Introducing the Blue Lotus Mask.
The ancient world gave me the inspiration. Modern formulation made it something I could take with me.
I travel a lot. I love discovering how people live, what they make and how they care for themselves. So much of what becomes 39BC begins with that curiosity, and the privilege of being able to jump on a plane and see something you’ve long wanted to see. With your own eyes. No filter.
My skin, however, keeps its own account of the journey. The long flight. The dry air. The revolving time zones. And despite my love of travel, I only truly feel refreshed after a night in my own bed.
I wanted to make something that could travel with me, a small ritual to remind me to slow down. Something cooling and hydrating after a long journey, as welcome in a hotel room as in the privacy of my own bath. And so the BLUE LOTUS MASK was born.
39BC
Here’s how it came about. One of my favourite things to do in a hotel room, after my bath of course, with room service ordered, is to watch international TV or random channels. I welcome the lack of choice! No more decision fatigue layered on top of my actual fatigue.
It was on one of these hotel evenings, fluffy robe on and French fry in hand, that I started watching an old documentary about the blue lotus flower.
I learned that it appeared throughout Egyptian art, held to the nose, worn as an ornament and pictured alongside wine at banquets. The documentary explored the theory that blue lotus might also have been prized for its mind-altering properties, a possible explanation for its presence in scenes of both ceremony and pleasure.
In one creation story, a lotus emerged from the primordial waters and gave birth to the sun. Here was a flower that belonged to both the beginnings of the universe and the pleasures of an evening. Day and night, death and rebirth. This symbolism spoke to me.
I realised I had seen the flower everywhere in Egypt, carved into temple walls. I had just never looked. Like really looked.
the lotus was everywher.
So I went on a deep dive into Egyptian botanicals...
Eventually finding myself at an exhibition at the Neues Museum in Berlin about flowers in funerary practices. I was lucky enough to see Nefertiti while I was there, too. Between the flowers and some extraordinary archaeological masks, the idea for BLUE LOTUS HYDROGEL FACE MASK began to take shape.
Neue Museum Berlin July 2025
That is what I’m a little obsessed with. A flower painted on a wall thousands of years ago and buried in tombs of the dead, still giving us something to wonder about, still finding its way into daily life.
Ancient inspiration, modern formulation
But our promise at 39BC is ancient bathing, modern cleansing. It was important that our first face product brought efficacy to the ritual.
I wanted cooling. I wanted hydration after all the travelling. Hyaluronic Acid was a natural place to begin. We paired Blue Lotus extract with an advanced 8 Hyaluronic Acid Complex to help attract and retain moisture, then added biomimetic peptides, Panthenol, Aloe Vera and a liquorice-derived soothing active. All held within a refreshing hydrogel veil to leave tired skin feeling soft, comfortable and replenished.
At home or away, BLUE LOTUS is an invitation to take twenty-five minutes for yourself. Watch something you wouldn’t usually watch. Let your mind wander a little further while your body rests. You never know where your subconscious will take you.
SR
39BC
