Mandelic acid is an alpha-hydroxy acid, or AHA. It comes from bitter almonds.
It was first isolated in 1831 by a German pharmacist named Ferdinand Winckler, who found it while working with bitter almond water and hydrochloric acid. It's older than almost every ingredient trend you'll see marketed today.
Chemically, mandelic acid's molecule is about twice the size of glycolic acid's, the AHA most people have heard of. A bigger molecule generally moves into skin more slowly, which is the reason it's often the acid people reach for first when they want exfoliation without the sting glycolic can bring. AHAs as a category are widely studied and widely used in skincare, but individual results vary and everyone's skin is different.
This is general education, not medical advice, and not a claim about any Anders product. We're studying mandelic acid as the starting point for a serum that isn't for sale yet, and this page will get more specific as that work continues. If you want to know when it ships, leave your email on the Serum page.