Sea to Skin Reef-safe alternative to traditional cosmetics

Wildan Hakim and Daniel Panigori Simanjuntak – both Master students in Biobased Sciences – and Dina Yurika – Master student Biosystem Engineering set out with a bold ambition: to turn their Master’s at Wageningen University & Research into something that creates tangible, positive change for people and the planet. Today, they’re doing exactly that with their startup, Sea to Skin (S2S).

Sea to Skin is an innovative biorefinery concept that transforms locally sourced brown seaweed into high-value, skin-safe ingredients. Their process extracts fucoxanthin, a UV-filter, antioxidant, and alginate to offer a sustainable, reef-safe alternative to traditional cosmetics. In doing so, they tackle waste in conventional seaweed processing.

 Winning the Bio-based Innovation Student Challenge

Fuelled by a shared passion for technology, sustainability, and entrepreneurship, the trio entered the Bio-based Innovation Student Challenge Europe to accelerate the transition to a bio-based economy. They quickly discovered the potential of seaweed, specifically for the replacement of current compounds based on fossil sources in UV protection. With the potential to reduce environmental harm and help prevent thousands of UV-related skin conditions, their project stood out, and won.

“We’re not just creating a product, we’re building a cleaner, healthier future.”

Growing through Starthub Wageningen 

Following their win, Starthub Wageningen stepped in to further support the team with expert mentoring in the incubator programme. From refining their business model to preparing for market validation, the support helped the team move from concept to testing, and toward real-world application. The team made grateful use of the mentoring and is now actively seeking partnerships to bring their solution to life.

As for what they’ve learned along the way?

“Sometimes the right way to do something is just to start, see where it goes, and don’t overthink it.”
Wildan Hakim