanser built around the marine base — for removing the day's grime without removing the skin's own slip. Smells like wet stones and the inside of a flower.
— N° 03 · The quiet one
A heavier, oil-based formulation of the marine base, blended with Faroese rose hip and a single drop of cold-pressed cloudberry. For winter, dry skin, and the last week of every menstrual cycle.
— N° 04 · The closer
A heavier overnight cream, made for sealing the serum in. Marine-fermented base, churned with Faroese sheep tallow and a small fraction of unrefined beeswax. Whipped, never emulsified.
— N° 05 · The new one
A finishing mist made from the early-press, less-concentrated marine wash, blended with cold-pressed Faroese juniper. For setting makeup, refreshing an afternoon face, or applying between layers.
"In ten years of changing skincare brands every season, this is the first time my skin has actually stayed the same for an entire winter."
— Helena S. · subscriber since 2022 · verified review
— The ritual
If you use everything we make, the routine takes about four minutes in the morning and six at night. If you use only the serum, it takes ninety seconds. We've designed the line so you can stop at any step and the skin doesn't punish you for it.
— Joining the bottle list
Our batches are small — 142 bottles each, every six weeks. Subscribers to the bottle list get first refusal on every new release, a tiny journal-style letter from Tórshavn, and the date the next batch will ship.