In the awards autumn series of blog posts, we get to know the brands and people behind the nominee products of the Nordic Natural Beauty Awards 2022. In this post, we are proud to share more about the Swedish natural skincare brand MH-FaceOil, as told by the founder of the brand, Maria Herkner:
“At one point in my life, I started to feel I really needed to do something else than what I had used to do every day until then, something away from the screen. I have always liked handcrafting and all the creative activities that take me away from the laptop, and I had already tried to do it as much as I could in my spare time. I loved creating ceramic pieces, such as wall hangers and vases, though this time, I decided to take a new kind of step and started to create natural oil mixtures.

Everything is always a blank page from the start, you just have to start somewhere. During the pandemic, I started to pick up a big interest in natural oils. I think it might have been my experience with working with a large beauty provider that helped me on the way to get into this area. I had several projects going on with the beauty provider, one of them being to lift their eco-friendly and natural products. That got me inspired to start experimenting and testing different all-natural oil mixture recipes.
The first oil I created, 1+5, was very much about mixing oils that gave the most moisture, glow, and luxurious feeling. I also really wanted to create a special mixture with a lot of prickly pear seed oil in it. As I was trying out different formulas I got more and more interested in the process of making. I made the formulas a bit like how you create perfumes with some oils working as a base, some as the middle carrier and some of them as the top ingredient. When I was pleased with the mix I also got friends and family to try the oils out and then decided to divide them into different focus groups. The testing went on for more than a year.
As time went by, I thought – why wouldn’t I just give this a try? It would probably be crazy, maybe naive, maybe stupid, or probably a bit of everything, not knowing all the steps that I had to go through, and all the time and money that I should spend. As it was not a simple process to get everything in place and right, I also included professional help in the process of registering products and making sure things were done in the right way. And so was MH+FaceOil born.

Let’s talk a little bit about the product nominated in the Nordic Natural Beauty Awards 2022 which is also my own personal favourite – 2+B.
2+B only contains Bakuchiol, Avocado oil, Squalane from Olive, Vitamin E, and a hint of vanilla. Bakuchiol is natural retinol and has its own kind of special scent that I feel goes nice together with vanilla. The scent of vanilla calms me down and makes me feel all safe and sound, and that’s probably why I personally like the 2+B so much. Avocado oil is full of vitamins and omegas, and it is another favourite ingredient of mine as it absorbs fast and leaves a soft feeling on the skin. For the mentioned reasons, avocado oil is actually used in all three face oils in the first MH+FaceOil collection.
I would love to mention two other ingredients that are absolute favourites of mine as well, found in these first three face oils. Raspberry seed oil (in the collection’s 222 face oil) has a lot of cell-renewing qualities with its richness in Omega 3. Another special ingredient, rosehip oil, I really like for its colour and the fact that it gives a natural glow and all the good Vitamin A. The original face oil 1+5 contains this wonderful rosehip oil.
In general, I think it can be quite tricky to understand what a product actually contains. As a designer at heart, I wanted to create clarity in how the name of a product is also connected to the number of ingredients. And I also wanted to present and show visibility in what oils each product contains.
Everything is made on a small scale, handcrafted, and with love for each little bottle. You can find the oils at mh-faceoil.se/butik, both in sizes 30 ml and 10 ml as well as a try out-box with all three oils in 10 ml. I hope you will like them as much as I do. Join and follow me on my new journey!
/MH”
Get to know MH-FaceOil even better on their website at mh-faceoil.se and follow the brand’s natural journey on MH-FaceOil’s Instagram account >
All photos in this article were taken by John Rydberg.