de mi flor | From Brand Design to Fragranced Body Care and Reusable Vases

A brand is a living organism, so it must keep moving.

Hyun-jin Moon

A black pump rises from a white, vertically fluted bottle shaped like a vase. South Korean brand de mi flor fills these vessels with fragranced body care. Behind the design is a founder who moved from communicating other companies’ brands to developing products and considering the spaces in which people use them.

Contents

At a glance
The founder and the beginnings of de mi flor
The brand’s approach
1. Quiet fragrances designed for the time spent washing
2. A vase-shaped bottle with another use after it is empty
References

At a glance

Brand launch: 2023
Founder: Hyun-jin Moon (문현진)
Country: South Korea
Focus: Cleansing and body care
Website: de mi flor

The founder and the beginnings of de mi flor

From advertising and design to a brand of his own

Hyun-jin Moon began working at advertising agencies and design companies in the early 2000s, later establishing the design-led agency Supermoon Company. Client projects prompted a desire to give his accumulated knowledge and design thinking a more unified expression.

I wanted to create a brand I led.

Hyun-jin Moon

He has continued both businesses: insights from agency work inform de mi flor, while the practical experience of developing his own brand feeds back into client projects. Moving between those two roles has become part of how he runs the brand.

Launching body care with cleansing at its centre in 2023

Launched in 2023, de mi flor chose New Zealand zeolite as a core ingredient for its cleansing products. The mineral’s porous structure and adsorptive properties offered a starting point for thinking about an everyday action: washing.

Today, the brand connects cleansing with the care that follows. It argues that body skin deserves standards as considered as those applied to the face, combining cleansers with body care intended to moisturize and condition. Wash, lotion and mist serve different purposes within that sequence.

De mi flor also treats the repetition itself as a habit to design around. Alongside ingredients and function, it considers the shape people handle, the fragrance they encounter and the space in which a product stands. This offers a way to understand Moon’s move from creating encounters with clients’ brands to developing body care of his own.

Building encounters through films, pop-ups and overseas events

In 2024, de mi flor signed actor Lee E-dam and produced a brand film. It has also held a standalone Bukchon pop-up in Seoul and participated in events in Paris and Tokyo. Moon, whose previous work included overseeing global brands’ pop-ups and events, now had his own products to introduce.

The brand’s identity has continued to develop through trial and error. In March 2026, Moon joined other founders in Seongsu, Seoul, to discuss the challenges of positioning cosmetics in a crowded market. His call to keep moving encompasses the daily problems of developing products, building an organization and pursuing growth.

In Japan, de mi flor opened an online store in January 2025. A rollout to Japanese shops followed in October 2026, combining three fragrances with five categories, including body wash and lotion. It extends the opportunity to encounter one scent across cleansing and moisturizing.

The brand’s approach

Quiet fragrances designed for the time spent washing

De mi flor approached fragrance by asking what belongs in a moment of washing away the day and returning to oneself. It developed six signature scents with perfumer Lee Sae-mi (이새미), a graduate of the master’s programme at France’s ISIPCA.

081 Fleurage evokes a damp spring garden through white florals; 212 Citrus Nomad places citrus among forest cedarwood. Both are framed around the experience of washing, with gentleness taking priority over intensity.

That quality also appears in brand ambassador Lee E-dam’s reason for choosing Fleurage:

I liked the comforting, subtle scent while washing.

Lee E-dam

The brand says its zeolite-containing products are lightly scented partly in response to the ingredient’s adsorptive properties. Fragrance is considered within the cleansing formula and its intended use.

A vase-shaped bottle with another use after it is empty

The wash and lotion containers take their cue from antique vases in paintings. Their sculpted white surfaces also suggest flowing, clean foam, considering how the product looks on a basin or in a bathroom.

Protecting the contents mattered too. The brand describes considering zeolite’s sensitivity to light and its moisture-absorbing properties when developing the packaging. Appearance and the needs of the formula were addressed together.

Once empty, the bottle can become a vase: the pump is removed and the opening enlarged along a designated cutting line. The packaging received an iF Design Award in the Beauty Packaging category in 2025. Flowers connect the fragrance, the vessel’s form and what it can hold after its original contents are gone.