Probiotic Skincare Decoded

Ever wondered what's really in those "probiotic" skincare products lining the shelves? Dr. Stefanie cuts through the marketing jargon to reveal a surprising truth – there are actually no live bacteria in any skincare products on the market today. Such formulations simply wouldn't remain stable!

So what exactly are we putting on our faces when we use products claiming probiotic benefits? In this episode, Dr. Stefanie breaks down the area into four distinct categories that bring clarity to this confusing skincare trend. 

Understanding these distinctions matters because supporting your skin's microbiome offers multiple benefits beyond what most people realize. These ingredients can balance your skin's bacterial ecosystem, modulate immune response, lower skin pH to favour beneficial microbes, strengthen your skin barrier, and provide powerful anti-inflammatory effects. Dr. Stefanie's clear explanations help demystify this trendy but often misunderstood category of skincare.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Dermatologist Debriefs

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Dermatologist debriefs. Join no-nonsense dermatologist Dr Stephanie Williams as she debunks myths and shares her professional insights, separating facts from fiction, in just a few minutes.

Speaker 2: 0:18

Today I'd like to speak about probiotics in skincare, but before we do that, a couple of definitions for those who don't know what probiotics are. So probiotics, as you might know from supplements that we take in orally, are life good bacteria, so to say, that help maintain a healthy balance of microorganisms in our body, whether that's in your gut or whether that's on our skin, and microbiome, or sometimes just abbreviated as the biome, refers to the entire community of microorganisms. So that includes bacteria, fungi, viruses and others that live in very simplistic form. The probiotics are the goodies and the pathological bacteria that can cause disease are the baddies, and the more known microbiome is that of our gut. But our skin actually has its very own microbiome and it's very different from the gut's microbiome in many ways. And this skin microbiome and skincare supporting the microbiome is currently very in, for good reason, because it's very important. And there are various skincare products containing prebiotics or probiotics or postbiotics, but I don't think people really understand the difference between these when it comes to skincare, and that's what today is all about. So let me break it down for you and explain the difference between prebiotics, probiotics, postbiotics and microbiome modulators. But firstly let me answer the question whether there are actually skincare products on the market that contain live bacteria, and the answer to that is no. That wouldn't be stable. So what does probiotic skincare actually contain? Then let's start with prebiotics. So these are ingredients that selectively nourish beneficial skin bacteria but not the harmful ones. So that way they are supporting a balanced microbiome, reducing inflammation and also improving barrier function. So these are kind of food for our good bacteria.

Speaker 2: 3:15

And the second group you may find in skin care, sometimes referred to as probiotics, but I actually prefer the term metaprobiotics, because these aren't actually life bacteria. As I mentioned, that's not possible in skincare. But what they are is that they are probiotic lysates. That means that they are initially produced by fermentation and then they are lysed, which means broken down and integrated in that form into skin care. So these metaprobiotics can then deliver microbiome results and also immune modulating benefits without the need for live bacteria in skincare, which wouldn't be stable. So these lysids provide cell components and bioactives derived from a broken down whole bacterium. In contrast to that, postbiotics are bioactive metabolites produced and secreted by a live probiotic bacteria, and then these are filtered out and integrated into skin care live bacteria. But postbiotics mean that we use live bacteria to produce those metabolites which are then included in our skincare item. And these bacteria who produce the metabolites are also typically generated by fermentation, but it's just the actual secreted bioactives that are then put into the skincare.

Speaker 2: 5:09

When we speak about postbiotics and I should mention really that this is my preferred categorization and there might be others which are slightly different, but I think this makes most sense scientifically and is clearest when we speak about probiotic and probiotic products in skincare. So these were the prebiotics, the metaprobiotics and the postbiotics, all of which can be found in skincare. And lastly, there is another group which I would name microbiome modulators. So these are ingredients that may not come from good bacteria at all, but, for example, it might be fermented green tea or certain algae extracts, and these ingredients optimize the skin's microbial environment and ecosystem. So they're not probiotics themselves, but they've got a positive influence on our skin's microbiome.

Speaker 2: 6:19

So there are four groups in total in my preferred categorization and, depending on which product you look at, it may contain one or more than one of these ingredients, and there are multiple benefits of adding these into skin care For example, balancing our skin's microbiome, which is the obvious one, but also they can modulate the immune system. They can lower the skin pH, which favors the growth of beneficial bacteria. They can reinforce the skin's barrier function and exert anti-inflammatory benefits as well. So it's a really interesting group of skincare ingredients, but I thought we should clarify what we actually mean when we speak about probiotics and skincare. Hope this makes sense and I will speak to you again soon. Bye-bye, thank you.