This fermented rice wine has been keeping Japanese women youthful for years. But it’s not the actual drink that’s been giving them unlined faces — it’s a strain of yeast produced during the fermentation process known as PiteraTM.
The discovery was made by accident in the 1970s, when a group of scientists working for the skin care company SK-II noticed that workers at a local sake brewery had soft, youthful hands compared with their wrinkled faces. An exhaustive search of 350 strains of yeast at last yielded the golden ticket — PiteraTM, a unique combination of vitamins, amino acids, minerals and organic acids that optimizes the skin’s ability to renew itself. SK-II’s Facial Treatment Essence, which is 90 percent pure PiteraTM, is known in the East as “miracle water.”
Another favorite for special occasions is the Facial Treatment Mask — a swath of cotton that soaks skin with PiteraTM, quenching thirsty cells in just 20 minutes.