Rose Face Wash Cream began with soap. Our brand started in 2007 with bars of soap that Marianella Febres-Cordero made by hand, and this face wash is built on that same soapmaking, softened into a cream for the face. Marianella formulated it, it is made by hand in our Williamsburg workshop in batches of 50 to 100, and every ingredient in it was chosen for how it feels on the skin and what it leaves behind.
It started with soap
Marianella grew up making soap in her grandmother's kitchen in Venezuela. Years later, living in the United States, she was making it again in her spare time and giving the bars to her son, David Foote. He passed them to friends, the friends asked for more, and in 2007 the two of them started Jabonería Marianella. Our first products were bars of soap, made in seven scents and sold three to a set.
Soap is still where much of what we make comes from. A good bar cleans honestly and rinses away. What a bar is not, for many faces, is gentle enough to use twice a day without a tight, squeaky feel afterward. Rose Face Wash Cream is Marianella's answer to that: keep the soap, and change what surrounds it.
Softening a soap into a cream
The base of the wash comes from our own soapmaking. To turn it into something you would want on your face morning and night, it is softened with glycerin and sorbitol, which hold on to water and keep the wash smooth and cushioned rather than drying. The result is a cream you press into damp skin, which melts, spreads like a lotion and lifts the day away.
It is a different object from a bar, and it is used differently: a dime-size amount, worked between wet fingertips, massaged in slow circles and rinsed with warm water. But the cleaning underneath it is the same craft Marianella brought from her grandmother's kitchen.
Why rosehip, shea and Kalahari melon
Marianella chooses each ingredient for how it feels on the skin, how it sits and what it leaves behind. In this wash, three oils and butters do most of that work.
Rosehip seed oil is pressed from the seeds inside the rose hip, the fruit a wild rose leaves when its petals fall. It is light and rich in essential fatty acids, and together with shea butter it gives the cream its velvety cushion.
Kalahari melon seed oil is our hero ingredient. It is cold-pressed from the seeds of a wild melon that grows in the Kalahari of southern Africa, where it stores water through the dry season. The oil is clear and golden, light and dry to the touch, and it helps skin hold moisture. In this wash it helps skin look smoother and more refined. You will find the same oil in The Royal Kalahari Face Serum, which is why the two sit so well together.
Oat, calendula and a note of rose
Finely milled oat and calendula are there to keep the feel gentle. The oat is milled fine enough that you never notice it as grit: this is a wash, not a scrub, and it is meant for every day.
The rose is a note, not a perfume: a touch of rose absolute. Marianella makes every one of our fragrances, and here she wanted something light enough to enjoy at both ends of the day, present as you wash and gone once you rinse. It suits the wash's place at the start of a routine, before serums and oils that often have no added fragrance of their own.
Made in small batches in Williamsburg
Like nearly everything we sell, the wash is made by hand in our workshop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We work in batches of 50 to 100, small enough to check how each batch feels and how it rinses before it leaves the bench. Each one is hand poured, hand labeled and hand packaged by the same people who made it, and we make what is needed rather than filling a warehouse.
Marianella still makes every formula. David, our Creative Director, gives each one its look, from the bottle and the label to the box.
Where it went next
Once the wash existed, a face routine grew around it. It is the first step in the Dream Routine, with Detox Gel and the Royal Kalahari serum, and in the Rose Ritual Bundle, where it is paired with Rosehip Face Oil: wash in the morning, oil in the evening, the same rose at both ends of the day.
Questions about how it is made
Who formulated Rose Face Wash Cream?
Marianella Febres-Cordero, who founded our brand with her son David in 2007 and still makes every formula and every fragrance.
Where is it made?
By hand in our workshop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in batches of 50 to 100.
Why a cream and not a bar?
A bar of soap can feel too drying on the face for twice-daily use. Softening the soap with glycerin, sorbitol, rosehip seed oil and shea butter keeps the clean rinse and loses the tight feel.
Does it contain rose water?
No. Its rose scent comes from a touch of rose absolute, and its rosehip seed oil comes from the fruit of the wild rose. Our rose water is in Rose Petal Mist Face Toner.
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