Maeil Dairies Selex Enters Inner Beauty Market... Launches 'Milk Ceramide'

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Seon-ae] Maeil Dairy’s lifecycle nutrition design specialist brand, ‘Maeil Health Nutrition,’ announced on the 28th the launch of a new inner beauty product, ‘Selex Milk Ceramide,’ containing ceramide extracted from 100% milk.

Selex, which pioneered the new market by starting the protein adult nutrition business for the first time in Korea in 2018 and established itself as the number one protein brand, has now entered the inner beauty market by utilizing a rare ingredient that accounts for only 0.0003% of milk.

While the domestic inner beauty market focuses on collagen, overseas trends are spreading where ceramide, which acts as a moisture barrier on the skin surface, and collagen, which maintains skin structure and strengthens tissues, are consumed together to care for both the outer and inner skin. Especially in Japan, known as the world’s largest inner beauty market worth over 1 trillion won, dairy specialists such as Yukijirushi Nyugyo and Meiji, as well as beverage manufacturers like Suntory and Asahi, have introduced inner beauty products containing both collagen and ceramide.

The newly launched ‘Selex Milk Ceramide’ is designed to allow simultaneous intake of milk ceramide (600mg) and low molecular fish collagen (1000mg), considering absorption rates, in line with global trends. Additionally, it includes vitamin C (100mg), the recommended daily intake beneficial when taken with collagen, as well as hyaluronic acid and elastin.

Milk ceramide is a patented skin-protective composition extracted from 100% milk based on Maeil Dairy’s 50 years of expertise in dairy processing. Inspired by the long-standing use of milk as a secret to skin health, research on moisturizing factors in milk led to the discovery of the ‘milk ceramide’ ingredient. This component has been used as a major phospholipid ingredient in infant formula for a long time.

Milk ceramide contains various components that generate ceramide, such as sphingomyelin, cerebroside, and ganglioside, among which sphingomyelin has the same structure as the ceramide precursor in our skin.

A Selex representative explained, “The outermost layer of our skin, the epidermis, protects the skin from external stimuli and prevents moisture loss, acting as a ‘skin barrier.’ Ceramide accounts for 35-40% of the intercellular lipids in the epidermis. If the epidermis is unhealthy due to ceramide deficiency and is penetrated by external bacteria or irritants, even a healthy dermis is useless. Therefore, from the 30s when ceramide begins to decrease rapidly, it is good to manage skin by consuming collagen and ceramide together.”

One stick of ‘Selex Milk Ceramide’ contains an amount of ceramide indicator equivalent to about 4.8 cups of milk. It is a powder stick that can be conveniently consumed once a day without water, with a soft and delicious yogurt flavor. The price is 45,000 won for a 4-week supply pack.

Meanwhile, Maeil Dairy’s lifecycle nutrition design specialist brand ‘Maeil Health Nutrition’ officially entered the adult nutrition business in 2018 by launching the Selex brand to allow delicious and convenient protein intake. The plan is to grow Selex into a ‘nutrition design specialist brand’ that satisfies various health-related needs of adults beyond protein products. Selex has surpassed cumulative sales of 50 billion won and is leading the market as number one, having recorded the highest production performance of protein health functional foods in 2019 announced by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety last August.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.