It started with
a plant on a cliff.
A formulator and
a dermatology nurse.
Inês Marques spent nine years developing creams for a pharmaceutical company in Porto. Clara Duarte spent fourteen years as a dermatology nurse in Lisbon, watching patients with sun damage, eczema and over-treated skin. They met swimming at Carcavelos in winter, which tells you most of what you need to know about them.
Aune is the brand they wanted to buy and couldn’t: formulas built on the plants of the coast they live on, with honest doses, made in small batches close enough to the sea that we can check on the sea fennel at lunch.
Inês and Clara above Praia da Poça.
Ten years, one coast
2016
A plant on a cliff
Inês tastes pickled sea fennel in Ericeira, then finds it growing wild above Guincho. The first extracts go brown in a week.
2017
Sixteen formulas
Aune launches from a rented bench in Estoril with Nº 01 to Nº 16, including Kelp Gel Cleanser and Sea Fennel Serum.
2019
Our own lab
We move into a narrow townhouse in Cascais, four streets from the harbour. Formulating, testing and pouring all happen here.
2021
Refills
Heavy glass jars become keepers: creams and body care get refill pods at a lower price.
2023
Shipping further
Orders open to the UK and the United States, from the same small team.
2026
Seventy-three formulas
Still numbered in the order they leave the lab, still with every dose on the label.
We take a third
and leave the rest.
Wild plants are picked under licence, in season, by one forager who knows every stretch of the cliffs. No more than a third of any plant, never the same place two years running. Most of our sea fennel and all of our samphire now come from growers, so the wild coast stays mostly for walkers.
Licensed, in season
Wild sea fennel only from May to July, under a municipal licence.
Growers first
Four growers within 60 km supply most of what we use.
Never from living rock
Kelp from managed beds; bladderwrack gathered loose after storms.
Made four streets
from the harbour.
Every Aune formula is developed, stability-tested and poured in our own lab. Independent labs test each one for safety and preservation; every formula is dermatologist-assessed and tested on volunteers, never on animals.
Formulation
Inês Marques and two chemists
Skin and testing
Clara Duarte, dermatology nurse
Sourcing
One forager, four growers, one marnoto
Production
Five people, two filling lines
Customer care
Three people, replies within a working day
