I started COR Silver in 2007 because I was desperate.
That sounds dramatic, but it's true. I'd grown up in New Zealand, which, if you're not familiar, is basically a beautiful country with a hole in the ozone layer directly above it. We didn't know that as kids. We just knew the sun, the beach, and the kind of summers that leave their mark. Mine left marks I was still dealing with decades later.
Add to that the hormonal cystic acne I struggled with as a woman in my late 30s and early 40s. The deep, painful kind that no amount of expensive cleanser seemed to touch — and I was someone who had genuinely tried everything. And I mean everything. My bathroom cabinet was a graveyard of half-used serums, toners, masks, and promises.
Then I discovered nano-silver.
At the time, almost no one in skincare was talking about it. The antibacterial properties, the way silver at a nanoparticle size could actually penetrate the skin, the cell regeneration research — it was genuinely exciting science that the beauty industry hadn't caught up with yet. So I built a product around it with a brilliant scientist from South Korea. And then I used it on my own face, every day, for 18 years.
Here's what the industry looks like now, from where I'm standing.
The skincare market has become gone a bit mad.
I say that with love, as someone who has spent nearly two decades in it. But there's no other word for a world where influencers hawk 12-step routines, where the "hero ingredient" changes every three months, where "clean beauty" and "clinically proven" are slapped on products with equal abandon and zero regulation, and where you can buy colloidal silver soap for $8 on Amazon and wonder what the difference is.
I'll tell you what the difference is. But first, let me tell you what I see in the mirror at 60.
The mirror moment
Turning 60 is a "moment" to be sure. How, where did the years fly by? A few weeks ago I caught my reflection in a particularly honest light — the kind you don't seek out — and had two thoughts almost simultaneously.
The first: I am clearly an oldish woman now. There's no getting around that. Time is real, and I'm not here to pretend otherwise.
The second: My skin is actually pretty good.
Not "pretty good for 60." Just pretty good. Clear. Even. Not fighting itself. The cystic acne that sent me down this path in the first place? Gone for years. The sun damage from those New Zealand summers? Managed in a way I genuinely didn't think was possible when I started.
And I still — still — use one bar. The same bar I formulated in 2007, refined over the years, and have used every single day since.
Why simplicity won
Here's what 18 years taught me: the skincare industry profits from your confusion. The more steps, the more products, the more problems you believe you have, the more you buy. Complexity is a business model.
Silver was my answer to that, and it still is. Not because it's magic, but because it's doing several jobs at once — killing bacteria, reducing inflammation, supporting cell regeneration — in a single bar. Paired with sericin, chitosan, retinol, hyaluronic acid, and a cocktail of other ingredients that actually earn their place, it replaces the cluttered cabinet I used to maintain.
My customers range from teenagers dealing with the same acne I once had, to people older than me who've found that silver's cell regeneration properties are as relevant at 70 as they are at 17. That breadth tells me something important: healthy skin isn't complicated. The industry just wants you to think it is.
Why I'm writing this now
COR just turned 18. I just turned 60. And if you've been away for a while — if life got busy, if you got distracted by something that promised the world, if you're just finding your way back — I want to invite you to come back.
To celebrate 18 years, I'm offering 18% off sitewide with code COR18 until the end of March, our birthday month.
No complicated routine required.
