We knew vegetables and fermented dairy products, but now it’s about letting fermentation enter your bathrooms. Who would’ve believed that? The craze for natural cosmetics, but also for K-beauty, has given the rise in the West to a new weight trend, fermented beauty, which would be beneficial for the skin and the environment. We’ll tell you why.
As we know, men and women have considerably changed their beauty habits since the start of the pandemic, swapping their multiple layers of cosmetics for a more minimalist and authentic routine. Something that we define today under the term of holistic beauty. The goal? Prevention rather than cure. Ensure to protect your skin from environmental factors – pollution, tobacco, sun, etc. – while allowing him to strengthen himself. With this in mind, the boom in prebiotics and probiotics continues today with a very similar new trend, fermented beauty.
Beauty what?
An ancestral process used in many countries worldwide, particularly in Asia, biological fermentation results in the “transformation that certain organic materials undergo under the action of enzymes secreted by micro-organisms,” as defined by the Larousse dictionary. In other words, these micro-organisms, which can be enzymes, bacteria, or yeasts, induce the decomposition of materials or essential ingredients to transform them into much more powerful components. As with prebiotics, the objective is to multiply the good bacteria to the detriment of the bad ones to boost the power of each active ingredient and increase their benefits for the skin.
A technique that is not unknown to refined gourmets in search of foods that are more digestible, richer in nutrients, and whose shelf life is a fortiori much longer. Well, the process is the same for fermented beauty. Not only does fermentation act as a booster of active ingredients, but it would also make it possible to obtain a higher concentration of nutrients and antioxidants – goodbye signs of aging – while optimizing the penetration of active ingredients into the skin. What more? Well, it’s simple, the natural bacteria developed during the fermentation process would extend the shelf life of the formulas without resorting to products that are harmful to the skin and the environment. Something that should please both your wallet and the planet.
2022, the year of fermented cosmetics
Some niche brands already offer – and sometimes for a long time – cosmetics based on fermented ingredients, but the giants of the sector are also starting to do so gradually to adapt to the new concerns of their customers. Fermented beauty also appears in the beauty trends that should explode in 2022, as revealed by the specialist WGSN in its forecasts. A phenomenon that should place kombucha, a drink made from fermented tea, at the top of the most popular ingredients in cosmetics.
In the meantime, it is already possible to become familiar with this new generation of cosmetics thanks to the Gallinée brand, a specialist in prebiotics, whose hair washing cream is enriched with fermented rice water, Innisfree and its fermented soy masks, or Whamisa, a true specialist in the field.
