Get started on your probiotic journey by understanding various definitions that are used.
A MICROBE is a single-celled, microscopic organism. This includes bacteria, viruses, yeasts and archaea amongst others.
Technically, your microbiome is the sum total of all the genetic material of the microbes in and on your body – although this term is increasingly used to refer to the sum total of the microbes themselves. Together with your human cells, they create amazing and highly complex ecosystems, the health of which impacts on life’s quality. The microbes resident in and on our skin are – not surprisingly – called our ‘skin microbiome’.
The World Health Organization defines a PROBIOTIC as a live microbe that, when administered in adequate amounts, confers a health benefit on the host.
In the skincare world, claims are not quite in line with this definition and most skincare brands define PROBIOTIC EXTRACTS as probiotics. For a PROBIOTIC to fit the official definition, it needs to be alive and capable of multiplying. Even within the probiotic extract realm, there are different levels to be found. They can include the by-products of microbe metabolism, the cell contents of microbes or whole, heat-inactivated microbes. See more below:
Esse includes live microbes in 2 of its products (the Probiotic Serum and the Sensitive Serum) and makes use of both the cell contents and whole, deactivated microbes in its other BIOME+ formulations.
