Beauty Tips For Body Care
I've been wondering what (if any) effects preservatives in skincare may have on our skin microbiomes.(To be clear: I am NOT trying to fearmonger about preservatives in products; moldy, rotting products are no good! I'm just posting in hopes of hearing from people who know more about this topic -- because I don't know very much.)My understanding is that preservatives are added to prevent bacteria, fungi, mold, etc from growing in products. They are not the same as topical antibiotics (eg. clindamycin), which are meant to affect the microbiome -- preservatives are only intended to affect the growth of microorganisms in products. They aren't used with the intention of affecting the bugs that already live on our faces.But if you were to use preservatives on skin (with an initially healthy microbiome) for long periods of time...could that potentially mess with the microbiome? And what does that mean for our skin? Is this something formulators take into consideration when creating a preservative system, so we consumers don't have to think much about it? If there is a detrimental effect, can our skin microbiomes "adapt" to the preservatives over time?A few minutes of Googling has brought up sources like this, this, this, and this. Based on this very limited info, it appears that there is a potential for preservatives to affect skin microbiota, but formulators try to minimize this effect while still maintaining a good preservative system. But none of these are long term/very thorough studies and I don't feel like they give a satisfactory answer to my questions.If anyone has commentary, ideas, link to articles, etc - please chime in! I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
Girls Blog 2015
Submitted by bluemountainvireo
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