Preserve your skin health not your skincare
Microbial spoilage of cosmetic formulations has always been of special concern because it can lead to product degradation or even pose a threat to consumer safety. Preservatives are added in order to protect them from microbial contamination. However, traditional approaches to preservation (for example, compensating manufacturing facility cleanliness issues with high preservative levels) are increasingly undesirable due to concerns over health and safety. But is it possible to create a product that is free from barrier-damaging preservatives?
About Preservatives
The most commonly used preservatives are: Phenoxyethanol, Parabens, formaldehyde releasers (DMDM Hydantoin, 2-bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol, Imidazolidinyl Urea), Sodium Benzoate, Benzyl Alcohol, Benzoic Acid, Potassium Sorbate. A typical consumer uses at least five cosmetic products daily, layering a minimum of three each time. One product contains from 3 to 5 different preservatives (will let you do the math). As a result, the total amount of preservatives accumulates, causing skin allergies and inflammation outbursts.
Skin Barrier Impact
On top of everything, and most importantly, preservatives show a negative impact on the overall skin microbiome balance. They are likely to attack the whole microbiome and not the specific bacteria that are causing the issue, disturbing the microbiome constantly and leading to long-term damage. There are a lot of products available on the market claiming to support the skin microbiome (with pro-, pre-, or postbiotics), but at the same time they are preserved with microbiome disturbing preservatives.. Why? because creating preservative-free formulations is very challenging, and it’s easier, quicker, and cheaper to offer conventionally preserved products.
How Your Skin Does It
It is truly amazing how properly functioning skin is capable of defending itself from pathogenic bacteria! It sets up many hurdles against the unwanted invaders that unable them to thrive. One of the hurdles is reducing water availability by the way it is bonded to the NMF components (less free water available for the pathogens). Also, the skin microbiome plays a huge role here by producing skin pH-lowering fatty acids and substances called bacteriocins and selective antibacterials that work only on pathogenic strains.
We Do It Your Skin’s Way
In Twin Skin products, we apply the same, skin identical approach using an intelligent combination of hurdles, such as:
- Lowering water activity by adding skin identical ingredients.
- Balancing formulation pH to support skin friendly, physiological level with naturally occurring in the skin lactic acid.
- Using fermented ingredients rich in bacteriocins.
- Making it fresh, just like in your own skin everything is made to order, exactly when your skin needs it!
Simply speaking, we make it impossible for pathogenic organisms to exist in the way your own skin would.