Skin microbiota: the new era of personal care ingredients

However, this balance can be easily disrupted by stresses. An alteration of skin microbiota may lead to dysbiosis, which has been associated with skin disorders. The present paper aims to demonstrate the efficacy of a specific selected bacterial strain from cutting-edge biofermentation technology able to maintain skin homeostasis and consequent prevention of skin disorders.

The skin is the largest organ of the human body in surface and weight, serving as a physical barrier it protects our body from external aggressions. An adult’s skin hosts an average population of 1,000 billion microorganisms among fungi, viruses and bacteria.1,2,3 This flora lives and transits on the surface and in the superficial layers of the epidermis and down to the hair follicles and glands, forming a complex ecosystem collectively referred as the skin microbiota. This little but important world is essential for the skin to be a complete barrier, accomplishing its activities of protection, immunity and defence. 

Each of us has a distinctive combination of microorganisms all over our body, although scientists point out that the skin microbiome varies a lot intra-personally during our lives, linked to age, change of lifestyle or to the external stresses we are submitted to.4 Different body sites can have completely different skin microbiota configurations, both inter- and intrapersonally, linked to the peculiar characteristics of that precise microenvironment. For example, just focusing on the face, studies show that there are great differences between forehead and cheek skin microbiota, due to moist, dry and sebaceous skin sites.5