Speaker: Dr. Torsten Clarius

Company: BASF Personal Care and Nutrition GmbH

Title: Lactobacillus crispatus: First Live Bacteria Culture for the Care of Mature Skin

Language: German

Abstract:

The proportion of skin care products containing any kind of “biotic“ ingredients strongly increased recently. However, barely any relevant effects beyond improved moisturization are claimed so far. Whether or how skin-own microorganisms influence skin aging has hardly been investigated and has not yet found its way into products targeting mature skin. Furthermore, ingredients are based on microorganisms that are used in the food industry, but do not have any link to the microbiota of the skin. Moreover, the choice has been limited to extracts, fermentation products or killed microorganisms, that need to be correctly described as postbiotics. To our knowledge, probiotics suitable for cosmetics, i.e. live bacteria that ideally also occur on the skin, have not yet been launched on the market. We now closed this gap for the first time by an active ingredient based on Lactobacillus crispatus.

We analyzed and compared the microbiota of the face of a younger with that of an older volunteer panel. It was found that in the older panel, both prevalence and abundance of lactic acid bacteria decreased. Among the bacteria with highest prevalence in wrinkles and lines of the younger volunteers, Lactobacillus crispatus specifically decreased in the older panel, even below detection limit. There is an obvious dependency between age and microflora. Going forward, we investigated the effects of Lactobacillus crispatus and its metabolites, respectively, on mature skin and found positive effects in vitro and in vivo.

To assure product safety, we comprehensively evaluated the toxicology of Lactobacillus crispatus.

We apply a fermentation process for industrial manufacturing, that has been deliberately designed to avoid any by-products or waste: Two products, one containing live bacteria, the other one containing their metabolites, are produced together in one batch. The Lactobacillus crispatus used as inoculum is derived from human skin.