Spirulina is a microorganism born 35 billion years ago with photosynthesis ability. It is in the category of cyanobacteria, the longest known living organism on Earth. It made oxygen during the age where carbon dioxide covered mostly of the air. As a multicellular organism, the cell wall of spirulina is thin and tender which makes it good of digestion and absorbtion. It contains green pigments of phycocyanin and chlorophyll that function to prevent the free radical phenomenon of creating harmful oxygen. Thanks to these benefits, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations pointed it out as a complete food for the future while the NASA as a food of astronauts. It is only natural, for this reason, that private companies are using it for making health functional food and cosmetics. Vitamin rich in spirulina helps delay aging and prevent melanin pigment that causes blemish on the skin. Among these companies is a South Korean Lalaits that boasts its own original technology and domestically made ingredients. 

From a supply of K-Cosmetics in Kazakhstan to Lalaits

Heonsook Yoon, CEO of Lalaits, is one who pioneered market in Kazakhstan with exclusive distribution rights of Made in Korea cosmetics. 

“I happened to visit Kazakhstan and I was drawn to the way people use cosmetics there. Unlike South Korea where marketers push people to buy a package or a number of items at once, people there seemed to buy a cream alone or a perfume. An opportunity struck me at that instant and I launched a business the way Koreans do. The cosmetics I brought from the home land were sold out in three months. Encouraged by this, I started the trade in earnest and saw yearly 300% sales growth. As the business went on smoothly, something inside me told me to do it with my own brand instead of importing. Thus born was Lalaits. But behind this launching of the brand laid a technology transfer of spirulina maxima from Doheong Kang, Director of the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology Jeju. I met him May 2020 through a diplomat who served in Kazakhstan. As the name suggests, spirulina maxima has better performance than spirulina” says Yoon.

▲ Lalaits / CEO Heonsook Yoon

Products of Lalaits

Yoon was born and grew in a sea village. She knew very well of how good seaweed does good in our body and used in cosmetics without side effects. Spirulina is known to have contained unsaturated fatty acid, 10 times more calcium than milk, 20 times more β-Carotene than carrots and 50 times more iron than spinach. Spirulina maxima in particular contains substance that has antioxidant effect. The origin of spirulina maxima is but the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology Jeju that solely stores its seed in the world. Products made at Lalaits, such as shampoo, hair pack, treatment and natural soap, contain this spirulina maxima and salty underground water and lava seawater. Lalaits Y Shampoo especially uses amino acid-line activator to prevent hair loss and the allantoin also contained in the shampoo supplies moisture and coolness. No harmful substances are added in the product. A good accompaniment of Y Shampoo is pH 5.5 B Shampoo for both hair and scalp that gives balance to the level of moisture on the skin. Lalaits soap lines are many and variety in ingredients it uses: seaweed soap, Jeju stone soap and agar-agar soap to name just three. The Jeju stone soap, according to Yoon, help blood circulation while the mineral, magnesium, calcium and zinc contained agar-agar soap helps recover damaged skin and delay aging of the skin. Lalaits was transferred the patented technology of extracting agaraje that can generate neo-hancheon-oligosaccharide. 

Eco-friendly Business Practice

Lalaits is proud of itself for using eco-friendly ingredients and recycling-friendly labeling and packaging. The shampoo products use the green-degree ingredients recognized by the Environmental Working Group, an American activist group specialized in research and advocacy in the areas of agricultural subsidies, toxic chemicals, drinking water pollutants, and corporate accountability. 30% of the sales at Lalaits is donated to be used for helping independence of unwed mothers while petty donations are also made to English education for children. Yoon, who served as the first president of a businessmen’s council in Kazakhstan, is now working on turning the Lalaits store in Kazakhstan into a store where many different kinds of things are sold. <PowerKorea>