SAINT Jō: The Five-Step Skincare Regime That Actually Delivers

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This pioneering skincare system foregoes trends, instead focusing on long-term resilience

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SAINT Jō founder Allyse Cirillo has one motto: skincare should contain everything you need and nothing you don’t.

Allyse Cirillo On Why Simplicity Is The Key To Good Skincare

In the hyper-saturated landscape of modern skincare, the ‘more is more’ philosophy has long dictated our regimes. We are told we need ten steps, 20 active ingredients and a chemistry degree to navigate our own bathroom cabinets. But for Allyse Cirillo, the founder of plant-based beauty brand SAINT Jō, the path to great skin shouldn’t feel like a maze. It should be simple and effective.

The Story Of SAINT Jō

SAINT Jō was born from a moment of profound professional and personal disconnection. After 13 years in the high-octane worlds of fashion and product development, Cirillo found herself at a crossroads. ‘I spent over a decade working in fashion and beauty, but during that time I wasn’t taking care of my own body or skin,’ she shares. ‘I was killing it in my career, but I was neglecting myself.’

This realisation that the very industry she served was failing to serve her became the catalyst for creating a beauty brand laser-focused on an easy-to-follow, five-step routine formulated only with ingredients your skin needs, and nothing it doesn’t.

Cirillo’s journey to skincare wasn’t traditional and she counts that as one of her greatest strengths. Her background in designing women’s shapewear and bras taught her the intimacy of the ‘first layer’. When the company she was working for acquired a brand formulated by a naturopathic doctor, Cirillo saw a huge opportunity. ‘I was working with the largest organ in the body – the skin – and became conscious of the materials and ingredients that touch it across underwear and skincare.’ The formulas in this natural beauty brand were plant-based but lacked enough skin actives to actually move the needle. Cirillo came to understand the difference between ‘the overwhelming things we are accustomed to using to take care of our skin and the things we actually need’. Some of the hottest brands on the market were laden with sulphates and hormone disruptors to preserve margins. ‘I just knew we had to stop cutting corners.’

The Results

Creating a beauty brand and looking at it from a consumer perspective is perhaps why the SAINT Jō formulas are both so effective and so popular. Not only have more than 10,000 women raved about it on shopsaintjo.com, but the brand also sold out in its first week at John Bell & Croyden. It’s all because Cirillo felt empowered to challenge the status quo, requiring chemists to justify every single additive. ‘If I’d been in the industry for 15 years, I probably wouldn’t have asked the questions,’ she says. ‘I challenged them: “Take out that ingredient. What is that for? Explain this to me.”’

The result is a line that is circa 97 percent plant-derived but built with the rigour of clinical science and testing. Every ingredient is there for a purpose, from the plant sourced preservatives to the bioavailable glycerins. Transparency is baked into the brand’s DNA through a full ingredient glossary that translates the technical into the understandable.

At the heart of the range is a commitment to ingredients the skin actually recognises. While the beauty world currently obsesses over buzzy trends like peptides, Cirillo takes a more grounded approach. SAINT Jō uses a plant-based peptide in its Defend serum not because it’s a marketing buzzword, but because it delivers results you can actually feel.

The SAINT Jō Regime

The first step in the protocol starts with a nourishing cleanser. ‘It was really important to start from that first base layer – making sure the pH levels are all balanced so the formulas don’t cancel each other out, and making sure the ingredients don’t have any reaction,’ says Cirillo.

Two serums come next: ceramide-rich Defend for barrier repair and then Brighten, a gentle radiance-boosting serum packed with antioxidants including a hyper-tolerable vitamin C derived from the Australian Kakadu plum. The goodness is locked in with Nourish, a daily moisturiser designed to hydrate, soothe and repair with zero irritation.

Step five, Illuminate, wasn’t originally on the cards. ‘I wanted to add more antioxidants to the existing formulas but it wasn’t possible to do safely without counteracting other ingredients. It needed to be an oil base, and because of solubility, this had to come at the end,’ says Cirillo. The oil-soluble vitamin C ‘gives that one last penetration through to your cellular rejuvenation level’.

This holistic approach extends beyond the surface to repair and support skin from within. Understanding that stress damage is an internal and external battle, there is an additional two-step ritual in the form of AM and PM supplements. AM contains plant-based actives like red orange complex and DracoBelle Nu, proven to support collagen production, while PM features poria mushroom, an adaptogen used to calm the mind and promote restful beauty sleep.

Cirillo recalls a customer undergoing treatment who told her that simply looking at the SAINT Jō bottles made her feel a sense of dignity. ‘She said, “I want to feel feminine, but the products I have to use are not pretty and they smell bad.” That was part of our DNA. We just wanted women to feel good.’ The praise is not just anecdotal, either. The brand boasts a 40 percent re-purchase rate in an industry where eight percent is the norm. For Cirillo, it’s proof that women are hungry for formulas that actually work.