The impact of skin care products on skin chemistry and microbiome dynamics

Abstract

Background: Use of skin personal care products on a regular basis is nearly ubiquitous, but their effects on molecular and microbial diversity of the skin are unknown. We evaluated the impact of four beauty products (a facial lotion, a moisturizer, a foot powder, and a deodorant) on 11 volunteers over 9 weeks. Results: Mass spectrometry and 16S rRNA inventories of the skin revealed decreases in chemical as well as in bacterial and archaeal diversity on halting deodorant use. Specific compounds from beauty products used before the study remain detectable with half-lives of 0.5-1.9 weeks. The deodorant and foot powder increased molecular, bacterial, and archaeal diversity, while arm and face lotions had little effect on bacterial and archaeal but increased chemical diversity. Personal care product effects last for weeks and produce highly individualized responses, including alterations in steroid and pheromone levels and in bacterial and archaeal ecosystem structure and dynamics. Conclusions: These findings may lead to next-generation precision beauty products and therapies for skin disorders.

Explainable AI reveals changes in skin microbiome composition linked to phenotypic differences

“…To transform the biological insights provided by our EAI approach into actionable insights, we ranked the 186 genera by average SHAP impact and report the consensus top impactful genera for our bag of models. Our findings demonstrate the potential of explainable artificial intelligence in contributing to the growing body of knowledge of microbes and their host-interactions, and its future impact in research fields from cosmetic and medical research to forensic science and personal health monitoring (29,33,38,39).…”

“…However, there is still a limited understanding of changes in the microbiome associated with cosmetic dry skin. We show that our EAI approach has the potential to provide insights on the effect of skin care and hygiene products on the molecular and microbiome composition of the skin (33).…”

Isolation and characterization of diverse microbial representatives from the human skin microbiome

“…Collectively, these results suggest that there is some degree of validity to inferring community properties from phylogenetic characterization [33], yet strain level information can be critical to obtaining an accurately detailed profile. In addition, recent work by Bouslimani et al [10] has revealed that skin hygiene products can remain on the skin long after use is discontinued, and these products can influence microbiome composition [11]. Our approach may be used to develop a more detailed understanding of how and why the microbiome shifts in response to the use of certain hygiene and cosmetic products.…”

“…We screened a subset of representative, aerobic, isolates for the ability to utilize carbon sources present on the skin surface using tetrazolium dye assays with Lacking from the group are Cutibacterium representatives (formerly Propionibacterim), which play an important role in metabolite processing on the skin [11]. The strains tested utilized a total of 45 out of the 68 carbon compounds examined, which included steroids, fatty acids, sugars, amino acids, and other classes of chemicals.…”

“…For example, Cutibacterium is enriched at sites with compounds such as oleic acid and palmitic acid [10]. Similarly, the use of personal care products that introduce additional compounds to the skin surface has been found to alter the microbiome composition [11].…”