Purodem is, at heart, a school of formulation. We teach the craft of taking plant-based ingredients and bringing them together into something safe, stable, and genuinely useful, for skincare, for therapeutic practice, and for the formulators and practitioners who do both.
Formulation is the discipline at the centre of everything Purodem teaches. Whether the end product is a face cream, a client formulation made for one person, or a balm for a specific concern, the underlying craft is the same: understanding what each ingredient does, how ingredients work together, and how to design a finished formulation that performs the way it should.
That single craft leads in two directions. Some students are here for cosmetic formulation, learning to create skincare for themselves, for clients, or for a brand they’re building. Others are here for therapeutic formulation, using essential oils, vegetable oils, hydrolats, and plant actives to design products around a person’s wellbeing needs. Both sit comfortably under the same roof because the underlying reasoning is the same.
We teach from the ground up. Ingredient by ingredient, principle by principle, the why always comes alongside the how, so students leave understanding the choices behind every formulation they make.
Every Purodem programme is built around the same idea: that formulation is best learned when the teaching is structured, when there’s someone to ask, and when what you make actually has to work.
In practice, that means our courses are sequenced to build understanding progressively. Students start with the foundations, ingredient function, formulation structure, and safety thinking, and move from there into applied technique and independent reasoning. The aim is genuine competence: students leave able to adapt what they know to new situations and to design formulations of their own.
Across every programme:
For a fuller account of how we design, assess, and deliver our courses, including our curriculum principles, assessment approach, and developing standards framework, see Our Standards.
Purodem offers two qualifications, one for each direction of the craft.
Integrative Therapeutic Formulation is the design of non-medical topical and olfactory products as a structured, holistic response to a person’s wellbeing needs. Created by Deana, it brings essential oils, vegetable oils, hydrolats, and plant actives together as one connected palette, and it begins with the person in front of you.
The qualification is taught as a Level 3 Foundation Award and a Level 4 Diploma, taking you from first principles through to independent practice with real clients. It is designed for therapists, practitioners, health and care professionals, and experienced formulators who want to work therapeutically with plant materials.
The NSF Diploma is our route into cosmetic formulation. It’s genuinely beginner-friendly, taking students from first principles through to confident, independent formulation across the core cosmetic systems: emulsions, anhydrous formulations, gels, and surfactant-based products.
It suits anyone formulating for themselves, developing a product range, or building a skincare brand on solid ground.
Our Professional Essential Oil Therapy diploma centres on the therapeutic use of essential oils for complementary therapists. If your interest is in working therapeutically with plant materials, Integrative Therapeutic Formulation sets essential oils within the wider plant palette and is where most practitioners now begin.
Purodem was founded by Deana Kassim, who continues to lead the teaching across every programme.
Deana came to formulation through aromatherapy and therapeutic practice, and after more than twenty years working in the field she founded Purodem to build the kind of school she had wanted to find earlier in her own career: structured, rigorous about safety, and committed to teaching the reasoning behind every formulation choice. Her teaching combines scientific understanding with the traditional and holistic perspectives that have shaped this field, and her approach to course design reflects that integrative outlook.
That outlook led directly to Integrative Therapeutic Formulation. Deana created the Integrative Therapeutic Formulation qualification, developed alongside the Purodem team, to give therapeutic work with plant materials a structure and a standard of its own.
Deana is a graduate of the International Federation of Aromatherapists’ Professional Essential Oil Therapy (PEOT) programme, an active IFA member, and a PSA Accredited Register member, alongside her wider work in skincare formulation and education. Her full credentials are set out on our Our Standards page.
Purodem is structured to grow beyond any one teacher. We are developing a network of mentors drawn from our graduate community: experienced alumni who contribute to the student community, course content, and the wider learning environment as Purodem develops. This is a long-term direction, building a school whose standards, methodology, and teaching endure.
Our students come from all kinds of backgrounds. Complementary therapists bringing therapeutic formulation into an existing practice. Nurses, health and care professionals seeking structured training in working with plant materials. Skincare brand-builders and product developers who want to understand the choices behind every formulation. Independent learners drawn to the craft for its own sake.
What connects them is the same thing: a wish to work with plant materials thoughtfully, and to understand the reasoning behind every choice they make.
We’re glad to teach beginners. The NSF Diploma is designed to take students from first principles, and Integrative Therapeutic Formulation needs no prior formulation experience either. Many of our most successful graduates began with none at all.
Our courses are designed to be entered at the level that matches where you are now.
View the ITF Course: for therapists, practitioners, and formulators who want to formulate for the individual.
View the NSF Course: beginner-friendly, the route into cosmetic formulation.
Read Our Standards: methodology, assessment, and credentials in detail.