Each product is developed to address a specific skin concern, therefore no two products are the same. However, apart from each product’s tailored ingredients, there are two ingredients that are included in all Esse products. These are probiotics and prebiotics. They are the foundation upon which Esse products are developed, and what sets Esse apart from regular skincare brands.

Defining Pre-and Probiotics

Prebiotics and probiotics have a symbiotic relationship. Probiotics are live micro-organisms (bacteria) that have proven health benefits when either consumed or applied to the skin. These live organisms help to restore the body and skin’s natural balance, which is why they are included in food items such as yoghurt, and skincare products such as Esse Probiotic Serum. Prebiotics, simply put, are food for the probiotics, which feed on the prebiotics to remain active and working at optimal capacity.

Internally, these bacteria are collectively called gut flora or gut microbiota. Consuming a balanced amount of both prebiotics and probiotics keeps the gut healthy, preventing a bacterial imbalance by keeping pathogens at bay with their protective functionality.

Externally, skincare products that contain probiotics – either live or inactivated – provide the skin with a defence mechanism that is comprised of beneficial microbes, which increase their population on your skin’s surface, thereby preventing pathogens (or bad microbes) from taking up residence on your skin. These little bacterial soldiers are an essential part of the epidermis, and without them, you are left exposed to any number of potential germs and pathogenic bacteria, which can lead to negative skin reactions, and even illness.

In order to provide the skin with natural treatments that don’t cause irritation or strip the skin of its natural barrier function, we only use approved and certified organic ingredients, so our customers can rest assured that they are not exposing themselves to harmful or toxic chemicals. Natural botanicals form a large proportion of the ingredients that we use, each with their own unique skincare benefits and natural fragrances. These ingredients are selected for their specific skin concern benefits. For example, Esse has developed serums for rehydrating skin. Other skin concerns, such as acne, ageing skin, sensitivity, pigmentation, dryness and oily skin, are also catered for.

So, to answer the question, “What’s in a drop?”, millions of probiotics and beneficial ingredients that serve to treat your particular skin concern, without the harsh additives included in many regular skincare and beauty products. Whilst these may provide short-term results, science and nature provide solid evidence that natural products are far healthier for the body, which obviates the possibility of an allergic reaction or a severe condition that is triggered by harsh synthetics.

In conclusion, a little (drop) goes a long way!

The skin

Let’s start off with looking at a simplistic view of the skin. Take a look at yourself in the mirror. What you are seeing is the body’s largest organ, the skin. But you are only seeing the top layer of the epidermis, called the stratum corneum. It’s about 5 layers of compacted dead skin cells.

Just beneath the upper layer of the epidermis, you’ll find the skin’s basal layer. This is where new skin cells are made. They take about a month to travel to the skin’s surface.

The middle layer of your skin is called the dermis. I like to think of this as where the magic happens! This is where your collagen and elastin live. It’s full of blood vessels and oxygen. You’ll also find hair follicles, oil glands and sweat glands. And connective tissue and lymph vessels. The dermis helps to support the structure of the skin that we can see.

Then you reach the hypodermis which is a juicy layer of fatty tissue. It provides insulation and protects your organs.

Skin facts

Now that you are clear on the basics of your skin’s structure, let’s take a deeper dive into the role of your skin. It’s not just a layer between your inner organs and the outside world. The skin is one of the body’s five organs of detoxification. If you had to lay your skin out flat it would take up about two square metres. You shed about 30 000 dead skin cells every minute. And you have about 17 kilometres of blood vessels in your skin.

Did you know that women use 12-15 personal care products a day which may include up to 500 chemicals? Imagine the chemical load your skin and body need to work through to function well?

Why does skin detox?

Remember the dermis we spoke about earlier? When your skin is not functioning optimally, there is stagnation in the dermal layer. This may mean that toxins have taken up residence where the fresh oxygen and blood should be. When you switch to organic skin care products, you allow your skin the opportunity to work hard to clear the toxic load. This may result in detox symptoms. Remember that the skin is one of the body’s five organs of elimination so detoxification is one of its crucial jobs.

Is skin detoxification normal?

Let’s compare this to your body when you stop drinking coffee. It may freak out a little right? If you are quitting coffee because you would like to have a healthier and more energised body and mind, you stick it out. You deal with the headaches and irritability. You even deal with the afternoon slump. Then one day, you wake up feeling great! You don’t crave your morning cappuccino and you know that you’ve made it through your caffeine detox. This is because your liver has worked hard and is now able to function as a healthy liver without the stress of too much caffeine.

Skin detoxification is normal and you may even want to celebrate it because your skin is now able to do its job well.

What does a skin detox look like?

Skin detox symptoms are typically small breakouts on the skin. They can last from days to a few weeks. They can also show up as skin sensitivity, an excess of oil or even dryness. Your skin is busy repairing its protective barrier which may take around 36 hours. Then it also needs to remove toxins from your dermal layer, which may excrete through your skin. Some toxins are also removed through your lymphatic system and blood vessels.

What about bacteria?

An important factor that has been researched more recently is your skin microbiome. When you switch to an organic product, namely a probiotic product, your skin will recolonise to an optimal amount and ratio of beneficial bacteria called probiotics. Imagine what must go on when your 10 trillion skin microbes battle for dominance?

Supplementing your skin with probiotics enables the skin to finally come to balance. Probiotics are key to healthy skin and a healthy skin knows how to age well. Skin probiotics also affect collagen and elastin, skin hydration, pH balance and so much more.

Probiotics are key to helping your skin detoxify. They metabolise toxins and balance your skin’s immune system.

How can I help my skin detox?

You can make food and lifestyle changes to help your skin detox so that it can emerge healthier. Include lots of healthy fresh fruits and vegetables. Drink more water and herbal teas. Reduce sugars, junk food, caffeine and dairy. And when you look at yourself in the mirror, how about saying something positive about yourself?

Lastly, no-one likes to experience any type of detox, but think about how happy your skin will be when the symptoms subside. You’ll have equipped your skin and body to act as a healthy skin should. And a healthy skin knows how to age well, how to respond to external toxins and how to look plump and smooth.

Louise Pitot helps women live agelessly. She combines organic beauty including probiotic facials and face yoga with Eating Psychology and Functional Medicine coaching. Looking at balanced hormones, ageless beauty strategies and a nourished body, Louise believes women can create holistic health and even age backwards! www.louisepitot.com

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Detox Photo by Vegan Liftz on Unsplash

Have you had enough of hearing how the latest skincare fad is the only thing that will rescue your skin?

What if we told you that, to be at its best, your skin needs trillions of microbes from thousands of species? In the same way that your gut needs good microbes, your skin depends on its microbial partners to stay healthy. Often products that don’t consider the skin microbiome do more harm than good. So, less can really be more. If your moisturiser is not pH balanced, you’re wasting your hard-earned money. If your cleanser leaves your skin feeling squeaky clean, you’re stripping it of valuable natural oils. If your eye cream is loaded with bacteria-busting preservatives, you’re disrupting your skin microbiome and opening yourself up for all sorts of trouble.

Here’s what healthy resident microbes do for you:

1 – they protect you from pathogenic bacteria by colonising all the available space on the surface of your skin, leaving no room for troublemakers (this is called competitive exclusion).

2 – many good species of microbes found on skin produce anti-microbial peptides which actively fight off pathogens and strengthen skin defences.

3 – Lactobacillus microbes produce lactic acid, which keeps the pH of your skin right and improves moisturisation.

4 – they maintain the little stitch-like structures that hold your skin cells together (called tight junctions) which physically keep the bad guys out, and moisture in.

5 – some produce hyaluronic acid right on your skin – that’s pretty amazing, given what lengths some of us will go to to get it into our skincare routines.

It might sound as though keeping all of this together might require a load of expensive products, but in reality, it’s often the layers of skin potions and lotions that are responsible for modern skin concerns in the first place – acne, rosacea, eczema and sensitivity are all rooted in an imbalanced skin microbiome. Something has compromised the balance, allowing the wrong sorts of microbes to set up shop and run your skin into a state of chaos.

So, what can you do to restore balance to maintain a healthy state? Firstly, we need to identify what threatens a balanced microbiome:

• Preservatives – are designed to kill microbes. You don’t want to slap on harshly preserved products. The same philosophy applies to preservatives in processed food – they damage your gut microbiome.
• pH – products that are not properly pH balanced set the scene for rogue microbes to flourish. Beneficial skin microbes thrive at a pH of around 5 and easily overcome invader species when this pH is maintained.
• Foam dissolves oil. The oil your skin produces is valuable but (as recent research reveals) it is also high-energy food for friendly microbes. This oil (sebum) is metabolically expensive for your body to make, so in effect, it is you paying some pretty high-end staff to do a very important job for you. It makes very little sense to wash it down the drain.
• Hot water – this might be one of the toughest realities to accept, but hot baths and showers hurt the microbes on your skin. When our ancestors roamed the earth, living as one with nature, a hot bath was very hard to come by and so most of the skin microbes we have formed partnerships with cannot tolerate this modern-day luxury.
• Antibiotics are all too often prescribed for minor ailments but should be reserved for life threatening cases only. Antibiotics kill bacterial microbes indiscriminately. This leaves you vulnerable to secondary infection, with no natural defences in place to ward off future pathogen attacks.
• Municipal water – due to the risk of waterborne disease in urban areas, the vast majority of us have no option but to use and consume treated water. It may be hard to avoid, but be aware that this could affect the skin’s microbiome
• C-section deliveries can put babies on the back foot from birth. Our bodies are cleverly designed to deliver all the good microbes a new-born needs on its journey through the birth canal. Their skins are seeded with the right balance of microbes and they swallow their first microbes in the same journey, seeding their guts in the process. Breast feeding also helps with gut health as it’s now evident that breast milk contains prebiotics to feed an infant’s microbiome, as well as probiotics to seed the right species.

Now we know the things that can cause a microbiome to go out of kilter, it’s a little easier to know what to look for and what to avoid when choosing skincare.

More often than you would imagine, skincare products can harm your skin’s microbiome.  It is our advice that anyone struggling with any sort of skin ailment should start by cutting right back to the basics. Cleanse only in the evening and only if you are removing make-up – otherwise, rinse with water and use a cleansing cloth. Apply a little microbiome-friendly moisturiser and continue in this way for 2 weeks. Our bodies are always working toward an equilibrium, but the only way they can get on with it is if we don’t interfere too much.  You might be pleasantly surprised to discover that your body does a great job of getting back on track; and once it does, you can turn to Esse to get down to the nitty-gritty of great anti-aging skincare – because Esse puts microbes first, always.