EP161. Microbiome skincare - is this really a thing?

A few years ago, everyone in the cosmetics industry all of a sudden started talking about the skin's microbiome. And that's not really surprising when you consider that The Human Microbiome project, a US research initiative, published a seminal study in 2012 which mapped for the first time ever, the normal microbial makeup of healthy humans using genome sequencing techniques. This study really invigorated the scientific community at the time, but because although it had been suspected for a while, it really cemented the fact that our human cells are vastly outnumbered by microbes. I even attended a webinar a while ago where a biologist who was presenting said, I don't think our species should even be called Homo sapiens. Instead I think we should be called Homo microbiensis. And because I'm a biologist and a bit of a geek, I rather liked that assessment. Because we're covered in microorganisms. Absolutely covered in them. Head to toe. There are more microorganisms on your body than there are human cells. You are more microbe than you are human. What a mind blowing concept. Just let that sink in for a minute. So that's obviously made the beauty industry start to think about the way that our formulations interact with the vast colonies of microbes on our skin. And we've talked about the microbiome here before on the podcast. We've also provided training on microbiome friendly formulating in our continuing professional development membership site, the Lab at Formula Botanica. But I wanted to delve into this topic further and understand its possibilities as well as its limitations. So we're privileged to meet my guest today, Leo Salvi of Kind to Biome, who is going to walk us through exactly what we currently do and don't know about the skins microbiome. Welcome to Green Beauty Conversations, the podcast that challenges you to think about how you buy, use, make or sell your green beauty formulations. In my weekly episodes, I explore the sustainability of the beauty industry and encourage you to join me in changing the beauty industry for the better. I'm your host, Lorraine Dallmeyer. I'm a chartered environmentalist, biologist and the CEO of award winning online organic cosmetic formulation school Formula Botanica. We have thousands and thousands of students in over 180 countries around the world who study with us to become organic beauty formulators and entrepreneurs. Visit our website@formulabotanica.com to try our free online formulation course. And if you want to be the first person to know what's happening in green beauty, make sure you subscribe to this podcast in your favorite Podcast app. So in today's episode I am joined by Leo Salvi, a chemist, qualified safety assessor for cosmetics and the co founder and head of science at Kind to Biome. Kind to Biome is the skin Microbiome Gentle seal of quality micro which is available for all types of personal care products. The company provides an affordable yet scientifically validated methodology to substantiate microbiome gentle claims for beauty products and once a formulation has passed testing, it is then awarded with the Kinda Biome logo to provide assurance of the microbiome friendliness of the formula. Kindobiome was launched last year in 2022 and has a great mission of wanting to make all personal care products microbiome gentle in the next few five years. Hi Leah, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

Very well. Very nice to meet you. Thank you so much for having me.

No, it's a pleasure to have you here. I'm really looking forward to this conversation because I want to learn more today. So let's start with the basics. What is the skin's microbiome and what do we currently know about it?

Right, so the skin microbiome is the ensemble of bacteria, fungi, viruses, mites that live on our skin. Right. It's mainly bacteria, but there is also fungi, viruses and mites. And the skin microbiome really differs from area to area of the body. So we have sebaceous areas that can have a lot more populations of bacteria of all these microfloras that we mentioned, but there's also drier areas that have smaller populations. So the skin microbiome, it's the ensemble of microorganisms, but it's not a well defined thing for the whole body. It differs.

Okay, so there's a lot to unpick here. Before I go into a bit more detail, can you tell me a bit about what scientific analysis has been undertaken to date on the skin's microbiome? Because I know a lot of work has gone into the gut microbiome in particular, but what about the skin?

Absolutely. So what really changed the scientific analysis was the introduction of next generation sequencing, essentially. Next generation sequencing is an analysis where you break out, essentially you take a swab, let's say from the skin somewhere and you break out all the different species of bacteria, fungi that comprise this swab and you also find out about the relative populations. So this was a big breakthrough. But analysis can be also done through simple microbiology. They can be biochemical or they can also be with cellular lines.

Okay, so I've read various figures online. When it comes to the microbiome, there's a huge range out there about what we what seem to know and I guess what we don't know as well. So apparently we can have between 1 million and 1 billion microorganisms on every square centimeter of our skin. First of all, listener, I want you to just look at your skin, look at a square centimeter and imagine between a million and a billion microorganisms on there. That's pretty mind blowing, isn't it? It's huge. But that's also a huge range. So do we know like which one's correct? Does it vary per body part?

So actually both are factual and as we said, what it really depends on is what area of your skin you're looking at. If you're looking at your forehead, which tends to be a more sebaceous area, you will find a lot more organisms that if you're looking at the volar forearm, so right over here, which is a much drier area, it's going to have much less species of microorganisms present.

That's a fascinating point and that makes a lot of sense. So in terms of variations, we obviously see variations on different body parts. Do we also see variations in the skin's microbiome across different people, different environments, different parts of the world?

Absolutely. So yes, the microbiome differs from person to person, usually based on things like age, sex, lifestyle, genetics, climate, pollution, sun exposure, nutrition, exercise, beauty, routine, which is what we're talking about. But also it could be your emotional well being and actually things like ethnicity, race and the place that you live.

That makes a lot of sense.

Massive variations.

Massive variations. Yes, I'm getting that message loud and clear and it's so interesting about what we do know. But I suppose my other question for you is then, what do we currently not know about the skin's microbiome?

Actually one of the biggest things that we don't know is the basic question which is the best microbiome. We do not know that. We hypothesize that high biodiversity means a better microbiome, but we're not sure what would be the ideal microbiome to have. What we do know is that having a healthy natural microbiome really helps you in fighting skin conditions that might come your way, or imbalances or the microbiome, as is in its healthy state is your best ally.

I like that a lot. So we need a probably, although we're not entirely sure we need a diverse microbiome. So just before I start asking you a bit more about what you do, I know we're talking about skin today, but how much do we know about the hair microbiome?

So the same thing applies. We know we have done analysis that can tell us against, through next generation sequencing, the species and the relative populations of the microbiome that are present on the scalp. However, we do not know their function yet. There are some imbalances of specific species that have been tied to specific conditions, like dandruff, for example, but we're not always sure that these imbalances are one directional. So that the imbalance of the microbiome is related to the condition. We are sure about that, but we're not sure that this is the only factor or the main factor for that matter.

So lots of knowns and lots of unknowns. So let's talk a little bit about what you do. So you work at Kind to Biome. First of all, I know I've introduced you at the beginning already, but can you tell me a little bit about what you do and then we'll go into a few more questions about Kind to Biome.

Absolutely. So I am head of science and also co founder of Kind to Biome. What we do at Kind to Biome is that we use an in vitro test and essentially we test the microbiome friendliness or microbiome gentleness of products or raw materials. What this means is that we want to verify that the products that we use or the raw materials that are used in products that we use do not have a major effect on our natural, healthy microbiome. So your beauty routine should leave your microbiome untouched, ideally as much as possible.

So you undertake testing for products, for beauty brands to check that they're microbiome friendly. So how does the testing process work? Can you break it down a little bit more for me?

Yeah, absolutely. I can briefly discuss our protocol. What we do in our protocol, we have four different phases of testing. The first phase is a simple microbiological test. The way you would do a microbiological test. Before you do a challenge test, you want to ensure that the product does not have any background flora that will show up during the next phases. Because during the next phases, we will bring microorganisms in contact with the product. And we want to see that what we're measuring is what we're putting in and not something that was there beforehand. So during the second phase, as we said parenthesis, the microbiome of different areas of the body is different. So we have different protocols for different areas of the body where we have created panels of microorganisms that are representative of a statistical average of a healthy microbiome. So we bring, during the second phase of our testing, we choose a panel of microorganisms that is representative of the natural flora of this specific area of application, and we bring the product in contact with these microorganisms. During the third phase of testing, we do the same thing, but with a pathogenic flora of that same area. And during the fourth phase of testing, which for us is also possibly one of the most important phases of the protocol, we take swabs from volunteers and we inoculate the product with these swabs. What we want to see in this ex vivo phase is the biodiversity of the swabs being maintained. So we use different culture media to see the biodiversity of the swabs.

Fascinating. So, I mean, let's just unpick one of those things that you just mentioned there. You talked about having a statistical average of the microbiome. Can that truly be representative of everyone? Because after all, and I speak as a whole, the beauty industry has a long history of excluding anyone who doesn't fit their precise desired model. So how do you make something like that representative of everyone?

That is a very good point. It is a statistical average, right? So it is based on literature and also on next generation sequencing analysis. So swabs from people. And this creates what we consider a statistical average. However, indeed, not knowing what the ideal microbiome is means that your statistical average will be tied to the scientific research that you used and the people that you swapped. It is one of the shortcomings of, I would say, generally, scientific research. It is kind of narrowed down to the first world mostly, and also to the people that have access to it.

So there's a lot more research to be done, by the sounds of things, but I think we both recognize that. So what does it mean to be microbiome friendly? Because this is a term we're seeing used all across the beauty industry. But does it actually have a verifiable meaning behind it?

Yes. What microbiome friendly means, or microbiome gentle, we'd like to use the word, or really any kind of wording that has the same meaning so that the product does not interfere with your natural, healthy microbiome. So what we want to test is that the product has a minimum, a minimal, rather effect on the microbiome that we bring it in contact with, because we want to preserve our natural microbiome, which is our main Ally, I would say that it is very verifiable what microbiome friendly means. It means that the product does not interfere.

That makes sense. So what are the biggest challenges then in making formulations microbiome friendly?

That's a very good question. There is something that we call the antimicrobial dynamic potential of a formula. This means essentially, what potential does the formula have of affecting bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc. And you could hypothesize, and you would be correct, that the preservative system is the main contributing factor to what we call the antimicrobial dynamic potential. However, all the other co formulants do play a significant role. Things like surfactants, emulsifiers, the PH level of your formula, essential oils, which we very well know. Some essential oils have antimicrobial activities by themselves. So the main thing, the main difficulty in formulating a product that is microbiome friendly is understanding the tweaks that we make. Rather what kind of difference do they make on the antimicrobial dynamic potential of the end formula? A lot more research, I would say, has to be done on testing individual ingredients to better understand their effect individually. But then also the formula has what we call a synergistic effect that sometimes cannot be predicted. So that is why it's as crucial and essential that we test the final formula.

I completely understand. So are there any particular types of formulations that you think are more microbiome friendly than others? Because obviously you talked about preservatives, you talked about essential oils. I've seen sort of microbiome friendly brands on the market, some of which aren't preserved, they have to be used fresh. So what are you seeing in terms of formulations that are deemed to be the most microbiome friendly?

Exactly. I think that is a very good point. And tying to what I was saying before, the preservation system being the main contributing factor to antimicrobial dynamic potential. Formula having an unpreserved product means that you have a lot more chances of this formula being microbiome friendly. Now, that being said, not using essential oils could also be a good plus. Or also trying to formulate your formula with a ph as close to the natural ph, or the body of the skin rather, which is about 4.7 to 5.7. So these would be some of the main tips, but the biggest one is the one you said having an unpreserved formula.

Yes, although I suppose there comes a tipping point when at some point your unpreserved formula starts to become a breeding ground for microbes and perhaps goes completely the other way in terms of what it could do on the microbiome.

That is why a very good indicator of whether you can have an unpreserved formula or not is doing a water activity test. Something very simple. There is an ISO. I don't remember the number of the ISO at the moment. If you have a water activity below 0.75, essentially you are considered that this is a product of low microbiological risk. So you can have an unpreserved formula with water activity that are lower than 0.75.

Yes. Not easy to formulate, but certainly, certainly something that some brands are trying to achieve anyway. Now we know that some types of formulations can negatively affect the microbiome. You've already talked a bit, little, little bit about preservatives, about essential oils. I presume there are many others. Are there any other examples that you could give us?

We don't really like having red or green lists when it comes to ingredients. Really, the concentration that we use the ingredients is very important. And also, as we said, all these things are individual contributing factors. So the pH, the essential oils, the preservatives, they're individual contributing factors to the antimicrobial dynamic potential of the formula without each one in particular being a red flag.

So playing devil's advocate then, for a minute, if we're truly trying to protect the skin's barrier and the billions of microorganisms that live on our skin, would it not be better to not use cosmetics at all?

Well, the use of cosmetics is not all about appearance, but it's also about function, right? So protection from the sun, which is very important, or moisturization of our skin. And I can think of other uses as well. So I wouldn't say that the use of cosmetics. Cosmetics are not useless. There's a reason we've had cosmetics for thousands and thousands of years in our history. So I wouldn't say that the solution is not to use cosmetics, but the solution is to use cosmetics that don't affect your microbiome negatively. Now, that being said, excessive beauty routines can be a problem in the sense that if you are exposing your skin every day to, I don't know, 8, 10 different products that might have different preservation systems between them. This is a bit excessive, right, for your skin. And the fact, how, how is your skin going to cope with, with all these different formulations, Less is more, less.

Is more is something that we very much embrace on the podcast here as well. It's interesting you say that because I obviously, when people start to use A lot of products, they often see other effects on the skin as well. They might for instance, overstrip their skin. And skin barrier protection is a topic that's really growing in popularity in the beauty industry. So I suppose in some respects sometimes the external factors that we see are presumably linked also to the health of our microbiome then?

Absolutely. The microbiome is directly linked to the skin barrier function.

Okay, so what do you think then is the future for microbiome friendly beauty? Let's end on this question because I think there's probably a, a big answer here.

Absolutely. The major movements that have come across the cosmetics beauty industry usually have to do with the well being of the end consumer. And these, these are the ones that have stuck around the most. I think clean beauty is an example of that. Without going into the merit of the free from lists and whether they are accurate or not, that's not what this conversation is about. But the intention behind it, which is the well being of the end consumer, is absolutely important. We actually think that microbiome friendly formulations will become a standard, a baseline across the industry. In vitro testing is a very affordable way to do so. On the other hand, in vivo testing, we're not saying that in vivo testing is useless. It is very useful. It can provide a lot more interesting data, a lot bigger, vast amounts of data. However, it does require specifically tailored made protocols. It can be used for a narrower scope, substantiate stronger claims. However, we think that microbiome friendliness, which is, let's say a softer claim in this case, should be and will be something that is a baseline across the industry for all new formulations that come out to be microbiome friendly. Let's ensure that products that we use don't interfere with the health of our skin.

I think that's a lovely point to end on. So where can people find out more about Kind to Biome? Who should come to Kind to Biome? Like what sort of are you looking for beauty brands? Are you looking for formulators to come and use your testing regime?

Tell me more so you can find about us on our website. But we are interested in contacting beauty brands that want to produce formulations that are microbiome friendly, raw material producers that want to put products out there that are microbiome friendly. And really anyone who wants to have a chat about the microbiome is welcome to send us an email.

That's lovely. And I'm sure that all the people listening will be thinking actively about how they could use Kind to Biome with their beauty brand or their formulations. Leo, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you and good luck with everything. I look forward to seeing how all the research into microbiome friendly beauty pans out over the coming years.

Thank you very much Lorraine for having me over. And tune in for a lot of new products coming out with a Kind to Biome logo on them. You will recognize them.

Brilliant. Thank you, thank you. I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode. Have you given much thought to formulating for the microbiome? Do you look for formulations that are microbiome gentle when you're shopping? Please do come and leave us a comment on our social channels and tell me how you feel after listening to this episode as both the Formula Botanica team and I love hearing from you. If you're interested in working with Kind to Biome, Leo also tells me that they're happy to offer a 10% discount on testing for any companies that come through this episode as long as you use the words Formula Botanica as a subject in the email that you send to them. So thank you for joining Leo and I for this latest episode of Green Beauty Conversations. I really hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please do leave us a five star review so that other people can enjoy these conversations too. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever your favorite podcast app is and stay tuned for the next episode. Follow Formula Botanica at Formula Botanica on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter or LinkedIn, and come and follow me too at Lorraine Dallmeyer on Instagram. As I always share the latest from the podcast and share my thoughts on green and sustainable beauty, visit our website@formulabotanica.com and sign up for our free online Formula formulation course today.