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Question: Prebiotic Ingredients in Face Creams (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/skincareaddiction

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I'm looking for some new face creams for combination skin and found something that didn't make sense to me. Anyone want to ELI5 why prebiotics are a positive thing for skin creams? I've seen several products advertising it. But doesn't prebiotic just mean it's something that bacteria likes to eat? So, in a skin cream that seems like it would promote bacterial growth, which I get why that combined with probiotics can be good for digestion, but can't get why it's a plus and not a minus for skin creams, especially in areas of the skin like the face that tend to gather a lot of bad bacteria.

Anyway, just trying to decide if it's just marketing nonsense, there's an actual benefit, or as it seems with my initial reaction, that it's actually a negative thing that would potentially promote acne/rosacea.

Also, feel free to interject any recommendations on good ingredients/products for aging, combination skin, but not the primary reason for the post.

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[–] Apytele 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Prebiotics are kinda like putting out cat food when you have a rat problem, the idea is instead of getting rid of living things entirely with poison, you just make sure that the living things that are there are better for you. That said, I mostly hear that kind of thing in regards to intestinal or vaginal bacterial flora, and those are supposed to be pretty full of bacteria (some estimates are like 2-6lb worth). While all your skin has some kind of flora, I don't know that I've ever heard of culturing a good facial flora. I have heard of a similar product for the underarms, Lume deodorant, which is supposed to help less smelly bacteria dominate the flora of your skin folds, but again, that's a warm wet area where there's expected to be a lot of bacteria (it's also good for the genitals, lots of women use it on their labia and my partner actually uses it on his nuts).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Yeah definitely makes sense to me in stomach and vagina and similar areas. Just wasn't sure if in was missing something on the face. Maybe in combination with something that was probiotic I guess, but I don't see any of that. So prebiotic without probiotic treatment seems risky.