Plant totum: turning biomimicry into cosmetic innovation

A term widely used in pharmacopoeia and phytotherapy, the use of plant totum in the development of cosmetics and medicinal products challenges certain received ideas.

Totum: the plant's truth

For many years now, the active principles of plants have invaded our daily lives. From our food to our medicines and anti-aging treatments, many principles have been developed to benefit us in the simplest way possible. But while the intention is laudable, the result can be surprisingly counterproductive. Because, just like the environment or our own bodies, plants work on the principle of synergy. Unbalance just one of its components and the harmony is broken, the plant's benefits are degraded and no longer have the same efficacy.

Naturally, a principle extracted and exploited for its qualities functions in a number of medicines, sometimes leading to remarkable medical advances, as was the case when an acid isolated from meadowsweet (acetylsalicylic acid) was used to create aspirin. However, in many cases, using the whole plant allows us to benefit from its constituent interactions, which in turn enhances the efficacy of the substances it contains.

Simply put, the totality of a plant's substances (the totum) is greater than the sum of its parts. This mathematically defying observation is due to the fact that the plant's totum takes into account the interactions between substances, as well as the substances themselves. This synergy, which characterizes plants and enables them to deploy a wealth of inventiveness to resist all kinds of difficulties (cold, sun, lack of water, the succession of years, etc.), is precisely what interests pharmacopoeia and cosmetics.

Huile Sèche Naturelle
Nourrissante | Hydratante

Secret Sublimant

Application Externe Visage Corps et Cheveux
100 ml

48,00 €

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What are the benefits for cosmetics?

First and foremost, a number of conditions must be met before totum can be reconstituted in a cosmetic product. The plant must be of high quality and grow in good conditions. La Maison de l'Argousier uses only sea buckthorn berries of the "clara" variety grown on its own organic farm in Moldavia, guaranteeing the clarity and exemplary traceability of its products.

Since cut plants rapidly lose the effectiveness of their constituent principles, it's best to use freshly harvested plants, or to freeze them very quickly using the enzymatic extraction process. At the end of this process, which does not degrade the plant's chemical substances, the aqueous and oily phases are obtained. These phases then have to be carefully reconstituted into the totum, in order to achieve biomimicry as close as possible to the truth of the plant.

A comparison of La Maison de l'Argousier cosmetics with those using just one or two active ingredients reveals a gentler, more elegant synergy of ingredients with the skin. The biological symbiosis reconstituted in each bottle promotes a stronger, longer-lasting action in the context of daily use of our product range.

While the manufacturing process for our products is slower and gentler than traditional, aggressive, solvent-intensive processes, it is above all healthier, more ecological and closer to the truth of the plant. In this respect, the products developed by La Maison de l'Argousier are based on the research of physician and surgeon Jean Valnet (1920 - 1995), considered one of the founding fathers of modern phytotherapy:

"There are several synergistic constituents in plants which mean that the action resulting from their use is less brutal, more prolonged and more complete than that of the chemical principle, which explains why natural medicines are, on the whole, better tolerated by the body than artificially created foreign substances, whose long-term toxicity and incidental effects are poorly understood".

Dr Jean Valnet, La phytothérapie, se soigner par les plantes, 1986