How Microbiome Skincare Works

How Microbiome Skincare Works

When I began formulating ONOURE®, I wasn't trying to create a microbiome product.

I was trying to create the kind of product I had spent decades wishing existed.

One of the things that had frustrated me throughout my career was that skincare seemed to be becoming increasingly complicated, while many people's skin seemed to be becoming less comfortable.

Ingredient lists were getting longer, active ingredients were getting stronger, and new trends appeared almost daily.

Yet I kept seeing the same pattern in clinic.

The skin that seemed to function best was rarely the skin receiving the most intervention. It wasn't necessarily perfect skin, and it certainly wasn't always young skin. But it was often skin that looked comfortable in itself.

It adapted well, recovered well, and seemed better able to cope with the pressures placed upon it.

At the same time, I was reading thousands of ingredient lists and noticing how differently products approached skin health. Some formulations focused on delivering specific active ingredients, while others were designed around multiple concerns at once.

What interested me most was not necessarily what had been added, but how the formulation functioned as a whole.

The question I kept coming back to

The more I observed skin, the more I found myself asking the same question. If skin that functions well behaves this way, why are we constantly trying to encourage it to behave differently?

After more than 35 years of working with skin, I became increasingly convinced that skin often functions best when it is supported rather than constantly challenged.

Skin does not trend. Skin responds to biology.

Years later, as research into the skin microbiome expanded, many of those observations started to make more sense. The microbiome helped explain something I had been seeing throughout my career.

Healthy skin is influenced by far more than the products we apply to it. Genetics, environment, stress, sleep, hormones and overall health all play a role.

The skin's microbiome is part of that picture, helping to shape the environment in which skin functions every day.^1-4

Rather than asking what more I could add to a product, I became increasingly interested in what skin actually needed. Not more intervention, but more support. Not more disruption, but greater consistency.

Ingredients chosen not only for what they could do individually, but for how they contributed to the formulation as a whole.

Understanding how microbiome skincare works begins with understanding a simple idea. The skin already knows what it is trying to do. Often, the role of skincare is not to override those processes, but to support the environment in which they take place.

What Does Microbiome Skincare Actually Do?

As interest in the microbiome has grown, so too has the number of products talking about it. Yet one of the things I noticed while formulating ONOURE® was how often the conversation centred around individual ingredients.

People wanted to know which ingredient supported the microbiome, which ingredient was most important, or which ingredient would deliver the biggest result.

I understand why. For years, skincare has largely been discussed ingredient by ingredient. The more I observed skin, however, the less interested I became in individual ingredients and the more interested I became in the environment they were creating together.

The microbiome helped me think about this differently.

When we talk about the skin microbiome, we are talking about a living community of microorganisms that exists on the surface of the skin alongside skin cells, lipids and proteins, all interacting with one another every day. ^1-4

Why a garden is a better picture than a battlefield

Just as a garden is influenced by its environment, the microbiome is influenced by the environment that surrounds it.

Hydration, barrier function and the overall condition of the skin all contribute to that environment, which means the microbiome is constantly responding to what is happening around it.^1-4, 6

The more I learned about the microbiome, the more it reinforced something I had already been observing. Skin rarely seems to perform at its best when it is constantly being challenged.

More often, it appears to respond well to consistency, stability and support when those conditions are maintained.

Microbiome skincare is rarely about one ingredient, one product or one claim. Instead, it is about understanding how a formulation interacts with the wider skin environment and whether it helps support the conditions in which the skin's natural systems can function well.^1-4, 6

For your skin, this means the more useful question is rarely which single ingredient to chase, but whether your routine as a whole is helping the environment your skin depends on.

What Happens When the Microbiome Is Well Supported?

Healthy skin can be surprisingly difficult to define.

Most people know when their skin feels uncomfortable. It might feel dry, reactive, tight, unpredictable or easily irritated. But when skin is functioning well, people often struggle to explain exactly why.

I found myself paying less attention to appearance and more attention to behaviour. The skin that seemed to function well was often adaptable, predictable and better able to recover when challenged.

Even when visible concerns were present, there was often an underlying sense that it was coping.

Some skin appears to be working hard all the time. Small changes in products, weather, stress, hormones or environment can trigger a noticeable response. Other skin seems better able to absorb those pressures without becoming unsettled.

Behaviour, not appearance, is the real signal

When the microbiome is supported and the wider environment around it remains relatively stable, the skin often appears better able to maintain balance. Not always perfectly. Not always immediately. But often enough that the pattern becomes difficult to ignore.^1-4, 

For me, this is where microbiome skincare becomes most interesting.

Not because it promises perfection. Not because it offers a quick fix. But because it shifts the conversation away from constantly correcting the skin and towards supporting the systems that are already working hard every day.

In many ways, that has always been my goal. To help create conditions in which the skin can do what it has been designed to do.

Prebiotics, Probiotics and Postbiotics: What Do They Actually Mean?

As interest in the microbiome has grown, so too has the number of new terms appearing in skincare.

Prebiotics. Probiotics. Postbiotics.

These terms appear regularly in skincare conversations today, yet there is still a great deal of confusion about what they actually mean and how they differ from one another.

Although all three terms are connected to microorganisms and microbial activity, they do not refer to the same thing.

Prebiotics are generally ingredients that help create favourable conditions for microorganisms already living on the skin. Rather than introducing something new, they are intended to help support the environment in which those microorganisms exist.^1-4

Probiotics are live microorganisms. While probiotics are widely discussed in relation to gut health, incorporating live microorganisms into skincare presents additional challenges. Maintaining stability, viability and consistent performance within a cosmetic product is far more complex than many people realise.⁵

Postbiotics are different again. They are compounds produced through microbial activity or fermentation and are becoming an increasingly interesting area of skincare research. Researchers are exploring the ways certain postbiotics may help support skin comfort, barrier function and the wider skin environment.

Many biotechnology-derived ingredients and fermented ingredients fall into this broader conversation.^5, 6

Why the label matters less than the behaviour

While these definitions are useful, I think there is also a risk that we become too focused on the terminology itself.

Reading ingredient lists became a bit of an obsession of mine. After reviewing thousands of formulations, I noticed how often conversations centred around finding the next ingredient, technology or trend.

The more I learned about microbiome science, the less I found myself thinking this way.

Ultimately, microbiome skincare is not just about what is inside the bottle. It is about how the entire formulation behaves once it reaches the skin.

Three terms that are often confused, in the simplest terms:

Is Microbiome Skincare Only for Sensitive Skin?

The microbiome is often discussed when skin is struggling.

Redness, dryness, irritation and barrier disruption are all common parts of the conversation. It is easy to see why many people assume microbiome skincare is only relevant for sensitive skin.^1-4, 6

I have never really looked at it that way.

Every person has a skin microbiome. Every person has a skin barrier. Every person's skin is constantly interacting with its environment, regardless of whether they describe their skin as sensitive, resilient, oily, dry or somewhere in between. ^1-4

So for your skin, this matters whether or not you think of it as sensitive. Microbiome support is not a fix for problem skin; it is part of how any skin stays comfortable.

The microbiome is not something that suddenly becomes important when the skin is challenged. It forms part of how healthy skin functions every day. ^1-4, 6

The same biology underneath every skin type

This is one of the reasons I have always been more interested in supporting skin health than chasing individual concerns. While visible concerns may differ from one person to another, the underlying biology of the skin is remarkably consistent.

Skin still needs to maintain balance, adapt to its environment and manage the countless internal and external pressures it encounters throughout life.^1-4, 6

Some of the most resilient skin I encountered in clinic was not necessarily skin that had never experienced challenges. Often it was skin that had been well supported for a long period of time.

The same principles seemed to apply whether someone was concerned about dryness, breakouts, pigmentation, visible ageing or simply maintaining healthy skin as they got older.

Perhaps the better way to think about microbiome support is not as a sensitive skin strategy, but as part of supporting healthy skin more broadly. After all, every person relies on the same fundamental biological systems to help their skin function well. ^1-4, 6

How Long Does It Take to Notice a Difference?

At some point, almost every skincare conversation arrives at the same question.

How long will it take?

The honest answer is that there is no single timeframe that applies to everyone.

Skin is influenced by genetics, age, health, environment, stress, sleep, hormones and countless other factors. No two people arrive at the same point with exactly the same skin, which means they rarely respond in exactly the same way either.^1-4, 6

Some people notice changes in comfort relatively quickly. Their skin may feel less reactive, more hydrated or simply more settled.

For others, those changes are more gradual and become apparent only when they look back and realise their skin is behaving differently than it was a few months earlier.

Why patterns matter more than dramatic moments

I have always found that skin health tends to reveal itself through patterns rather than dramatic moments.

Skin may recover more easily after periods of stress, feel more predictable from one week to the next, or become less reactive to environmental changes that previously caused problems. These are often subtle shifts, but they can be meaningful ones.

The skin is constantly renewing itself and adapting to the world around it. Supporting those processes is very different from forcing a rapid change, and in my experience the most meaningful improvements often come from consistency rather than intensity.

The microbiome reflects this idea particularly well. The skin's microbial environment is dynamic. It responds to what we apply to the skin, but it is also influenced by factors far beyond skincare itself.

Because of this, microbiome support is generally best thought of as an ongoing approach rather than a short-term intervention.^1-4, 6

Perhaps the better question is not how quickly something happens, but whether the skin appears more comfortable, resilient and adaptable in the long term. Those are often the changes I pay attention to most.

What the Microbiome Has Taught Me

When I look back on my career, I don't think the microbiome changed the way I felt about skin.

What it did do was help explain many of the things I had already been observing, including why some skin appears more resilient than other skin, why consistency often outperforms intensity, and why supporting the skin's environment can sometimes be more valuable than constantly trying to change it.

The more I learned about the microbiome, the more it reinforced something I had come to believe long before I understood the science behind it.

What healthy skin had been showing me all along

Every day the skin is responding, adapting and working to maintain balance despite the many pressures placed upon it.^1-4, 6

For me, microbiome skincare has never been about following a trend or chasing the latest ingredient. It has been about understanding skin more deeply and respecting the systems that are already there.

Perhaps that is why the microbiome continues to fascinate me. Not because it changed everything I thought I knew about skin. Because it helped me better understand what healthy skin had been showing me all along.

Key Takeaways

Frequently Asked Questions

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2. Harris-Tryon TA, Grice EA. Microbiota and Maintenance of Skin Barrier Function. Science. 2022;376(6596):940-945.
3. Skowron K, Bauza-Kaszewska J, Kraszewska Z, et al. Human Skin Microbiome: Impact on Health and Disease. Cells. 2021;10(11):3132.
4. Dreno B, Araviiskaia E, Berardesca E, et al. Microbiome in Healthy Skin, Update for Dermatologists. Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology. 2016;30(12):2038-2047.
5. Knackstedt R, Knackstedt T, Gatherwright J. The Role of Topical Probiotics on Skin Conditions: A Systematic Review of Animal and Human Studies and Implications for Future Therapies. Experimental Dermatology. 2020;29(1):15-21.
6. Callewaert C, Ravard Helffer K, Lebaron P. Skin Microbiome and Its Interplay with the Environment. American Journal of Clinical Dermatology. 2020;21(Suppl 1):4-11.